Sant’Ambrogio car park, Milan

In Piazza Sant’Ambrogio, in Milan, the construction company Borio Mangiarotti S.p.A. built a five-storey underground car park.

Drytech has designed a waterproofing system for the diaphragm, based on Injectable Waterstop Tapes.

By making the diaphragm waterproof directly, it was not necessary to create the lining wall, thus increasing both the internal volume to comply with the legal limits, and the surface, or the parking spaces available.

The Injectable Waterstop Tape for the joints between the partitions of the diaphragms is a Drytech patent that makes it possible to maintain the joint with ex-post injections of resin, performed in the event of any infiltrations.

The Drytech tape is laid with a special sheet piling which acts as a formwork of the diaphragm wall.

The diaphragm of the parking lot that flanks the Milanese basilica drops to a depth of 22.70 meters and the laying of a sheet pile of this size required special care by the company’s technicians, to ensure perfect alignment of the joints.

At the end of the casting, the sheet pile is extracted, equipped with a new belt and repositioned for the casting of the next septum.

The re-injectability of the DRYflex resin guarantees the possibility of carrying out maintenance on the diaphragm at any time, by intervening from inside the structure, without excavation or demolition and, above all, without having to close the car park.

Client: Comune di Milano

Structure: Ingegner Domenico Insigna, Milano

Construction: Borio Mangiarotti SpA, Milano

Drytech Tank:
Diaphragm: 5,600 m², h 22.70 m
Bed: 3,300 m²

AET, Montecarasso

The new administrative headquarters of AET in Monte Carasso (the Ticino Energy Company) produces more energy than it consumes.

On the one hand it boasts maximum energy efficiency in every technical component inside the building, on the other it produces energy entirely derived from renewable sources.

A positive energy balance, consistent with the corporate mission, which makes it the public building with the best energy performance in the Canton.

Designed by architects Lukas Meyer, Ira Piattini and Francesco Fallavollita, the new administrative headquarters of the Ticinese Electric Company appears impenetrable or transparent, simply matching the point of view.

The core of the building is in fact set back from the modular concrete grid facade. What a surprising optical effect from the outside translates into visual comfort on the inside: the offices are in fact flooded with mostly indirect natural light.

The site is lapped by the Ticino river and a stretch of water has been created between the existing building and the new one.

The underground structure was therefore built with the Drytech tank system: a waterproof construction of 1,190 m², which houses the technical rooms, changing rooms, warehouses and the AET general archive.

Client:
Azienda Elettrica Ticinese

Project: AArch. Lukas Meyer e Ira Piattini, Lugano + Fallavollita, Como

Structure: Tajana & Partner Ingegneria SA, Bellinzona / Spadea e Bondini, Lugano

Construction:
Bossi e Bersani SA, Bellinzona 

Drytech Tank: 1,190 m²

Hanging swimming pool, Ascona

Overlooking Lake Maggiore, the house with a hanging pool designed and designed by engineer Bonalumi for himself.

Overlooking Lake Maggiore, immersed in the woods above Ascona, the house with a hanging pool designed and designed by engineer Bonalumi for himself.

The pool occupies part of the top floor and, from the water, the view sweeps across the entire lake.

The bottom of the pool is the slab of the master bedroom.

The structure is a Drytech Tank in exposed waterproof concrete, with the edge of the pool completely covered with the Drycoat waterproof covering.

Project: Pianifica SA, Locarno

Riga House, Comano

Designing the house for a family of farmers and the farmhouse for their guests within a farm, without interrupting the precious continuity of an alpine landscape made up of orchards and sloping meadows.

An ambitious request, to which Studio Stefania Saracino and Franco Tagliabue Architetti gave a radical response, setting the Casa Riga directly in the mountain just outside Comano Terme, in Trentino.

The structures in contact with the ground, bed and walls in contact with the ground, were built with the Drytech Tank System.

Project: Saracino Tagliabue Architects, Bolzano / Como

Structure: Ing. Giovanni Periotto, Trento

Construction: Damiani-Holz&Ko, Bressanone

Energy: Energytech, Bolzano

Photo: Davide Cornacchini, Venice

Drytech Tank: 725 m²

Trenord railway underpass, Saronno

Then the excavation and casting of the Drytech waterproof concrete slab was carried out, resting on the bulkheads and prepared with the DRYset crack control elements. The whole operation took place in just three days, at the end of which the track was restored.

The procedure was therefore repeated on the other track. After another three days the line returned to full capacity, with both tracks open.

The excavation was then carried out under the slab, the casting of the platform floor of the underpass and finally the lining casting, directly against the micropiles.

When the concrete matured, joints, holes and programmed cracks were injected with DRYflex resin which, expanding, sealed them by pressure.

Drytech Engineering provided advice on aspects relating to waterproofing, collaborating with the structural engineer already in the design phase of the underpass.

Ownership: Ferrovie Trenord, Milano

Structure: Studio I.R. Ingegneri Riuniti – Ing. Giuseppe Barbagallo, Catania

Constraction: SALCEF Spa, Roma

Drytech Tank: 1,800 m²

Nuvola Lavazza, Turin

The Lavazza Cloud designed by Cino Zucchi Architetti and the historic buildings recovered by Cino Zucchi himself together with Picco Architetti, are an example of architecture that dialogues with the neighborhood, with time and with the environment.

