The new CNR-IRBIM headquarters in Ancona transforms a mid‑twentieth‑century office building on the Adriatic port into a research facility dedicated to marine ecosystems and blue biotechnologies. Designed by Simone Subissati Architects, the project retains the structural framework of the former Fincantieri administrative building while reorganizing its interior and extending the roofline with a lightweight screened volume. The intervention operates as a careful recalibration of architecture, infrastructure, and coastal landscape at one of the most historically sensitive edges of the city.
New CNR-IRBIM Headquarters Technical Information
- ArchitectsSimone Subissati Architects
- LocationAncona, Italy
- Project Years2015 – 2027
- Photorealistic Renders© Simone Subissati Architects
The aim was not to add a recognizable sign, but to construct continuity. In such an exposed setting, every transformation immediately acquires a public dimension and requires a clear sense of formal responsibility.
– Simone Subissati
Reframing a Post-War Industrial Building on Ancona’s Waterfront
The project begins with the rehabilitation of a building constructed between 1956 and 1959 as the administrative headquarters of the Fincantieri shipyard, designed by engineer Giuseppe Zampiga. Positioned directly along Ancona’s historic harbor, the structure occupies a carefully exposed site between maritime industry and archaeological heritage. The Arch of Trajan stands a short distance away while the steep slopes of Guasco hill rise immediately behind, crowned by the Romanesque cathedral of San Ciriaco. This layered landscape demands measured architectural intervention rather than formal assertion.
Instead of demolition, the proposal preserves the existing structural frame and overall volume, reinterpreting the building’s role within the port. Over time the former offices had lost relevance as the industrial waterfront evolved. The intervention addresses this dormancy by reactivating the structure as a contemporary institutional facility while maintaining its physical continuity with the postwar infrastructure of the harbor.
The architectural strategy treats adaptation as a form of urban repair. Through restrained transformation, the building reclaims a presence along the port edge, mediating between the working waterfront and the historic city rising above it. Its renewed visibility reinforces the spatial sequence experienced by those arriving by sea, where infrastructure, monument, and cityscape align along the Adriatic horizon.
Spatial Reorganization for a Contemporary Scientific Program
While the exterior massing remains largely intact, the interior organization is thoroughly reconfigured to support the operational needs of a marine research institute. The existing concrete structural grid provides the framework for a new layout of offices, laboratories, meeting rooms, and collaborative work areas distributed across multiple levels. Functional clarity becomes the guiding principle for the reorganization, allowing specialized scientific spaces to coexist with administrative functions.
Circulation is conceived as a continuous spatial sequence that begins at the port-side entrance and gradually ascends through the building. The ground floor operates as the institutional interface, where a generous lobby introduces the structural rhythm of the building through travertine-clad columns and open visual connections toward the harbor. From this entry, vertical circulation elements guide visitors and staff through increasingly specialized work environments.
The sequence culminates in collective spaces placed at the uppermost level. A conference hall and panoramic terrace overlook the Adriatic Sea and the working port below, positioning the institute’s public programs at the point where research activity and the wider territory converge. This layering of access transforms the building from a closed administrative facility into a more legible civic presence along the waterfront.
The Roofline as Architectural Mediation
The most visible transformation occurs at the roof level where a new attic volume extends the building vertically. The addition introduces new programmatic space without disturbing the horizontal reading of the original block. Its proportions are calibrated to maintain the scale of the waterfront skyline and avoid competition with surrounding landmarks such as the cathedral on Guasco hill.
Constructed with a lightweight steel structure, the new level is enveloped in a pre‑tensioned micro‑perforated PVC membrane. This external screen conceals the window openings while providing solar protection and enabling natural ventilation. The membrane establishes a thin environmental layer that mediates between interior spaces and the exposed maritime climate of the port.
The façade produces two complementary readings across the daily cycle. During daylight hours the screened attic appears as a quiet, monochrome volume hovering above the masonry base. After sunset interior light reveals the concealed openings behind the membrane, transforming the upper level into a luminous grid. The changeable façade quietly reshapes the nighttime presence of the building along the harbor without altering its overall mass.
Material Continuity, Interior Atmosphere, and Adaptive Sustainability
Material choices emphasize continuity with the existing structure while introducing contemporary elements that clarify the new intervention. The lower levels retain the masonry palette of brick and sandstone that characterizes the original building. At the ground floor, stone surfaces define the entrance and lobby, reinforcing the sense of permanence associated with institutional architecture along the waterfront.
Interior spaces balance tactile materials with controlled daylight. Travertine-clad structural elements expose the rhythm of the original frame, while polished concrete floors and steel-framed glazing introduce a restrained contemporary layer. In the upper levels, light filtered through the membrane façade creates soft vertical bands that gradually shift over the course of the day. The conference hall, oriented toward the sea, uses full-height glazing to frame views of the port and distant Adriatic coastline.
The decision to reuse the existing building structure establishes the central sustainability strategy of the project. By retaining the original frame and envelope where possible, the intervention reduces construction impact and preserves embedded material resources. Environmental considerations therefore emerge less from technological display than from the disciplined alignment of structural reuse, passive shading, and spatial adaptation.
About Simone Subissati Architects
Simone Subissati Architects (SSA) is an architecture studio based between Milan and Ancona, Italy, founded by architect Simone Subissati. Trained at the Florence School of Architecture, Subissati established the practice as a multidisciplinary research laboratory working across residential and public architecture, interior design, and product design. The studio’s work combines experimentation with theoretical reflection, exploring themes such as the search for architectural space, the relationship between architecture and contemporary art, and a material‑driven approach rooted in craftsmanship and the making of architecture.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: National Research Council – IRBIM Ancona
- Project Team: Simone Subissati and Stefano Barile (architects), Domenico Lamura and Matteo Virgulti (engineers)
- Structural and Systems Engineering: Domenico Lamura, Stefano Virgulti
- Contractor: AR.CO. Srl, Bari, Italy
- Construction Cost: €7,200,000
- Project Schedule: Design: 2015 – 2025; Construction: Dec 2025 – Dec 2027
- Press & Communication: The Architecture Curator
