Office building in Ancona

Building use

Office building

Country/Region

Italy

Overview

The building sits on the same plot of a previous building which hosted a school and that was abandoned many years ago, becoming a degraded area of the city with vandalism and homeless. The new building will host the local branch of INAIL (the National Institute for safety and recovery of work injuries), thus offering at the same time rehabilitation services (the building will host two pools, a gym, medical rooms etc.) for injured workers and instruction activities (class spaces, meeting areas, etc.) as well as office space for the local and regional activities of the National Institute.

Basic information (construction date, number of stories, gross floor area, adopted design code, engineer(s), Contractor(s), etc.)

Construction date: 2023
Number of stories: 4
Gross floor area: 6,600m2
Adopted design code: Eurocode
Engineer(s): ATI Project
Contractor(s): still to be determined for above-grade construction

Issue and/or innovation

The project makes extensive use of steel truss beams with steel plate bottom cord and on-site poured concrete elements, which is becoming relatively common in Italy even for small and mid-size buildings due to the speed of construction and the absence of temporary support, formwork construction, etc. PREM and NPS beams are the most common commercial products available on the market.

Reason for composite solution

The composite solution was adopted mainly for two reasons: speed of construction and safety on the building site. The speed of construction is needed to give back to the city as quickly as possible and abandoned area neighborhood that became sketchy in the last several years due to vandalism, homelessness and suspicious activities. The extensive use of prefabricated solutions is expected to speed up as much as possible the construction schedule, and offer to the viewers the idea of a construction site that progresses quickly. The safety of workers on the construction site is to reflect as much as possible the mission of the future occupier INAIL.

Specific solution/technical details

Pre-fabricated concrete C.a.v. (Vibrated reinforced concrete) pillars are installed on a ribbed slab surface foundation. Beams are composite steel truss beams with steel plate bottom cord and on-site poured concrete elements. Floor systems make use of 25-cm thick pre fabricated hollow-core slabs systems, topped with a 5 cm layer of C30/37 concrete (with a 20x20cm steel mesh with a diameter 0.8cm) that creates the composite action by completing the truss-steel beam volume. The composite beams rest on a steel bracket directly connected to the pre-fab concrete pillars (or on-site concrete walls) by means of steel bolts with a 25mm diameter.

Impact or effectiveness

The construction operations are still ongoing and the erection of the above-grade structural frame has not stated yet. Still, the extensive use of pre-fabricated construction systems is expected to accelerate the speed of construction by saving several months of on-site operations.