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Breathing new life into landmark heritage buildings requires a delicate balancing act: refurbishments must respect the historical character of the building, while restoring and future-proofing the landmark for generations to come.
In Venice, the famed Piazza San Marco has welcomed the restoration of the Procuratie Vecchie, one of the most relevant works of 16th century Italian Renaissance architecture.
Arup was appointed to provide multi-disciplinary engineering services from concept all the way to detail design, working with architects David Chipperfield.
The key challenge in this delicate refurbishment project was how to restore and preserve the iconic building’s historical character while ensuring it meets the needs of the owner, insurance giant Generali.
Arup’s data-driven modelling work enabled our engineers to get an accurate assessment of this very complex building at speed, ensuring that a series of considered interventions and minimal retrofitting measures future-proof this iconic place. Our seismic, structural, mechanical, electrical and public health engineering services were all employed during the concept stage.
The ancient building, whose arched façade runs the full length of the square’s north-west side, remains the iconic headquarters of Italian insurance giant Generali and will also play host to its new social foundation, The Human Safety Net. The extensive refurbishment means that large areas of the 500-year-old building, including exhibition and event spaces, will be open to the public for the first time.
Employing digital design skills
Aligning all the stakeholders was crucial to the success of this large-scale refurb project. Arup’s team of multi-disciplinary engineers were appointed to evaluate the condition of the building, which has undergone several interventions over its history; and analyse the performance of the existing materials and structures before and after the intervention, including the historical masonry that supports the walls and the timber that makes the slab.
The Procuratie's refurbishment plan targeted a series of interventions to restore the first and second storeys, including strengthening the existing wooden floor; while improving accessibility and usability on the third and fourth floors with the introduction of new staircases and a renewed central entrance on the third floor with access to the raised courtyards.
Using advanced modelling tools, Arup carried out an exhaustive analysis of the building, delivering a better understanding of the structural issues in order to propose a series of minimal, non-intrusive retrofitting measures to optimise its structural integrity. A model was created in LS-DYNA, detailing the brick masonry walls, masonry arches and vaults, flexible timber floors and friction connections. The work highlighted some issues concerning the monumental façade onto the Piazza San Marco, which was not interlocked to the internal walls, but attached to these by steel ties only.
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