POLO VERDE INNOVATION BUILDING
Polo Verde is an ecosystem in which innovation and tradition come together in harmony. The design idea aspires to replicate the local urban fabric and proposes a spatial sequence in which the new building becomes a proper urban block.
The NZEB – classed office building looks like a careful balance between tradition and innovation. The typological references to the local historic architecture drive the project design and create an easily recognizable urban block whose identity stands out in the surroundings. At the same time, the outdoor spaces such as the entrance hall, the inner garden, and the landscape backdrop turn into representative places for human relations.
Polo Verde is part of an urban regeneration strategy aimed at rethinking the area of the former slaughterhouse of Cremona with the final goal of creating an ITC district in Southern Lombardy.
According to a bird's eye view of this technological hub where different buildings co-exist surrounded by public green spaces, the design idea aspires to replicate the complex spatial sequence as a memory of the morphological gradient that characterizes the local urban fabric. This strategy focuses on shaping a collection of environmental spots to ensure the permeability of the area and conceive a spatial and visual continuity.
Thus, the design is a careful balance between tradition and innovation. The typological references to the local historic architecture drive the project design. The adoption of the iconography of the Renaissance palace creates an easily recognizable urban block whose identity stands out in the surroundings.
The main southern elevation is how the new building reveals itself to the city. This U-shaped façade with a significant roof garden draws an architectural rhythm consisting of various white cladding splays that frame different-sized windows. A balanced harmony between windows and sunscreens marks the upper headquarters floors, while the ground floor is more open and more transparent to host facilities and commercial offices open to the public.
The side and wider elevations present few windows and a continuous curtain wall envelope. On the eastern side, a horizontally proportioned gate introduces the central courtyard where the two overlooking double-height entrance hallways find places. A sloping ceiling drives the visitor’s gaze toward the inner triple-height open void and lets us imagine an uninterrupted view of the future urban park. Ground floor indoor and outdoor spaces form a unique relationship and work as a representative place of relations and exchange for the upper-floored headquarters offices.
The facades consist of steel panels with a laser-cut QR code pattern. According to a technological key and an abstraction process, this motif is a re-interpretation of the Po Valley area brickwork wall called “gelosia”. At the same time, this cladding reveals in the façade the technological vocation that leads the building design and becomes the emblem of the activities that take place inside.
The openings have variable shapes to optimize the well-being of users. Instead of ribbon windows, the project design introduces landscape windows as an architectural device to frame the vegetation and the views of the city, intended as an element of quality and psycho-visual comfort.
Thanks to the combined contribution of different renewable sources – geothermal and solar – and proper insulation of the building envelope, Polo Verde is an NZEB (Nearly Zero Energy Building) classed office building that reduces CO2 emissions and minimizes energetic demand and maintenance.
Its structure develops around different levelled patios and hanging gardens that play a strategic role in controlling indoor climatic comfort. They provide natural ventilation and appropriate sunlight; they contribute to screening the solar radiation and cooling the working environment. At the same time, those outdoor spaces offer interesting crossing points of view between the workspace and the transition spaces.
The new building has been designed to the highest standards of space flexibility to allow future users to customize the interior layout. The goal is to guarantee a continuous technological adaptation to the IT changes. A glass wall system solves the mediation between indoors and outdoors. The building contributes to hosting flowers, bushes, and vines to create a proper habitat for insect pollination to enhance the biodiversity of that area.
