Eco-Roofscape
Traditionally, shopping malls have been fully artificially lit, air-conditioned boxes. Moreover, as systems and performative requirements have evolved, malls have become incredibly energy-consuming and waste-generating machines. The Carosello Shopping Mall was designed to integrate within the surrounding countryside and to possess the benefits of an outdoor shopping street, such as natural light and fresh breeze while filtering out the unpleasant aspects such as noise and pollution, excessive heat or cold, strong direct solar radiation, rain and mosquitoes. Its malls act as buffer zones for the shops and the other internal spaces, thus increasing people's comfort while decreasing energy consumption. The whole complex acts as an organism able to create multiple relationships with its surrounding environment, both exploiting its potential and contributing to its improvement and conservation.
The role of ecoLogicStudio within the team has been to develop an overall ecologic design concept for the mall and to design and test its distinctive feature: the CONES, parametrically.
The whole site has been developed to integrate the building within the countryside landscape, avoiding the quality of suburban “non-place” by adding architectural characterization within a paradigm of continuity with the landscape and its natural processes. Positive side effects are an improvement in the surrounding microclimate, a personal comfort level, and a reduction in energy consumption. The building has been therefore shaped like an artificial hill, gently rising from ground level and covered with a thick grass carpet. This action as produced many microclimatic effects, such as:
- air cooling via evapotranspiration over the green roof, considerably reducing the risk of the heat island effect in summer.
- rainwater retention via the green roof, avoiding runoff after big summer storms.
- thermal balance via the roof and western façade mass, offering more stable internal conditions.
Given the nature of the building and its geometric proportions, the roof and its foundations are the elements most responsible for the building's exchanges with its surrounding environment. Therefore, the architectural design concept has been developed as the roof surface's evolution as an active thick skin. This would perform vital functions for the building [such as heat, light, and air exchanges] while providing the spatial qualities and effects that an exciting experience of a shopping mall would require. Atria or the mall's avenues will, in fact, work as climatic buffer zones, able to create a tempered microclimate where people will enjoy strolling with the feeling of being outdoor but without the inconveniences of it. Their thermal and lighting performances will also allow great energy saving for the whole building, contributing to reduced co2 emissions and lower running costs. The shops will therefore open onto a space with moderate climatic conditions, and they will need only a small amount of extra power to achieve the required internal comfort.
The permeability of the thick skin is achieved through the “pores,” prototypical components that perforate the vegetated surface and allow for controlled flows of light and air to enter and exit the skin. These components have been part of architecture for centuries in various forms, but here in Carosello they acquire an organic double-curved conical shape to combine more effectively architectural character with performative potential. Their smooth curvature and tilted orientation promote natural light diffusion and soft sky view, while their conical geometry promotes air extraction and reduced impact on the integrity of the skin.
The pores have been modeled parametrically with Rhino: a catalog of variations has been developed to adapt to different mall zones and achieve specialized performance. The main defining parameters of the geometry have been the scale of the conical primitive, the curvature of the cone’s wall, the tilting angle, and the orientation to the north. These parameters have been driving the proliferation of the pores over the landscaped roof and the process of optimization of their distribution. A series of natural lighting tests have been iteratively executed within the software platform Ecotect/Radiance until sufficient lighting levels, the uniformity of lighting, and the filtering of direct radiation were achieved in any zone of the mall. Material properties were defined during testing, including reflection and refraction, color, and superficial finish.
EcoLogicStudio has developed the final prototypes of the pores, where the final geometry has been subdivided into multiple layers and components. All the process has been modeled parametrically in 3D and simulated for the eventual clashing of parts. Each pore developed a double skin: the external layer is simpler geometrically but stronger structurally to hold a double-glazed skylight and to form a watertight continuity with the vegetated skin. The internal layer instead has been precast in a thin surface of GRC, double curved, filleted, and with a glossy finish to achieve maximum light diffusion and formal continuity with the ceiling.
