The new ITT Innovation Center in Barge (Italy) hosts research and innovation in the field of motion technologies. The client of the building is ITT Motion Technologies which develops, produces and sells brake pads and friction materials, whose continuous research, aimed at the development of top quality materials and innovative production processes, places it among the leading suppliers for automotive industries globally.
The Barge complex is organized in two blocks: the first on three levels, entirely glazed, contains inside open spaces, with workstations for designers and researchers, some meeting rooms of different sizes, a break area, and service areas. The second is a unitary volume, parallelepiped with a prefabricated structure, covered with large metal panels, in which the test area is located.
The project was conceived trying to capture the founding values and specificities of the company sector, to build a model capable of responding to the objectives, within which the form and functions had a precise, balanced relationship. Efficiency, flexibility, transparency, work organization, are interpreted in this container of ideas, through the composition of the spaces and the use of materials: transparent walls design all the interiors and an open metal staircase, suspended by tie rods from the roof structure, connects the three levels of offices. Through a glass wall, then, you enter the test area, the operational block, within which projects and products are checked and tested.
Particular attention was paid to the environmental sustainability aspects of the new ITT Innovation Center (ITACA Protocol for industrial buildings). Among the most significant aspects is the glazed facade system, which has seen the use of selective magnetronic glass that combines solar control and high thermal insulation ensuring the maximum level of natural light inside the building without heat input. The external string course, made of expanded hexagonal mesh panels, also acts as a brise-soleil of the facade system. Its height was sized with modelling of the solar incidence over the course of the day and the seasons.
These specific operational dynamics are interconnected with each other and with the values of the landscape. The building, on the south front, relates in a linear way towards the limit of the existing production areas, mitigated with a camouflage system; on the other sides it intertwines the sight, through the system of perimeter windows, with the Alps and the Monviso mountain; to the east and north it opens up to a still active agricultural landscape, between rows of vines, kiwi trees and pastures. Cliffs of rocks, green and planted reinforce the rooting of the volume of the workshop to the ground, echoing the features of the surrounding external arrangements.
Material Used :
1. Facade cladding: Steel, aluminum, glass, Schüco (Sepam-Simoncelli)
2. Flooring: Ceramic tiles, Ceramiche Caesar, Trace series-Iron, Slab serier-Black
3. Windows: Aluminum frame, Schüco
4. Roofing: Steel/insulation sheet, Isolpack
5. Interior lighting: Fagerhults, Glashütte Limburg, Beghelli