Over time, the area affected by the intervention has hosted the activities of the Alta Italia Electric Company, Sip and finally Enel.

A historic production site surrounded by a boundary wall.

The large block was opened and transformed into a pedestrian square overlooked by all the spaces, both newly built – the new Lavazza business center – and recovered.

A place that becomes an integral part of both the road system and the life of the neighborhood, with the large square-garden and its premises and with the underground public parking.

The environment helped shape the height of the building, which varies on different sides from six to two floors, depending on the solar orientation and the surrounding buildings.

The metal pilasters and stringcourses form an external grid on the floor of the windows which, depending on the seasons and the same hours of the day, helps to shield or favor the penetration of sunlight.

The uninterrupted dialogue with the environment includes roofs covered by greenery, hanging gardens inserted between the offices and a sophisticated digital system that programs the environmental parameters – such as temperature and lighting – in relation to the times and methods in which the different spaces are used, so as to maximize living comfort and energy efficiency.

Ownership: Lavazza, Torino

Project:
Cino Zucchi Architetti, Milano
Picco Architetti, Torino

Structure: Ing Giorgio Piccarreta – AI Engineering, Torino

Construction: Colombo Costruzioni, Lecco

Drytech Tank: 12,590 m²

Denitrification tanks, Bresso

The Bresso Niguarda treatment plant was equipped with a new denitrification basin of 10,800 m³.

Wastewater denitrification is a process for the removal of nitrogenous compounds present in solution by optionally heterotrophic bacteria.

The part of the plant where the process takes place is a rectangular tank divided into two chambers of equal size, connected only superficially, which allow the continuity of the treatment, even when one of them needs to be emptied for maintenance.

Being a single waterproof concrete structure, the Drytech tank has the advantage of allowing maintenance interventions carried out from inside the tanks and immediately verifiable.

Ownership: CAP Holding SpA, Assago

Project: Ing.Gabriele Ghilardi, Bergamo

Work Management: Ing.Emanuele CalloniMI10studio, Milano

Construction: Intesa Costruzioni, Treviolo

Drytech Tank: 3,531 m²

PalaCinema, Locarno

The new cinema building in Locarno was born from the transformation of the historic Palazzo Scolastico, designed in 1892 by the architect Ferdinando Bernasconi.

The London-based architectural firm AZPML has capitalized on the existing structure for identity, cultural and environmental reasons.

A screen of movable tiles rationalizes the lines of the facade, but at the same time enhances the original three-volume profile.

The intervention also involves the Remo Rossi square, transformed into a large red carpet perfectly connected to the surrounding street web.

Inaugurated on the occasion of the 70th edition of the Locarno Festival, the Palazzo del Cinema has three avant-garde screening rooms, two of which with 142 seats each, located between the basement and the ground floor, and one with 500 seats on the second floor.

The two underground rooms and all the other service structures below the ground level were built with the Drytech Tank System.

The window sills, on the other hand, are protected with the Drycoat waterproof covering which, with its reduced thickness, does not alter the purity of the architectural lines.

The vibrant covering of gold tiles is iconic. Ethereal, changeable, dynamic: it is architecture, but it looks like cinema.

Owner: PalaCinema SA, Locarno

Project: Consorzio AZPML+DF, Londra/Lugano

Structure: WMM Ingenieure, Münchenstein

Construction: Impresa Mafledil, Osogna

Drytech Tank: 1,200 m²

Pedestrian underpass, Agnuzzo

The Drytech Tank System allows you to create waterproof underpasses without interrupting traffic and, above all, without the risk of damaging the waterproofing.

Commissioned by the Municipality of Muzzano, the Agnuzzo pedestrian underpass was built outside the carriageway, in Drytech waterproof concrete.

The joints have been prepared for resin injection with DRYset channels. The shrinkage cracks were checked with the DRYset crack elements.

The monolith was then pushed by jacks below the roadway, while the ground was progressively dug from the inside.

Once in place, the monolith was injected from the inside with DRYflex resin, whose elasticity and expansion qualities allow the waterproofing to adapt to the vibrations produced by higher traffic.

The ex-post waterproofing, by means of injections, on the one hand cannot be damaged during processing and, on the other hand, also allows to seal any cracks produced by the thrust stresses.

Client: Canton Ticino

Structure: MPN Ingegneria SA, Muzzano

Construction: Geo-Edil SA, Lugano

Private house, Gelterkinden

Designed with the expressive power of a sculpture, the Chienbergreben private house in Gelterkinden follows the slope of the land, on the border between the town and the agricultural area.

The underground structures were built with the Drytech Tank System, which made them impermeable to both groundwater and slope water.

The adoption of the Drytech System, which provides for a single waterproof concrete structure, has allowed the project to respect the figure that defines it architecturally even in the underground part.

The entire structure of the building is in fact made of exposed concrete with disposable horizontal formwork: inside as well as outside.

Project: Bucher Bründler, Basilea

Structure: Ing. Jürg Merz, Maisprach

Construction: Obrist Bauunternehmung AG, Wallbach

Drytech Tank: 162 m²