The Vado Ligure new Commercial Port Offices’ building
The Vado Ligure new Commercial Port Offices’ building is designed to host the Cargo handling management staff. The Container Platform (750 m for 300 m), one of the biggest of the peninsula, absorbs part of the cargo container handling once concentrated on Genoa’s Port. The new commercial port is managed by APM terminals, one of the world's leading container handling companies. The site was developed by Fincosit srl in cooperation with CIMA srl for the construction of the facades.
The Vado Port System is made up of two well integrated terminals: APM Terminals' existing Reefer Terminal and its new semi-automated terminal, the Vado Gateway. With the launch of Vado Gateway in 2019, Vado Ligure became the first semi-automated port in Italy with a fully-automated gate and stacking yard The Vado Ligure Port Complex is one of the most competitive terminals in Europe, combining innovation, automation, intermodal connectivity and the ability to offer fully integrated and complex services such as cold storage, project cargo, Ro-Ro and intermodal transport.A new off-dock rail facility for both port terminals (4 lanes, 450m length) provides rapid access to central and northern Europe such as Switzerland, Germany and France, as well as regions in Northern Italy, such as Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna. The facility has the capacity for 14 trains per day.The Vado Ligure Port complex is accessible via 14 reversible gate lanes. Maximum efficiency and short truck-turn-times of around 30 minutes are achieved using a truck appointment system which is fully integrated with Terminal Operating System. As trucks arrive at the port, the license plate of the vehicle and the container number are registered using optical character recognition (OCR). If all previously submitted documentation is complete, the truck is automatically granted access to operating areas.
The office building, submitted to the port authority regime, plays the role of real gateway between the town and the container platform, acting as the sole interface between the city and the areas destined to the goods.
The built area of 6.000 square meters, 130 m for 20 m, features a unique 14 meters high ground floor. On the side closest to the cliff is located a workshop for the repair of heavy vehicles, while the other side, conceived as a sequence of columns that marks the rhythm of the entrances to the platform, welcomes 16 gates for the passage of trucks.
Besides the workshop, the building embraces a variety of functions such as the container handling control room, the main offices, the changing rooms (for about 600 platform operators) and the dining hall that can hold up to 150 people. This wide range of services, with the total support and agreement of the client, required an important design effort to achieve a final image of strong identity along with the type of activities carried out.
The design of a curved section is able to collect the set of different functions while declaring their diversity: on the ground floor the workshop block, with its reinforced concrete façade, and the truck’s gates, with its sequence of columns, while on the first floor stands out the building core with its iconic ship’s shape.
This distribution of masses simplifies and harmonizes the volumes, while leaving highly visible the initial idea of “building/gateway”.
The reinforced concrete structure, thanks to the knowledgeable and brilliant engineering work of “S.t.i.m.a.”, is perfectly suited for the complex organization of the volumes.
The 14 meters high columns, with a diameter of 60 centimeters, are constituted by steel tubes used as formwork for the cast reinforced concrete.
The structure of the workshop is, alongside with the stairs block, a large stiffening big box, while the floors are made of ribbed slabs with a single span of 20 meters.
The ventilated facade is made of white aluminum countertops to ensure the finest aeration of the interspace and to prevent from aging and erosion, being the building site exposed to severe weather.
