Morphosis Wins the Eni Business Center Competition in Italy

The international competition for the concept design of the new Eni Exploration & Production Business Center in San Donato Milanese, Italy, was won by Morphosis Architects with Nemesi Partners (architectural design partner), Setec TPI (structures designer), Setec Batiment (plants designer) and Pasodoble (landscape architect).

The group has been chosen from among 10 contestants which were selected during the first stage of the competition. The task of the competition, which was entered by over 50 international teams, was to develop the concept design for the construction of the new Exploration & Production Business Center for Eni, one of the largest global energy companies operating in the oil and gas, electricity generation and sale, petrochemicals, oilfield services construction and engineering industries.

The goal was to leave a mark on the territory, expressing Eni’s values and vision, in line with the adjacent Metanopoli, and in alignment with the principles of economic, social and environmental sustainability, in continuity with the tradition of Enrico Mattei.

Eni’s Exploration & Production Business Center will have an area of 65,000m2 including 60,000m2 for offices and 5,000m2 for services. The Business Center will have the capacity to host approximately 3,500 people, and is expected to be completed in time for Milan’s Expo in 2015.

The project area is located in the ex-Industrial Complex, Eni’s first settlement in San Donato Milanese, which boundaries are Viale De Gasperi on the north-west side, Via Ravenna on the north-east side, Via Correggio on the south-east side and Via Vannucchi on the south-west side.

From the architectural point of view, the winning project embraces three values: the individual and the community as core elements: the square, symbolic and functional heart of the new Business Center; democracy and integration, from a tout court architecture to a landscape architecture: the business towers lose their self reference, originating an horizontal and democratic architecture; research and innovation towards new sustainability: the design concept expresses the Exploration & Production process through metamorphic architecture, a fluid and dynamic continuum, which represents the transformation of matter into energy.

Images courtesy of Eni.