Works
ECMWF Data Center Buildings
ECMWF Data Center Buildings
A meteorological centre in Bologna's former tobacco factory
- Location
- Bologna, Italy
- Typology
- Others
- Year
- 2019
- Status
- Completed
- Client
- RTP Frimat - Site - Gianni Benvenuto
- Activities
- Constructive BIM design, Project Management
- Credits
- Architectural design and coordination: gmp Architekten von Gerkan, Marg and Partner
Plants design: Studio T
Structural design: Werner Sobek Stuttgart
CREDITS Architectural design and coordination: gmp Architekten von Gerkan, Marg and Partner Plants design: Studio T Structural design: Werner Sobek Stuttgart Landscape: LAND Italia
Description
The new ECMWF Data Center, European center for medium-term weather forecasts, is characterized by the high degree of complexity of the intervention, on a global level. The meteorological center covers an area of about 20.000 square meters and is inserted within a part of the area of the former Tabacchi Factory in Bologna, designed and built by the architect Pier Luigi Nervi in the 1950s and subjected to protection by the Cultural and Landscape Heritage of Emilia-Romagna for its high historical and engineering value.
The need therefore consisted in re-functionalizing part of the existing complex by creating a complex infrastructure to establish the data center and – at the same time – interacting respectfully with the pre-existing architectural context.
Function and conservation find their synthesis through the advanced use of BIM, which accompanied the project management throughout the construction phase and for all disciplines, up to the development of the as built. This methodology becomes the starting point for an optimized management of the structure, a need increasingly aimed at the sustainability of the complex and the safeguarding of an architecture created by an internationally renowned designer.
