The banking group Intesa Sanpaolo opened its Turin skyscraper five years after construction began. The first visitors can now enter the tower and see the city from a new viewpoint.
The bank commissioned Renzo Piano the building to accommodate its central offices in a single location. It has emphasised its historic ties with Turin by providing spacious areas for public use.
RPBW - Renzo Piano Building Workshop designed a building that is “almost as luminescent as ice” thanks to glass sheets which, in harmony with the snow-capped mountains in the background, make the surfaces iridescent depending on natural light.
The tower has 44 floors of which 38 are above ground. It occupies a surface area of 7,000 square metres and is 166 metres high, slightly less than the height of the Mole Antonelliana building in Turin.
Two spaces of equal size are open to the public. At the base of the tower is a transparent hall and a variable configuration auditorium which can become a venue for conferences, concerts or exhibitions as required. At the top is the bioclimatic conservatory, a space of 15,000 m3 over three floors. Of those, the 35th floor houses the roof garden with panoramic restaurant, the 36th floor has an exhibition hall and the 37th floor has a cafeteria with a balcony that allows visitors to see the conservatory with its perimeter walkway on three levels. The top of the tower affords visitors views of the city, the collina di Torino green area and the Alpine range to the east, south and west. The garden contains shrubs and plants suited to a temperate and naturally ventilated climate of the conservatory such as eucalyptus, shimbillo, acacia, lavender and myrtle.
The 27 floors intended for office use by 2,000 employees house the President’s office and rooms for the administrative bodies of Intesa Sanpaolo, the central units of the Banca dei Territori, Risk Management, Loans, Personnel and training halls, Intesa Sanpaolo Group Services, Internal Auditing, Intesa Sanpaolo Assicura and some other services of the bank. The 31st floor is assigned entirely to the Innovation Centre, with technological installations for research and the interdisciplinary work of this organisation.
The underground garden of the first basement floor is overlooked by the company canteen and the nursery school. The three basement levels are allocated to parking spaces for more than 300 vehicles and for plant rooms.
The skyscraper is located close to the high speed railway station and the Torino Porta Susa underground station in an area with a high concentration of public services. The Nicola Grosa public garden, overlooked westward by the skyscraper and which also joins Corso Inghilterra through the entrance lobby, has been completely redeveloped by Intesa Sanpaolo and transformed into a recreational area with trees of varying height, lawn and areas for games and relaxation.
The tower adheres to the principles of environmental sustainability, adopting energy-efficiency methods and ensuring compliance with the best building practices. The façades to the east and west are covered with a double-skin system, whose louvres can be opened and closed to provide ventilation in the summer and thermal insulation in the winter. The southern façade is entirely covered with photovoltaic panels of about 1,600 square metres. On the same side, there is a winter garden with climbing plants which filter and modulate sunlight. The air conditioning and heating plant makes use of energy from thermal exchange with the groundwater without producing harmful atmospheric emissions.
The attention paid to the recovery, control and containment of overall energy consumption will earn the tower the environmental sustainability «LEED» certification with one of the highest scores in the world for tall buildings. Special attention has been paid to the space, light and comfort quality of staff working environments.
Source: Intesa Sanpaolo press release
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