Wooden X-LAM structure and Carbon free, a new sustainable school buolding in Scarmagno – Torino
The new school complex of Scarmagno is characterized by the use of techniques, materials and technologies responsive to the principles of bio-architecture, in order to guarantee energetical and environmental sustainability. This approach, pursued in every aspect of the project, determines significant savings on the energy and water consumption of the building and ensures a suitable level of comfort in different climatic situations. Landscape insertion and environmental sustainability were the guiding principles for compositional and architectural choices of the project. The architectural form of the new building is compact, on two floors, and with a simple and intuitive organization of spaces. The duplex type allows to obtain a smaller footprint on the ground and with lower consumption of soil, while the compact form is currently considered an important pre-condition to achieve a good thermal and energy efficiency. South orientation of the main facade allows to get the maximum solar contribution for the winter heating. On the north side, instead, are located services and connective spaces, which requires smaller openings. The external covering in larch wood slats favor a delicate insertion of the building into the landscape context of the plain of Scarmagno and wants to be a concrete and visible sign of the sustainability pursued in the design and construction of the new school. The elevations towards the internal garden are covered by white fiber cement panels with large high performance aluminium windows, protected by an electrified Venetian system. All this allows a direct contact of the interior spaces of the building with outdoor spaces: in particular, the classrooms and the local canteen are “interacting” with the green space pertinential and the landscape and environmental context represented by the morainic hill and the plain of Scarmagno. The load-bearing structures of the building were made with a constructive system based on wood technology, the X-Lam type dry system, which uses different thicknesses of wood panels in crossed layers. Main advantages of the structural wooden construction system are the great speed in the construction phase, less consumption of water and energy and greater environmental sustainability Whereas the wood used today is certified and comes from controlled management forests.