The site lies in the consolidated housing row characterized by regular lots with buildings of different heights and varied facade design, albeit aligned and respecting of the consequential principle of the street fronts. The district is devoid of significant architectural and landscape elements, instead being today particularly degraded due also to a road layout now affected by a high density of vehicular traffic. The general plan concerns the definition of a new urban reference that, on the area of the pre-existing Montedison headquarters and equal in surface area with the latter, is able to accommodate residences and shops located at the foot of the building, within a context that could be an opportunity for the rehabilitation and visibility of the surrounding area. The rules on the densification of vertically developed structures and on the possibility of liberating free space on the ground come from the commission. The latter, among the proposals of the various studies consulted, has favored the solution that best characterizes the building as a dialectic expression between contemporaneity and tradition, between tradition and modernity, contrasting the desire with the need of living in Milan. The project develops infact from the image of the tower as a typology able to highlight one of the identifying characteristics of the city, developing an interpolation, or better a studied morphing, between the varied sections of the Velasco Tower and the Pirelli skyscraper’s vertical clefts. The solution proposed, therefore, is represented by the sculptural image of a vertical body divided and arranged into 4 volumetric units characterized by the presence of large intermediate grooves that accentuate the sleek silhouette beyond a lower block that recovers the skyline of the adjacent facade. The complex, programmatically organic in architectural language, breaks the monolithic appearance of the former building wall, identifying a landmark for the entire neighborhood, a new perimeter of ground space, and a different use of the road, which enters into the lot through a small square. The project takes advantage of the collaboration with artists, architects, photographers and contemporary designers, involved in the characterization of the space. The functional allotment is structured in 4 underground parking floors (for 300 cars); ground floor with mixed use (commercial, public space and paths, access); health club and pool (4supth /supand 5supth/sup floors); 22 floors of apartments; restaurant and roof terraces on the 23suprd/sup floor, two of which recall the Milanese tradition of hanging gardens. The interior and exterior housing spaces make up a continuous system of loggias, which provide light through large glass openings, formalizing the double skin technology as a criteria of energy efficiency applied to the shielding of the façades. The latter alternate with the gold-glazed ceramic stone cladding of the clefts.
Torre delle Arti | Architecture | Residential building |
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