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architect: form
Place: San Donato, Italy
Completion Date: 2023
Morphosis has built the new headquarters for Italian energy giant ENI. The campus is located in the city of San Donato in Milan, where the company has been operating since 1952, when company founder Enrico Mattei hired architect Mario Bacciocchi to master plan it A company town. They called the planned community Metanopoli and copied the design of the company town of Ivrea near Turin, which had been built for the Italian typewriter manufacturer Olgiatti.
The new campus, formally known as the Exploration and Production Business Center, is located on land previously occupied by a series of factory buildings designed under the original master plan. Many of these buildings were demolished to build new headquarters. However, Morphosis chose to retain one of the buildings and repurpose it as the entrance to the redesigned campus. It is integrated with three new buildings whose surfaces are clad with glazing and shading systems that echo the color and layering of the earth’s crust and tectonic plates.
The site totals nearly 700,000 square feet. According to the project brief, Morphosis designed a series of structures for 4,600 employees. In order to respect the principles established by the original masterplan that prioritized views and open spaces, Morphosis designed the office tower around a large central courtyard.
The circular campus is divided into three distinct structures: the Icon Tower, the Landmark Tower and the Sky Garden Tower. The buildings are connected to each other by pedestrian bridges, the most striking of which are nearly 300 feet long.
The massing of the structure is already defined in part by the priorities of the central courtyard and further defined by the norms of the Italian Energy Code. Under the code, office towers must have proportions that allow 85% of floor plates to receive sunlight and provide views outside the building. Based on this provision, Morphosis determined that the width of the building would be approximately 65 feet.
Arne Emerson, principal at Morphosis said one“Heights and proportions really come from Italian energy regulations, which are very strict. It’s actually not complicated at all. They give you a very simple chart of ceiling height versus space depth.
Energy regulations also eliminated the possibility of a curtain wall system, and Morphosis needed to balance the requirements of views and sunlight with the requirement to reduce solar heat gain through shading. A series of strip windows were implemented and two different shading systems were developed. 60% of the glazing is clear sight glass, while the remaining 40% needs to be opaque spandrel glass that hides the insulation.
Morphosis designed two different perforated shading concepts for the campus. The first system is made of PVD-coated stainless steel with a bronze finish. The panels take on iridescent colors and sparkle in the sunlight. The second system specifies the blind system, which is colored light blue.
The tonal system is colored using a palette reminiscent of geology, tectonics and the company’s key extracts.
“One of ENI’s existing buildings has a beautiful gallery with lots of rich, colorful drawings where you can see the layers of the Earth’s crust and its plates,” Emerson added. “So we started working on that as a loose inspiration.
The campus has received Italian Class A energy certification and LEED Italy Gold. To achieve these sustainability goals, in addition to the above-mentioned shading systems, Morphosis also installed rainwater collection systems and photovoltaic panels on the roofs of each building.
Morphosis designed the headquarters to provide office workers with ample outdoor space and a pleasant indoor work environment. Given the rise of work-from-home culture in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, architects hope the amenities offered by the new building will encourage employees to return to the office.
Project specifications
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