Palazzo di Fuoco

Pallazo di Fuoco, the historical palace of Loreto’s square, near Milan’s Central Station, will be renovated.

Pallazo di Fuoco, the historical palace of Loreto’s square, near Milan’s Central Station, will be renovated. The “Fire Palace” owes its name to the particular night-time lighting that adorns its façade since its construction, in the early 1960s. The site measures 16,000 m2 and has eleven floors which include a courtyard, stores and offices. The upcoming renovation will restore the internal courtyard and close it with a glass and air conditioned roof to create an all-season meeting point. The building will keep the external skyline, but have an updated and modern look and feel with led RGB on the façade fronting Loreto’s square.

The Challenge

Palazzo di Fuoco has very high ambitions for its rennovation and aims to reach an A3 Energetic Class (the highest in Italy at the time of designing) and Leed Platinum for sustainability. The building will not only be requalified from the energetic point of view, but also in terms of aesthetic appearance and internal functionality, making it suitable for today’s business needs. This will be one of the most important energetic requalifications of a historical building located in a very dynamic and important part of Milan.

The Solution

During the design process the consultant aimed for a close interaction between the HVAC system, the BMS system and the technology for the terminals (air knife to ”wash” the glass façades). To achieve the Leed Platinum standard the designers had to take care of important aspects, like the water efficiency, the collection and reutilization of rain water, renewable energies (photovoltaic and ground water heat pumps) and of course the dynamic hydronic balancing for heating and cooling systems.

The power stations are located on the first and second basement floors, also on the roof; appropriately protected from an aesthetic and acoustic point of view. The air conditioning of the rooms is carried out using ground water geothermal heat pumps connected to four-pipe floor fan coils, while the primary air is supplied by air recovery units with heat recovery. The proposed HVAC system’s design was developed by analyzing dimensional, topological, distribution and performance aspects of the various plant systems and individual components. Consultants paying particular attention to pursuing as far as possible some main objectives that take concrete form when choosing the individual equipment and the proposed systems.

From this point of view a fundamental role has been played by the choice of pressure independent balancing and control valves for each 4-pipe terminals and the AHU coils, to avoid interactivity issues, since the directional part will be assigned to different tenants. The use of TA-Modulator, with EQM characteristics, together with digitally configurable actuators TA-Slider, allowed to reach the high-level standards fixed during the design. The height of the building and the terminal typology required a constant pressure and variable volume with integrated vaccum degassing solution, like the Transfero TV Connect to ensure that there will not be any noise issues during the working time. Cleaning of hot and cold fluids is entrusted to the Zeparo G-Force dirt separators, with the exclusive cyclonic technology developed by IMI Pneumatex.

Facts

Project name
Palazzo di Fuoco
Project
Office and Commercial buildings
Location
Milano, Italy
Consultant
BMS Progetti
Contractor
Percassi Company /Socotis S.p.A
Products
TA-Modulator, TA-Slider 160/500/750, Transferro, Zeparo G-Force, Eclipse, TA-Fus1on-C, STAD and STAF

Related Case Studies