The project enhances and restores a Pirelli complex from the 1950s originally designed as a school-workshop, consisting of a classroom building and a brick factory with a shed metal roof. The client’s brief was to create new high-quality office spaces from an abandoned building complex without compromising the historical character of the surrounding environment and for this reason the project creates a new harmonious layout by aligning seamlessly the classroom-turned-office spaces with the brick building and demolishing a portion of the connecting building, thus emphasizing the courtyard facing Viale Fulvio Testi. The office building’s body, characterized by a neat system of metallic panels, maintains the same proportion as the existing concrete panels but is painted in a matte brick-red colour. Instead, the former factory building is entirely preserved, except for modifications made to the windows and roof for energy efficiency reasons. Testi 223 achieved the LEED® Gold and WiredScored Certification employing strategies through material selection, energy-efficient systems, and sustainable construction practices to minimize both embodied and operational carbon footprints.
Bio ARW is a research laboratory founded in 2016 that transforms every specific occasion into a reflection and affirmation of the reasons and meaning of architecture. Under the guidance of the two architect and founding partners Camillo Botticini and Matteo Facchinelli, it proposes research that can synthesize in meaningful architectural forms the problems posed by contemporary living in its various aspects, from urban scale to that of the object.
