EKU 50 Glass curtain walling, continuity between interior and exterior spaces, guaranteeing high levels of comfort

A part of a wider project of renovation of the Municipality of Cecina included the functional recovery and extension of the usable spaces of the municipal library. For this project, the new curtain walling system EKU 50 Glass was chosen.

The renovation project of the Scholastic Village and its buildings, presented by the Municipality of Cecina (Livorno – Italy), also foresaw the functional recovery of the Municipal Library. The project included the renovation of the roof, the construction of a new air-conditioning system, the replacement of part of the false ceiling and the extension of the usable spaces, with a new area of about 400 square metres being added to the existing building.

“The objective was to achieve an integration between interior and exterior spaces,” explains Engineer Francesco Testa, the Technical Director of Opera Impianti e Costruzioni, the company that carried out the intervention.

“An objective achieved by constructing a 40 metre continuous facade that creates an effect of continuity between the inside and outside, allowing the library user to enjoy the harmony and natural atmosphere that only a green area can communicate“.

Naturally, it was also necessary to guarantee an adequate acoustic and microclimatic comfort. For this reason, the EKU 50 Glass system for curtain walling was chosen for its high thermo-acoustic insulation performance, and a careful study of the intensity of the sunlight was carried out, especially during the hottest hours, when students are studying.

In relation to the sunlight, aluminium sunscreens of the EKU Grid series were also used. They were installed along the upper part of the facade for a length of one metre as a protection against the sun rays with a higher incidence and on the surfaces located on the side of the facade.

These sunscreens therefore play an important role in regulating the sun’s rays as well as creating a particular aesthetic game.

“The external walling and the internal partitioning of this extension were made with dry walls, insulated plasterboard panelling”, concludes Engineer Testa.

“Inside there is centralized air-conditioning, while water heating is carried out using energy-saving tanks.”

The EKU systems used in the project

The curtain walling was realized with the EKU 50 Glass system, with a white RAL 9010 finishing, for a total surface area of about 250 square metres. It was constructed with double-glazing consisting of 55.2 acoustic/space 15 mm/tempered glass 8mm, filled with argon gas to guarantee the values of acoustic reduction and thermal transmittance indicated by the project for this type of building.

“It was a standard intervention, even if of a certain complexity” underlines Giovanni Vallefuoco, owner of Val System window manufacturers. “A facade of this size has to resist both statically and to wind pressure.

Careful work was carried out, an effective triangulation between us, the dealer VM Sistemi (Caserta), under the direction of Antonio Vallefuoco and the EKU Technical Office, which guaranteed to us all the necessary support. We paid particular attention to floor and ceiling joint sealing, also in order to guarantee the required thermo-acoustic insulation performance ”.

In addition to the facade, 10 vasistas openings were made on the front of the facade using the EKU 52 TT system, 5 two-door security doors with panic exit handles were installed with the EKU 62 TT system and lastly the EKU Grid solar screening grids, all with white RAL 9010 finishing.

Project summary