Dambel Council Offices

Multi-purpose centre – Dambel Council Offices

The multi-purpose building in Dambel, in the Non Valley in Trentino, houses the offices of the local council offices, a meeting room, a nursery, a medical clinic and a storage area for snow clearing equipment.

The project, which was initiated in 2009 and overseen by the engineer Carlo Busetti, started life as a renovation of a building from the 1960s with static and energy efficiency issues. The work involved demolishing the entire building, with the exception of the basement, and erecting three additional floors, flanked by a warehouse. The project is characterised by the fact that the load-bearing structures of the main building, the lamellar roof and part of the accessory elements (for example, the ventilated larch walls) are made of exclusively locally-sourced fir wood of exclusive. In fact, the wood used was cut within 70 km from Dambel, in PEFC certified forests: this means that the origin of every single element of the wooden building is traceable. The project is one of the first in Italy where the PEFC chain of custody was applied.

Opened in 2012, the Dambel multi-purpose centre is the first public space in Italy to be awarded ARCA certification, the mark that attests to the quality and sustainability of wooden buildings.

Inspired by the criteria of green building, the green construction aims to save energy: it features a pellet-burning heating system, an advanced home automation system and recycles rainwater thanks to the innovative solutions implemented in the roof structure. In addition to the Casa Clima B certification, the structure was also awarded the Abb Energy Efficiency Award 2012 for energy efficiency.