Client: Eurosets s.r.l.
Location: Medolla, Province Modena
Year of creation: 2015-2016
Surface: 11.000 sqm.
Amount of work: € 12 million

 

Designers
Architectural project and general DL: study Inhabito
Project and DL structures: Tassinari and Associati (Ravenna)
Design and DL mechanical engineering: study Tecnoprogetti s.s. (Medolla, MO)
Design and DL electrical systems: study ETA project s.r.l. (REVER, MN)
Work Safety Coordination: Tassinari and Associates (Ravenna)

Performer: Consorzio Cooperative Costruzioni (Bologna)
Sicrea Group s.p.a. (Modena)

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Established in 1991, Eurosets is an Italian firm international leader in the production of medical devices for autotrasfusion, heart surgery and ortopedy. They have specialized in the realization of products for extracorporeal circulation to be used in an operating theatre along with devices used in intensive care or hospitalization ambient. After the earthquake of  May 2012 they decided to rebuild and extend the firm. The productive complex is composed of two bodies divided  by an inner yard. The west-located body exercises a managerial function, the latter one, east-located body contains the production departments and the raw material warehouse. The two bodies are connected by a central part used as corridor  and canteen for all employers.

The bodies are called:

Block A, used for raw material storage, reception offices and  loft archives. This part has a structure in prefabricated concrete, curtain wall with prefabricated panels placed with a horizontal frame, macroshed and shed in polycarbonate.

Block B, used as a production section, clean rooms, plastic molding section , changing rooms and miscellaneous use  rooms . This two floor block is in prefabricated reinforced cement, with infill wall in prefabricated panels having a horizontal frame, a technical compartment on the cover and a flat roof on the remaining part.

Block C, is used as offices. The canteen is the connecting section, the two storey structure in reinforced cement has a garden roof. The external walls are in prefabricated panels with a wooden structure and the infill buffer wall is in mineral fiber, a green roof-covering and a cool roof.

That part of the  building  is characterized by a external system of front cover made of horizontal slats, in HDPE and wooden compound mixture, surrounding all the volumes, with the  function of shading  the front and the glass western and south sides.

 

Geometries

While driving along the Strada Statale 12 northward and reaching Medolla, you would be attracted by a mysterious irregular volume, its Eurosets, a biomedical eco-sustainable spaceship challenging the horizontality of the landscape. The volume of the building  is a fracture in the horizontal and vertical features of the area. A geometry having an unusual logic  enclosing an “other” thought, the whole of the functions and peculiarities of a factory. An architectural shape embracing its cogent functionality.

From an architectural point of view, the design may be to your liking or not, but surely it represents the victory of aestheticism over a function. The function is of course cogent, indispensable, but it is not the only compositional element, it is not the end, but the departure from which the language  shapes up.

The design is in compliance with is functions, while adding something else. The possibility of realizing such design is rare. Usually the customers are interested only in the functions, they don’t have the money or sometimes the courage to go beyond. In this case the Customer, being an illuminato man has permitted to go beyond.

Another feature of the project is its history, the path followed  the strong will that such a large financial commitment required. The building surely represents a strong will of rebirth, a compensation on adversities: the earthquake, the flood in the headquarters located in Bastiglia.

Studio Inhabito is very proud of having supported the Client’s strong will, in particular of the CEO himself , from the building of the old headquarters to the choice of demolition and reconstructing of the entire build site.

 

Design topics:

The planning aimed at respecting the following points:

to  answer at precise functional requirements, which  were linked to the product lay-out;

to the flow of the raw plastic materials, to the products coming in from the molding department, to the assembly in the clean room and finally to packaging and the storage.

The client was particularly interested in the study of the circulation of trucks in the outside yard in order to concentrate all the heavy material handling in the storage  area, without having forklifts trucks or other  trucks all over the site.

Another important feature is the barycentric position of the technical room. This area houses the technologies and the air filtering units wich are to guarantee the particular control and consequently the air purity in the molding area and clean rooms. The channels sending the air going to and from these areas have very high size (2,5*1,80 meters). The position of the technical room (area) in Block B over the production area has optimized many of the functional and technological aspects. In order to guarantee comfort and well-being to workers particular care has been given to natural lighting by means of inner yards  and light holes giving light to meeting room and distribution areas, also all the wall facing to the bigger yard  realized with a structural glass wall. The relationship between natural light and vegetation has been a précis aim of the design, in particular the aim  was to have natural light borrowed from vegetation, as the sun radiation is absorbed by vegetation and then refracted and made less  dazzling this reducing the impact on the overeating of the building . Consequently each yard has  kind of vegetation chosen as to guarantee  the right relationship   between shading and lighting. Moreover particular attention has been paid to the design of the garden roof over the first floor of  block C.

The canteen has a central position. It is the most luminous area and it is the closest area to the garden of the central yard. It acts has a traid union between workers and employers and its function is to be a sharing and well-being area.

Study of colours and materials.

Particular attention has been paid to the choice of materials and colours, and together with the client has been chosen variety and shapes to make rooms one different from the other and to make an industrial working room as personalized as possible.

Attention to bioclimatic aspects and to environmental sustainability.

Studio Inhabito considers these features of primary importance when designing a building. An industrial site requires high levels of energy, but the impact has been reduced adopting the following criteria

Its compact shape enclosing all the functions in an almost unitary volume;

The choice of differents materials for the several different volumes;

The block C, containing the offices is insulated with wood and glasswool/fiberglass; block A and B are insulated with concrete and an insulating system with higher performance than the one required by the local law  in order to  guarantee a lower summer overheating.

The external skin has the function of protecting  from the direct  sun radiation and it’s done with recyclable material.

The presence of inner courts and of vegetation is an  important source of bioclimatic regulation

The garden roof over the offices can guarantee  a light  rate  of summer heat

The collection of rain water and its re-use for irrigation.

The use of specific installations based on energy efficiency, all the lighting is made with led technology.

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