Thesis title:
New Gate MIND Milan
Date of discussion:
October 2022
Students:
Eden Nimni
Professors of the Studio:
Francesca Battisti (Architectural Design)
Grigor Angjeliu (Structural and Seismic Design)
Massimiliano Nastri (Sustainable Technology)
Francesco Romano (Services Design for Sustainable Buildings)
Giovanni Dotelli (Sustainable Materials for Architecture)
Abstract:
The former Expo Milan 2015’s site is undergoing an overall urban renewal aimed at the rise of the future Milan Innovation District. Within this frame, the area of intervention chosen for the thesis’s theoretical and project research is the north-eastern entrance, the future Innovation Park, connecting MIND “inner” urban district with the water ring and the main parking zone.
Identifying the site’s potential, the thesis project reinforces the current main axis and the east entrance through a further “public anchor”: the Museum and Research Center for new Sustainable Technologies in Construction and Design. The green paths are redesigned to be better integrated with the adjacent urban anchors and the main one intersects the park from Mind’s Decumanus, defining the building’s footprint.
The east façade is designed as a glazed elliptic opening, revealing the view of the hill from the east. The opposite view, from the hill itself, reveals instead a set of tree-like columns, supporting a curved green roof, ideal continuation of the park. The “wood” of massive columns dictate the circulation within the building while providing light and ventilation as they are used as inner courtyards, accessible from the building’s underground floor, where the research activities are concentrated. Directly from the park, the main path introduces into this “inhabited terrain”, the innovation and research environment, through the main ramp which penetrates in a scenographic way into the hypogeal level.