Fiera Milano

Customer: Sviluppo Sistema Fiera spa Fondazione Fiera Milano
Year: 2010
City: Milano

A NEW REFERENCE POINT FOR THE ENTIRE REGION
The new Horizontal Tower is the latest of the high-profile architectural works funded by the FieraMilano Foundation for the new trade fair complex in Rho.

The new Management Building of the FieraMilano Development System is the latest of the high-profile architectural works funded by the FieraMilano Foundation for the new trade fair complex in Rho. This building, dubbed the Horizontal Tower and designed by Alfonso Femia and Gianluca Peluffo of the architectural firm 5+1AA, completes what has become known as the Architecture Park, which also houses works by Massimiliano Fuksas (FieraMilano), Mario Bellini (multistorey car parks), Dominique Perrault (hotel towers) and Andreas Kipar (landscaped grounds). The building was conceived as a single organism, choosing to emphasise the co-existence of two distinct and well- defined groups, referred to as Subsidiary Companies of FieraMilano SpA and Additional
Companies, through a full-height foyer that separates and joins the two-part building. The structure, one part of which will house the offices of several of the subsidiaries of FieraMilano SpA, while the other will be available to potential new users, stands on a site near the East Gate of the exhibition area and has a gross floor area of approximately 21,000 square metres. The Tower is constituted by two 13-storey blocks that form a single building complex over 50 metres in length. The optimisation of the construction stages of this compact building allowed it to be erected within the specified time and without exceeding the budget. The Tower will be awarded energy class-A certification, due to its compliance with passive building standards, its high level of distributional and energy efficiency, and its low environmental impact. Regarding sustainability, the solutions adopted are aimed at reducing the consumption of water and energy, adopting renewable sources as far as possible, but also at improving the wellbeing of the occupants of the building in terms of climate, acoustics, visual impact and the complete usability of spaces. The project also envisages a circular helipad on the roof of the building measuring 25 metres across, for the landing of large helicopters, while work on the ground includes car parks with spaces for over 200 cars, 4 buses, 100 taxis and 700 motorbikes, all vehicles required for the logistics of the trade fair. The Tower adopts the classic pattern of base, elevation and crown. The former receives and separates the flows of people in a series of spaces. The elevation features an intermediate double-height storey that creates a suspended effect. On the top floor the space is further characterised by a garden, which enhances the climatic comfort of the entire building. Chromatically, the tower is defined by the colour gold, whose preciousness is directly correlated with the theme of sunlight, but above all with its ability to enrich the surrounding areas with transparent and mirrored effects that vary according to the time of day and the position of the user of the building. The Tower has a mixed structure, with reinforced- concrete stair shafts, a load-bearing steel frame, assembled and bolted on site, and prefabricated cellular floors. The façades are characterised by different types of materials that will protect the building to the north (by means of a ventilated façade clad with fibre cement) and reveal it to the south, like a skin that changes, then reproduces itself in a system of gold brises-soleils; finally its geometry changes again, becoming horizontal and “embroidered” with reflective mirrors.