Bernina 7, dialogue with the present and future external context

Can a building anticipate future challenges? Instead of waiting passively for changes, the building in Bernina Street 7, in Milan moves with a pioneering vision and activates OPEN dynamics. That’s precisely the goal of the new life of the property: to make it an open system, dialoguing with the present and future external context. Bernina 7 will become an office building, anticipating the transformation trends that will affect the huge area of Scalo Farini: sustainability not only through the passive systems (photovoltaic, water management, energy consumption management, etc.) but also through the active ones (reconstruction of green oases to promote biodiversity, climate impact management). The property will become a reference both for the residents and for people who will visit this place for work or leisure. The entire neighborhood will offer a wide range of food and commercial establishments, where one can also work – all this in an area that is currently under-served.
The Bernina 7 project targets LEED Gold certification.

CONCEPT
Today, Bernina 7 is an office building of approximately 23,000 square meters of area, characterized by an introverted nature and lacking identity and recognition. Furthermore, the building has useless external and internal spaces, which do not dialogue with the city. The main goal of the concept design of the building is to create an open and dialoguing system with the external context, turning the building into an outpost of the neighborhood, which anticipates future changes and offers a privileged point of view on the transformations that will take place in the area of the former Scalo Farini.
The reasons for the redevelopment can be condensed into four key points of the “OPEN” concept:
1) Open Square – allowing the building to manage different levels of relationship between public and private spaces, with the dynamic and open welcome area, designed as a system for regulating the modularity of the square, and with two buildings as front magnetic boxes that light up to make the road safer and more alive.
2) Open Landscape focuses on the theme of sustainability: Bernina 7 will transform its external areas and roofs into green squares, terraces and gardens that will not only encourage local biodiversity but will also provide people with places to experiment with new sociability by having a privileged point of view on the area's landscapes – also thanks to the addition of two panoramic floors. The building will be updated according to LEED protocols to ensure an improved energy balance of the building and also a certified quality of the environments intended for the multiple activities.
3) Open Work – imagining a building ready to welcome modern, efficient and flexible ways of working, with different accesses, the availability of outdoor spaces and large terraces ready to take up the spaces of decompression spaces and those of nature.
4) Open Scalo Farini is the desire to anticipate all the issues that the transformation of the Scalo Farini will put in place in the years to come. It means turning towards the Scalo Farini area to be ready to see and to be seen by the city of the future.
LOCATION
The building is located in an area mainly characterized by an urban void (the "Scalo Farini") which will undergo a deep transformation in the near future, with the forecast of a mix of urban functions that will come into direct contact with the project area right through the Bernina Street.
In fact, the new Scalo Farini area will have a new urban park of 300,000 square meters organized in large open spaces. It will also include important service buildings for the newly built residences in the area, as well as buildings of crafts and manufacturing activity.
The perspective of the Scalo Farini area development defines the view towards the new purpose of the building in Bernina Street 7 that is undergoing the intervention.


As a result, Bernina 7 will become a space characterized by a strong identity, alive and in continuous dialogue with the neighborhood and the city. This is how the project takes advantage of the great unexpressed potential of the property, anticipating a new way of living the building through its functions and the connections that this space creates within the urban area. The main goal is to carry out a redevelopment that prepares the building to enter and become part of the broader vision of the area.
It is in this way that the building declares its first opening (OPEN) towards the future, towards the new Scalo Farini: a new building, oriented towards the new challenges.