OPEN 336, the first “NET CARBON ZERO” building of the Barings Real Estate Group with Eco2Air® filter technology, was inaugurated yesterday, 28 September 2022, in Milan's Bicocca district.
High-tech inspirations and post-industrial citations, state-of-the-art technological installations, and sustainability performance certifications at the highest level. The virtuous path in the name of sustainability has a new model. Called Open 336, it is an office building that was officially opened on 28 September in Milan’s Bicocca district. This futuristic project has been implemented thanks to the US investment giant Barings Real Estate, joined by Savills Investment and a cutting-edge technology partner, the Fervo Group, which specialises in innovative Facility and Energy Management solutions. Open 336 was designed by the architectural firm Park Associati.
Open 336, the building named after the house number where it is located in Viale Sarca, launches a bridge to the future, starting with one of the most urgent issues of the present, precisely CO2 abatement and the development of new strategies to reduce the environmental impact and consumption throughout the building's life cycle, even during its construction phase.
In particular, by using the Fervo Group’s innovative technology, buildings can behave as if they were trees, i.e., they can filter CO2 with an even higher filtering power, around eight-fold that of nature. Hence, the project marks an essential turning point in addressing the issue of decarbonisation. All of this, supported by the creation of an open architecture with a façade, summarises and reinterprets the morphological elements of the surrounding buildings, a structure that is both a container and a passageway, which fits seamlessly into the urban landscape of the Bicocca district, a former industrial area to the north-east of the city, revisiting and enhancing its qualities.
The Bicocca District
The project is implemented in the Bicocca area, which features a rich industrial history. The new factories of Società Italiana Ernesto Breda (known to everyone as “la Breda”) opened here in 1903. Solid, regular buildings with brick façades stood here. They are still typical of this continuously developing area, which welcomes and responds to new and emerging needs and new businesses, to which Open 366 gives new life, creating new perspectives. It is home to the University of Milan Bicocca, the Bicocca Village shopping centre, the Arcimboldi Theatre and Pirelli's Hangar Bicocca, where internationally recognised contemporary art exhibitions are held. The area is well served by public transport, including trains and the underground, with the Linate airport barely 15 minutes away.
Eco2Air® Technology
Thanks to the Fervo Group and its made-in-Italy Eco2Air® filter technology, the air treatment system captures and stores most of the carbon dioxide in the outside atmosphere, and then releases cleaner, oxygen-rich air into the building. The CO2 captured by the Eco2Air® filter, made of organic, biodegradable material, is recovered and reused in other processes in a circular economy. Once saturated after use for about 600 hours, the filter can be emptied of accumulated CO2, regenerated and safely reused for up to seven years. But there is more. The air treatment system is connected to a platform called FEAMS® that, through multiple sensors, reads all consumption and operating parameters in real time, not only signalling any anomalies, but even predicting the necessary interventions before faults occur, thanks to artificial intelligence algorithms.
The building that “Breathes”
"Let’s imagine the building is a tree. If the foundations are the roots and the structure is the bark ... the Eco2Air® filter finally constitutes its leaves,” explains Alessandro Belloni, CEO of the Fervo Group. “Just think that 10 kg of filter material, in a continuous cycle, has a CO2 absorption capacity that is 10-15-fold higher than that of, for example, a magnolia or a pine tree. Our Eco2Air® technology, therefore, allows us to reduce emissions and consumption during all phases of the building in order to create an actual Net Carbon Zero Building, transforming an environmentally critical element, such as CO2, into a resource.”
Thanks to the Eco2Air® Tower, even Brescia and its EXPO can breathe
Eco2Air® technology also gives the city of Brescia a breath of fresh, good quality air with the Eco2Air®Tower, the air purification tower, which stands 7 m high, on display in Corso Zanardelli from 12 September to 9 October.