Reconstruction of the steel structure of the historic FILA factory in Biella, Italy

Company: Eurometallica
Location: Milan, Italy
Software used: Autodesk Advance Steel,  GRAITEC PowerPack for Advance Steel

Eurometallica Costruzioni in Acciaio, is an Italian company headquartered in Pettinengo (Biella), specializing in steel structures. The company designs and delivers steel structures for civil and industrial construction, providing a complete service that includes design, fabrication and installation. For the reconstruction of the steel structure of the historic FILA factory in Biella, Eurometallica selected Autodesk Advance Steel and GRAITEC Powerpack for Advance steel to ensure precise and efficient steel structure design. From structural modeling to production lot management and element numbering, the software supported every stage of the project. This enabled the team to accurately recreate the distinctive shed roof structure of the original building while optimizing design, production and installation processes.

Project highlights

Eurometallica chose Autodesk Advance Steel to manage the design of the steel structure required for the reconstruction of the historic FILA factory in Biella with high precision and efficiency.

The project included the creation of the new steel structure for the industrial building, designed to faithfully reproduce the characteristic shed roof of the original structure. The modular nature of the structure and the need to divide the project into several production and delivery lots required accurate modeling, element numbering and coordination across different operational phases.

Thanks to the capabilities of Advance Steel, it was possible to integrate the topographic survey directly into the model, manage both standard and custom connections, and effectively support all phases of the project—from design to fabrication and on-site installation.

Technology used in the reconstruction of the steel structure of the historic FILA factory in Biella

For the design and management of the steel structure, Eurometallica used Autodesk Advance Steel and GRAITEC Autodesk for Advance Steel. The software made it possible to integrate the site’s topographic survey directly into the model, significantly reducing the risk of errors and improving overall design accuracy.

Another key aspect of the project was the extensive use of connections—both custom and standard—required by the highly modular structure. This allowed the team to efficiently manage the connections between structural elements while maintaining consistency and precision within the model.

Challenges and how they were overcome

One of the main challenges of the project was the need to divide the structure into several lots to meet the construction site’s phased delivery requirements.

Thanks to the integrated automatic numbering features in Advance Steel, the team was able to efficiently manage structural elements by organizing them with differentiated marks and specific prefixes for each production lot. This ensured order and control throughout all phases of the project and production.

Benefits achieved with GRAITEC / Autodesk technologies

Using Autodesk Advance Steel and PowerPack per Advance Steel provided several benefits during the development of the project:

• Rapid creation of DWG files for anchor bolt layout and topographic positioning
• Advanced connection management and improved visualization of structural elements
• Efficient control of element numbering through differentiated marks and lot-specific prefixes
• Easy import of special elements through dedicated software functionalities
• Fast generation of bills of materials for quantity take-offs, bolts and shipping

Thanks to these features, Eurometallica was able to optimize both the design and production processes, improving operational efficiency while reducing the risk of errors.