Sannini Cotto from Impruneta

The British studio Grimshaw & Partners used the terracotta elements of Sannini in the project "Institute of Cancer Studies" of London, located inside the Paul O'Gorman Building, just in the core of one of the biggest and most important centers of biomedicine in Europe.
As outer casing of the facade the studio Grimshaw designed a Cotto element of triangular section, exclusively developed and realized by Sannini at its factory in Impruneta. The components are stacked till building rods of the same interstorey height and fastened with open angles.
The fixing system is composed of circular bars fixed from floor to floor, allowing the total opening and creating a more pronounced shadows variation, reproducing the effect of electromagnetic waves on the terracotta screen.