New Office ACI

The new ACA Torino office is an important urban architecture project. The Torino Automobile Club, at that time RACI (Regio ACI), was the first to open in Italy in 1898. The new center, strongly wanted by Piergiorgio Re and Adalberto Lucca, brings together in one building the offices for the public, a driving school with driving simulators, a commercial space and a workshop for revision. The project, developed with AI Engineering, is a sign of our times: in part is the recovery of an existing production shed, in part it is a completely new volume. Like the best institutions, ACI pursues a winning strategy in today’s Italy, combining prudence of reuse with the search for transformation.

The new volume, with its large entrance door, marks the arrival point of the long axis of Galileo Ferraris course. Given the basic automotive theme, I wanted a formally innovative language for the façade: a fluid and smooth design, a zinc titanium body that is in a strong dialogue with the technological context as well by via Filadelfia. The most direct visual comparison is with the Palaisozaki and the Isozaki pool: they are also coated with titanium zinc, but are not an occasion for easy mimesis but rather a linguistic exchange between contemporary architecture. Dialogue with the major surrounding architects completes the comparison with the ex Istituto dei Poveri Vecchi: The contrast between the 19th-century exposed brick facades adds interest to the metal of the new seat.

The new zinc titanium volume is marked by the double height entrance door, whose large stained glass window is made of an innovative technical technique for our city: the glass panels are not carried by metal posts, but from “glass fin” (Glass stands).

The new volume openings are large, irregularly designed and even folded on themselves, bordered by brilliant VM Zinc bristle bands. The tone of the metal plates goes to the blue gray in the more regular lining of the existing building, marked by large quadrangular windows, enriched by the empty recess of the terrace at the office floor.
The interior spaces are ample and first of all geared towards functionality and rigorous construction. A large inner central vacuum, like an impluvium covered by an opaque skylight, brings light and space inside the building.

credit

Project: New ACI Turin office
Customer: Acimmagine srl (ACI)
Design team: Coordination: ing. Attilio Bastianini; Project coordination and works management: ing. Marco Guido Serini; Artistic Direction: arch. Bruno Causarano (project), arch. Marco Caretto (execution); Collaboration architectural planning and Operational Direction of Building Works: Arch. Eugenio Bastianini Design of structures: ing. Giorgio Piccarreta, ing. Emilio Foglia Design of electrical and fluid-mechanical systems: arch. Pierpaolo Valle; Main Contractor: Gruppo Fratelli Ribaudo srl; Suppliers: ST Facade (glass facade); WMZinc (titanium zinc coating); Salf S.r.l. (Glazed)
Realization: Executed 03/2017
Location: Turin
Dimensional area: 5000sqm
Cost : € 3900,000
Photo Credits: Michele D’Ottavio