The laboratory. Innovation park Milan

The idea of redesigning and requalifying military sites and installations is an excellent opportunity in locations all over the world. The city of Milan, Italy has also noticed the opportunity and outlined a number of different sites in and around the city in their Piano Governale Territoriale(P.G.T. Milan Masterplan). The project site proposed here is a defunct military barracks northwest of the city center, in an area that currently has a number of redevelopment projects underway. The site is a 72,000 square meter walled off area, dissecting a flourishing community. There is a park adjacent to the site, and direct access to public transport by tram lines and buses to the southeast from Piazza Firenze. The Piazza is directly linked to the center of the city by Corso Sempione, which terminates at Parco Sempione, the largest and most important park in Milan which contains the Sforza Castle and the Trienalle Design Museum. The primary redevelopment features of the site, as outlined by the Milan PGT, is for the area to be at least 30% permeable park area, as well as new residential, and if possible offer public facilities to serve the greater good of Milan, Lombardia, and Italy. The proposed project is to create not only a new park for local residents, but a design park, workshop areas, exhibition spaces and low to mid income residential lofts. Milan is one of the World’s capitals for design and fashion. Not only does the city have a shortage of low income housing for students, young designers, architects and musicians, but it also has a major lack of rentable workshop space. The existing old growth trees dominating most of the site and the quality of the existing baracks structures around the perimeter resulted in an intuitive planning solution for the site. The old growth park will dominate while the existing buildings and new residential will wrap the boundaries and maintain the urban street grid of Milan. The primary new feature, the green fingers, will start in the heart of the park and grow their way up to the north corner of the site. These green fingers will house 2 and 3 stories of rentable workshop spaces for aspiring designers, architects and artists, who do not have the space to work at home. The southern block will also house music practice spaces in the green hills. The existing buildings to be refurbished will become gallery and exhibition spaces for the creative minds of this community and aspiring minds from potentially the entire world. The site as a whole will serve not only its new residents, workshop renters, and the surrounding community, but will serve as a new landmark for design in Milan. The site is linked with the Brera Design District and Trienalle Design Museum, as well as in close proximity to many exciting redevelopment projects in the city. The new structure rising from the 2 and 3 story green workshop spaces will be a new prototype for residential living. It not only provides a garden green space for each residence, but also ensures a level of privacy and isolation. As we know the working hours of many creative minds are not 9-5, and the noise levels are not always that of a library. The gridwork pattern allows the units to share only their vertical structure and the roof of their adjacent downstairs neighbor for their outdoor space and garden. The complex will be a desirable place for not only young designers, but also established professionals who will pass the workshop spaces on their way home at night and see what new ideas are being realised down in the labs. The gridwork of the different sizes and different heights of the various units will also create a building with a high level of transparency. Almost half of the mass of the building is removed and serves as the previously mentioned private garden spaces. At each of these gardens the building facade will be a complete void with only the vegetation or works of the residents filling the gaps. The result is the park facade being an eclectic gridwork of green rising from the park and green workshop fingers followed by the gardens and outdoor spaces of the residents. The street facades will also be dynamic, as they possess the same voids, but have also been carefully designed to consider the new functions, open up the site to the community, respect the urban fabric of the surroundings, as well as the military heritage of the site. The project will contain over three times the green space as the building’s physical footprint, and the permeable area of the park is around 50% of the site area.