City Life

Milan - Italy

Type

  • Housing 

Location

  • Milan - Italy

Year

  • 2011

Client

  • City Life

Activities

  • Preliminary design

Costs

  • 80.4 M euro

Area

  • 58.800 m2

The project concerns a portion of the well-known City Life district in Milan, standing on the area occupied by the old Milan Trade Fair. The district is totally pedestrian, integrated into Milan's third public park and served by a new metro line. The heart of the district are the three business towers located above the commercial basement that includes the metro station. Around them, there are some residential areas and services.

The project area is sited between the three business towers and the northern boundary of the complex. It is a residential completion consisting of two tower buildings and three in-line buildings. All the buildings, like the whole City Life, conform to the highest quality and energy standards. At the typological level, the project was developed with a view to concretely and simply ensuring the conditions for a total flexibility of flat sizes.

Read more

The main objective is to programmatically allow an adaptability of the flat sizes according to market demand. To this aim, three main strategies have been adopted:

- on the distributional typological level, overall choices were made to ensure the highest level of flexibility of the flats. The position and size of the staircase/lift core ensures, both in the towers and in the in-line types, the best and flexible distribution (two and four flats per floor)

- on the level of plant engineering, the possibility of a significant articulation of the service equipment, bathrooms and kitchens and their risers has been ensured, thanks to the adoption of plant positioning bands within which, on each floor, it is possible to freely reposition the sanitary facilities/kitchens.

- on an architectural level, solutions were adopted for the diversification of the flat sizes, according to the users’ needs. Both in the towers and in the in-line buildings, the façades are characterised by the presence of large stone elements in a free and apparently random position, such as to ensure the effective spatial autonomy of the most diverse flats.