McDonough + Partners In Isola  

Cool green building of the week is this new design from McDonough and Partners in Milan - McDonough + Partners’ Groundbreaking Isola Office.

Sustainable design greats McDonough + Partners will soon be bringing Cradle to Cradle thinking to a city often known first for its fashion: Milan, Italy. Their Isola Office building will be aiming for LEED Gold with a variety of sustainable building strategies including solar and geothermal energy, advanced insulation panels, solar shading, and a high-efficiency climate control system. The structure will be part of the Porta Nuova redevelopment, which will introduce 340,000 square meters of housing, community, commercial and government buildings within Milan’s center - it’s practically a city within a city!

As an office building situated in a residential zone, the 10-story 8,600 square meter Isola building had to accommodate a variety of site constraints, including being re-adaptable as housing units. Working within these tight parameters McDonough + Partners were still able to incorporate a variety of sustainable features.

The Isola office building takes advantage of renewable energy via photovoltaics in addition to ground-source thermal capture. It also features insulation panels composed of of glass, metal, and terracotta that not only provide for a high-performance building envelope, but also allow for operable windows in every office.