ESA Engineering for Chiesi Gardens

We immediately understood the context and objectives, and tried to define our approach, which for Chiesi Gardens was the one preferred by ESA Engineering: the preliminary evaluation of the possible scenarios applicable to the project. Our initial motto is to never ‘simplify’, because often ‘easy and sparse solutions hide complexity’, as Richard Sennet argues in “The Craftsman”. We therefore proceed with in-depth and wide-ranging explorations that lead us to extend the range of possible choices to allow the client to consider the different options and make informed and autonomous choices.

This approach is made possible by the experience we have gained in thirty years of activity and today makes ESA Engineering an integrated engineering laboratory that houses all the engineering specialities involved in the construction process (structures, systems, fire prevention, acoustics, lighting, facades, energy, sustainability) as well as technical architecture, which allows us to define the technological system of the building by synthesising the guidelines of the specialist disciplines.

In the instance of Chiesi Gardens — a project that goes beyond urban regeneration by setting itself the objectives of building and sharing with the citizenship in line with the tradition whereby “civitas” and “urbs” influence each other — the challenge is highly complex from an engineering perspective because it presents us with questions that have never been addressed before. The complexity is not due to the technical difficulty of a particular topic but to the sum of the plan objectives applied to an articulated and diversified context.

The particular complexity of the system is the result of the sum of the objectives and conditions that Chiesi has chosen to apply to make its values tangible.

The engineering of the project aims to provide solutions that guarantee maximum comfort, understood as the quality of life, both physical and mental, within the spaces for those who inhabit the site; durability and reliability for a longer period than that required by law; implementation in accordance with the context; maximum reuse of existing materials; the smallest possible carbon footprint; simplicity as the ability to choose a few elements that define the work;

These requirements translate into very challenging guidelines for engineering disciplines, which must proceed in a consistent manner to include all elements, integrating them into a single system that ultimately achieves the essentiality of simplicity.

As engineers, we feel called upon by Chiesi to evaluate all possible solutions, to not get attached to any of our ideas, to abandon our technical point of view in order to open ourselves up to a multiplicity of viewpoints, to venture into uncharted territory, to embrace debate and to constantly welcome external elements capable of introducing disruptive points of view into the process.

What we are learning day by day is the amazement of discovering that “IT COULD WORK“.

The many topics of the Chiesi Gardens project allowed and will continue to allow us in the future to explore new solutions, but also to share from a collective culture perspective. Among the main topics:

• Material experimentation based on reuse prior to defining the form and aesthetics applied to the development of façades and the search for materials for interior and exterior flooring and cladding;
• The hybridisation of traditional techniques and innovative technologies to meet Chiesi’s challenge of reusing what was available through the meeting of two seemingly distant worlds: that of ancient wisdom, where waste was not considered rubbish but a usable material, and that of contemporary technology, capable of guaranteeing energy performance and sustainability certifications.
• The design of the rainwater collection and conservation system for which complex mathematical models provided by landscape designers have guided the technical design of water networks;
• The iterative design of the impulse hub structures to be able to translate the customer’s input into technical terms to have a flexible, removable, reusable building;
• The Control and Design of natural light to ensure interaction with the outside, the alternation of distant views and protected visions, the connection with natural light without the disturbance of glare;
• The design of artificial lighting to promote circadian rhythms and feelings of well-being through personalised control and the familiar appearance of the equipment;
• The design of acoustic quality in spaces to ensure concentration and reduce fatigue through the application of discreetly integrated materials.

— Michela Goretti, Engineering Project Leader | ESA Engineering