Dontstop Architettura - Living in Maggiolina, near Villaggio dei Giornalisti
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Living in Maggiolina, near Villaggio dei Giornalisti

Dontstop Architettura

Housing  /  Completed
Dontstop Architettura

The 'Abitare in Maggiolina' project develops and regenerates a Milanese lot where the editorial office, offices and printing works of the daily newspaper 'Il Giorno' previously stood. The residential district of Maggiolina is located in the north of Milan, near Villaggio dei Giornalisti, where the Martesana canal emerges from the city's underground network near the Central Station. The project involved the construction of about 9,500 sqm of SLP on a plot of about 10,000 sqm: 124 flats for a planned total of about 300 inhabitants. The project, which began in April 2016, favoured the creation of a green heart in the centre of the lot, positioning the residential volumes in a 10-storey in-line building to the north and a 16-storey tower on the south-east side. Both buildings are the result of a continuous dialectic between two opposite poles of the project: the dynamic needs of the inhabitants, at the scale of the individual, and the static conditions of the context, at the scale of the city. Thanks to the design, technological and regulatory innovations of recent years (real-time BIM design, dry construction technologies, high-performance installations, and urban planning and energy legislation), the conditions have been created for innovating the architecture of buildings and radically reinterpreting in a contemporary key some historical themes of residential design, such as flexibility and modularity. The entire intervention re-proposes the concept of "open work", realising a series of overlapping plateu for the tower and a double-height façade grid for the in-line building, within which the inhabited volumes are then freely composed. The modular grid of the structure on which the volumes are built rules not only the plan design, but the entire volume in three dimensions, to control the architecture in every aspect. The integrated 3D design technologies, dry construction, ceiling and floor systems and contemporary building processes enabled the creation of an architecture with the highest possible degree of modularity and flexibility. The flexibility and volumetric customisation is expressed by the different design of the perimeter of each floor of the tower and the different depth of the 'accordion' façade of the building in line. These incremental processes allowed the project to create a recognisable architecture, integrated and in dialogue with the Milanese context of the neighbourhood. The project is strictly designed by the plateu and the grid, but at the same time it respond to the individual needs (and desires) of the inhabitants, allowing to design and customise each individual house, not only in the interior spaces but also in the exterior silhouette. The architecture of the tower has a differently shaped perimeter with large loggias on each floor, and the control of the volumetric empty/full ratios is marked vertically by the plateu on each floor, which cantilever and taper on the edge of the building's outline. The building in line, on the other hand, raised from the ground by a full eight metres to give continuity to the park and connect it to the public space of the street, draws different depths to each housing module, each "pixel" of façade, changing the relationship between interior space and loggia with respect to individual housing requirements. This differentiation of the depth of the flats with respect to the façade line creates a vibration of the "volumetric pixels" set in the double-height façade grid, which is meant to outline the architecture in the context and humanise the perception of the 8 storeys, halving their perceptive impact on the park. On a conceptual level, the most interesting aspect is that, potentially, modularity and flexibility in the three dimensions is a structural characteristic of the buildings, and as such (subject to urban planning/legislative authorisations), it is possible to modify and customise the volumes very easily, within the framework of the architecture of the tower's plateu and the façade grid of the in-line building, which instead remain unchanged in their relationship with the city and in their architectural definition. Incorporating this level of customisation and adjustment of the architecture, while maintaining a strong unified urban character, creates buildings that have a longer life cycle, because they are capable of adapting to future changes in the needs of the inhabitants and capable of incorporating new technologies over time. The inescapable confrontation with the sustainability of cities and the new challenges about flexibility and modularity of buildings, find in "Abitare in Maggiolina" one of the most innovative answer. This is not an inaccessible prototype, but it is a realised operation accessible to everyone: an "extraordinary" ordinariness that is a recurring motif of Dontstop Architettura's projects.

Credits

 Milan
 Italy
 Abitare In spa
 01/2021
 9.500 mq
 DONTSTOP Architettura
 DONTSTOP Architettura
 Davide Galli

Curriculum

DONTSTOP Architettura
Produces cultural and technical contents related to space.

DONTSTOP architettura is an architectural practice that was founded in Milan in 2011, by Michele Brunello and Marco Brega.

Thanks to the contribution of an international team of architects, designers, urban planners and an extensive network of collaborators, DONTSTOP architettura produces cultural and technical contents related to space, providing the appropriate key and tools for each project. From the architectural scale to the urban planning scale, passing through BIM (Building Information Modeling) design, DONTSTOP architecture follows the complex process of project conception, management and realisation at 360°. The horizontal structure of the firm has 3 departments: Architecture, Design, Research.

DONTSTOP
believes in doubt,
creates debate,
guides and marks,
erases its aesthetic.

http://www.dontstopper.it/it/p...


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