Porta Europa in Spina1 site, 2nd phase

The design of the Spina 1 area continues with the creation of an international consultation and a radically innovative project from the point of view of energy saving. At the end of 2007 the Turin administration launched a public auction leading to the assignment of the area, and of the related building rights, to Franco Costruzioni Real Estate. Considering the importance of the building and the site, it commits itself with the City to organize, with the critical collaboration of Camerana & Partners, an international competition with invitations to choose a rough urban and architectural solution and a professional to work with Camerana for the development of the final design.
In Turin, it is the first time that a private real estate operator has relied on an international competition for an architecture intervention of very high visibility, but still intended for the market. In this phase it is considered more interesting to propose a functional mix and increase the building quantity by including up to 6,000 square meters of residences and 1,500 square meters of commercial, added to the planned maximum quota for the offices of 22,500 square meters define a lot of 30,000 square meters.
Three architects from European cities known for the quality of contemporary architecture are invited to the consultation, which was launched in April 2008. Jan Störmer from Hamburg, Iñaki Ábalos from Madrid, Cor Geluk from Rotterdam. The projects were presented on 12 June 2008 to the judgment of a jury composed of representatives of the City, the Order of Architects, the Order of Engineers, the Polytechnic of Turin (for energy) and the same property.
Jan Störmer’s proposal was won, evaluated considering three main elements: a relatively low cost and construction time, being a complex of buildings for the market; the enhancement of the complex as a visual backdrop of the urban axis of the Viale della Spina and careful inclusion in the urban context; a technical solution with very low energy consumption.

The need to separate offices and residences gives shape to two buildings – a tower for offices of 100 meters and one for residences, of free height but lower – joined on the ground floor by a commercial plate with common areas for shops and restaurants: . Störmer’s proposal has worked hard on Camerana’s previous project and confirms the choice to mark the axis of the Spina with a gap, in this case underlined by a sort of ideal virtual door determined by the enlargement of the surface of the upper floors of the office tower , which seems to extend towards the tower of the residences creating a sort of interrupted portal, as if the two volumes had been detached. The point of greatest prominence of the office tower has a real estate value, as well as urban planning, allowing you to have more square meters where they are worth more. The horizontality of the floors is also highlighted here with light brise-soleil, which are however limited to only marking the floor itself.
The “skin” of the office tower is composed of a double façade in which internal and external glass are separated by an empty space in which the air enters, conveyed in the extension of the slab which functions as a heat exchanger machine, in which pipes containing ground water cool or heat the air, bringing it inside with the right temperature.
This concept will be the starting point of the final project, in which Störmer will work alongside Camerana, appointed by the architect as a designer.

credit

Project: Benedetto Camerana + Jan Störmer Partner
Consultants: Trans Solar (Stuttgart, GER, energy concept); PBI (Wertingen, GER, study of the facades); CONS.I.T (facilities and structures)
Functions: Offices, residences and commercial
Customer: R.U.I. s.p.a. (Franco Costruzioni Reeal Estate)
Procedure: Invitations competition, first place
Chronology: PEC 2009-2010), preliminary (2010-2011), construction (2012/2014 planned)
Location: Turin, area Spina 1
Preliminary project: Jan Störmer Partner
Municipal executive project and coordination: Benedetto Camerana, Camerana & Partners
Contributors: Hermann Köhlloffel, Alexandra von Bassewitz, Sofia Castagneri
Dimensional area: 22,000 square meters for offices, 2,000 square meters for commercial, 6,000 square meters for residences, 8,500 square meters for underground public parking, 10,500 square meters for private parking, 11,600 square meters of public park
Building cost: € 54,000,000.00 (expected)