October 27, 2025
Luxottica Headquarter
In this video Nicola Greco explains the design and technical challenges of creating a fully transparent "crystal" building for the Luxottica headquarters in Milan's historical Palazzo Litta garden. The central architectural concept was achieved using a double-skin facade, which balances maximum transparency with high energy performance. Key challenges included selecting high-quality, low-iron glass with specialized coatings to minimize visual distortion and minimizing the visual impact of framing to maintain transparency. The passively ventilated double-skin facade provides a thermal buffer in winter and uses natural ventilation to remove heat in summer, with its performance validated through detailed steady-state and CFD simulations. The design also integrated innovative maintenance solutions, such as a rope access system within the cavity, to preserve the building's clean aesthetic. Special thanks to Nicola Greco for contributing to the Open GLASSroom OER collection. The creation of these resources has been (partially) funded by the ERASMUS+ grant program of the European Union under grant no. 2022-1-DE01-KA220-HED-000089750. Neither the European Commission nor the project's national funding agency DAAD are responsible for the content or liable for any losses or damage resulting of the use of these resources.