Il sole dentro

Little more than one year after a fire destroyed the kindergarten of Conegliano, a town in the Veneto region, it has been rebuilt as Il Sole Dentro, a playschool where internationalisation, innovation and creativity are promoted through educational activities and playgroups that are open to inhabitants of the entire area.

The rebuilding was conducted by seven of the best-known companies in the industrial zone of Scomigo. The group leader was Permasteelisa, which assisted the architect Stefano Tinelli from the initial concept phase to make the new school bigger and better. Permasteelisa’s typical approach is a “sartorial” one, where the most appropriate technical and technological solutions are tailored to the design of each building it constructs. The aesthetics of the final result are found on the architectural surface, while technological performance is found within.

  The kindergarten is a sail-like structure pointing northeast, as if wanting to touch the nearby peaks of the pre-Alps mountain range that crowns this region. In the middle lies a private garden, round like the sun, a protected territory specially designed for toddlers. The central garden favours contact between indoors and out, and floods the rooms around it with natural light.

The seven companies rebuilt the centre to offer educational activities to the children of their employees, but also to widen the horizon by augmenting space and numbers: 28 places for the kindergarten and 36 for the nursery school, totalling 64 children, with facilities divided over two levels. The ground floor, in the shape of an asymmetrical diamond, is where the young ones stay, while the first floor is used for service areas, offices and technical rooms.

The interior is designed to be welcoming and relaxing. Milky white plastered drywall as the predominant surface augments luminosity. The rooms are made to be variable and adoptable to new needs and functions. They can host conferences and courses, aiming to promote an open programme that involves interaction with parents.

Outside, 540 square metres of planted area are integrated with the space at disposal of the kindergarten for additional educational activities and play. Another 110 square metres of garden have been destined for use by the smaller toddlers who attend the nursery school. The boxlike structure of the building is particularly resistant to horizontal forces such as wind and earthquakes, and complies with the seismic requirements for the zone. The design of the building is easy to read, but not banal. Pure white facades give a rational and two-dimensional impression that contrasts with the coloured metal roof, shapes as a paraboloid leaf. The perimeter walls, made of brick and cement, are ennobled by a skin designed by Permasteelisa. In line with its company philosophy, it devised a facade that responds to the aesthetic needs contained in the architect’s visual language, and resolved the technological challenges that the building needed to face.

The skin is made up of a double wall insulated with mineral wool and glass wool, faced with panels composed of aluminium coated with liquid paint and completed by sandwich panels with a polyethylene core between two sheets of heat-welded aluminium. The rectangular and square modules are mounted side by side to form a continuous ventilated envelope, heightening thermal performance and resulting in good sound absorption, a fundamental aspect in the industrial zone where the school stands.

Permasteelisa also made the powder-coated window and door frames, which are white all throughout the building. They are most expressive in their use for the inner court, where a glass-and-aluminium wall follows the circular enclosure all around. Here, 21 segments, 3 of which are doors, are equipped with a double thermal break and filled with 90 per cent argon gas. They offer thermal and acoustic properties in line with recent norms aimed at reducing energy use. The slide-open windows are equipped with motorised curtains to give optic comfort during the bright hours of the day, and have a remote-control safety feature. In the same way, the entrance doors are equipped with electro-locks connected to magnetic passes in order to control access to the building. Emergency doors with a built-in panic mechanism allow for the clean, pleasant design of the door frame.

The roof, shaped like a ginkgo leaf resting on organically shaped pillars, has a wood core and a CorTen-coloured metal skin. The ventilated roof, made by the Tegola Canadese company, completes the envelope of the building with patented technology aimed at high performance. The roof is mounted with a 10 kilowatt-peak photovoltaic system directly attached to the tiles and connected to a heat pump that gives cool air in summer and heat in the winter. The use of passive strategies for the skin and high-performance technical units has brought the school to a Class A energy certification. The building works with the sun, contributing to energy savings and providing comfortable indoor conditions for the preschoolers.

To the technological challenge was added the velocity of construction, with the centre being erected in record time. Permasteelisa guided the project throughout all phases of building. Its scheduling of all the installation teams guaranteed coordination between the contributing companies. This allowed for the playschool to be completed in only six months, in full pursuit of elevated quality standards and performance results that are well above the required limits under current regulations. Besides being beautiful, Il Sole Dentro is a safe place with a contemporary nature where a modern, innovative educational approach is combined with the idea of conscious growth that aims to build well for a better and more sustainable future.

Il sole dentro, Conegliano
Architect: Stefano Tinelli
Manufacturers of the Consorzio Prealpi Trevigiane: Ali Group S.p.A., Irca S.p.A./Gruppo Zoppas, Irinox S.p.A., Permasteelisa S.p.A., Ristorazione Ottavian S.p.A., Silca S.p.A. e Tegola Canadese S.p.A.
Development and site supervision: ing. Gabriele Rigon (strutture), Antonio Casagrande (impianti meccanici), Patrizio Ghirardo (acustica e sicurezza), dal Per. Ind. Livio Brugnera (impianti elettrici) e arch. Lucio Moras  (progettazione esecutiva architettonica, coordinamento e direzione lavori)
Contractor: impresa Biscontin S.p.A
Mechanical installations: Fiorin Impianti s.r.l.
Electrical installations: Lucen s.r.l.
Cost: € 1,300,000
Completion: 2016