|
|
|
Italcementi Group considers its commitment to research and innovation to be a strategic endeavor that guarantees business development, global scale competitiveness and the Group’s contribution to improving quality of life in global and local communities. Research within the Group is therefore aimed at the creation of innovative projects that meet the needs of new market trends. The laboratories at the Group’s Technical Centre (CTG) contribute significantly to this through their research and development activities in the field of cementitious materials and their applications. Over 400 people are employed at the two sites at Bergamo and Guerville (Paris), 170 of whom are entirely devoted to research. On December 6th, 2006, the “foundation stone” ceremony took place for the construction of Italcementi’s new research and innovation centre: the ITCLab Innovation and Technology Central Laboratory.
The project involves the creation of an 11,000 square metre facility, of which 7,500 square metres have been allotted exclusively for research laboratories that will take approximately two years to build. ITCLab was designed by architect Richard Meier and is set within the Kilometro Rosso Scientific Park just outside Bergamo, a new site on which a number of multidisciplinary research initiatives will take place, operated by both private companies and public entities and involving around 3,000 people over the next 10 years.
ITCLab will become the focal center for Italcementi’s research, reinforcing the network by linking the laboratories in France, the United States and soon India with the activity of the University think tanks that already operate with the Group’s Technical Centre.
 |
| ITCLab: the Innovation and Technology Central Laboratory (east view), Bergamo, Italy | ITCLab’s architecture, use of materials and construction choices will reflect Italcementi’s commitment to environmental sustainability, by giving close attention to these issues from the design stage. It is an ambitious and demanding challenge that the Group intends to tackle with the experience and innovation abilities already put into practice in the realization of large-scale projects such as Giò Ponti’s Pirelli skyscraper or Meier’s Dives in Misericordia church in Rome. “The new ITCLab,” underlines Richard Meier, “will not only be an iconic building confirming Italcementi’s expertise, but also a benchmark for European sustainable design. The entire building structure will be constructed using a proprietary concrete developed by Italcementi using a photocatalytic, self-cleaning and pollution-reducing cement.”
ITCLab is set to be a reference project for sustainable architecture; the objective is to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the strictest and most important American certification programme for energy and environment in relation to buildings. In collaboration with the Energy Department of the Milan Polytechnic, the project is competing to become a partner in the European Commission’s Green Building programme, which recognizes energy efficiency and the introduction of renewable energy supply sources. The laboratory will be constructed using TX Aria® and TX Arca® white cement, both based on TX Active®, Italcementi’s patented photocatalytic principle. The roof of the new Center will hold photovoltaic cells for the production of electricity and solar panels to power the heating and air conditioning systems, with the aim of reducing consumption of fossil fuel energy and thus CO2 emissions into the atmosphere during the lab’s operation.
A further reduction in emissions will be achieved through a geothermal plant exploiting solar energy in the soil and subsoil.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|