Research Tower, Padua

The international competition concerned a large rectangular plot within Padua’s industrial estate, located to the east of the historic city center and separated from it by the large green area of Roncajette, which will become the Veneto city’s applied science park. The area is densely built up, with plots overflowing with warehouses, some of them very large, and the ring road passes through the middle of it, alongside the plot that is the object of this competition. The winning proposal is based on the decision to arrange the building in an L-shaped plan, which offers a series of different possibilities that are more flexible than the historically and typologically traditional central plan. The limited 14.2-m depth of the building also allows better lighting, diffused over the whole surface of the ground plan, and offers observation points that are differently lit during day according to various orientations and points of view, which means that the overall vision of the structure is made more complex. The building covers thirty-six floors, the highest part reaching 137 m, with a total surface area of 50,000 m². The L shape of the tower, together with the mat buildings next to it, also makes it an urban landmark, through the relation between its different parts, in terms of the sequence from the access point on the public road.