Description

Urban context

The former Alfa Romeo factory grounds in Milan were transformed into a new urban
district with a series of different public street and plaza spaces. The grand
scale of the building alludes to the former industrial use of the area. The
architectural ensemble is formed from five solitary towers slightly shifted in
relation to one another; they are supplemented by three eight-story residential
slabs and a centrally located former factory cafeteria that has been converted
into an office building. The two northernmost residential towers create a
gatelike situation and hence represent the starting point for a pedestrian axis
that runs diagonally through the neighborhood; on the far side of the multilane
ring road it leads to the main entrance of a parking lot located further
south.

Ground-floor zone

The public street and plaza spaces have been coordinated to be experienced
sequentially and have been provided with situationally designed, carefully
planted urban furnishings. Hard paved surfaces supplemented by strips of natural
stone materialize the urban atmosphere. The three slabs are combined into a
block-like structure by means of floor-height walls on the ground-floor level.
The communal garden zones are behind these walls. Three of the solitary towers
are also surrounded by a garden that is only accessible from public urban space
by way of a gate. The residential buildings have a deep arcade zone, extending
to two stories and emphasized by white natural stone, as a transition to public
space.

Building structure

The project is distinguished by clearly worked-out intersections between public,
semipublic, and private spaces. The ground floors of the solitary towers are
excluded from residential use. They serve as a communicative interim zone
between private and urban space. In addition to various other additional
functions, they house spacious lobbies that lead to the central, compact
stairwells. The apartments were designed to provide optimal visual connections
with the park to the south.

Facade

The facade openings are highly diverse, with a wide variety of forms,
proportions, colors, and materials. The horizontal layer of the facade
reinforces this morphological variation with the help of rolling and sliding
elements, balcony zones hung in front of the facade, and indented loggias. The
distinction between base floors, standard floors, and sculpturally formed top
floors also contributes to this. Nevertheless, the design of the facade as a
whole comes together into an overarching composition of corporeal architecture.
Attention was paid to optimizing individual living qualities that respond to the
given situation as well as to creating a striking urban form. The result is an
urbanistic gesture that achieves a stable balance between the individual and the
collective.

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Originally published in: Ulrike Wietzorrek, Housing+: On Thresholds, Transitions, and Transparencies, Birkhäuser, 2014.