Login
Registered users
The project revitalizes a 1950s structure, formerly a Pirelli school-workshop, restoring its value after being transformed in a space for events and training in the 1990s, with a project that compromised the original character of the interiors, and then abandoned for some time. The complex consists of two parts: a building originally intended for classrooms and later converted into offices, and a characterful factory with a brick structure and a shed metal roof. The client’s brief was to create new high-quality office spaces from an abandoned building complex without compromising the historical character of the surrounding environment. The proposal reads the potential of the original structural module, which is recovered, updated and reformed in a new general layout.
Cast your vote giving a wish to this project.
Located on an area of 6800 sqm bordering the company's plant at Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, on the opposite side of the large avenue leading to Monza, the structure was at first designed to welcome 150 students, but was already organized for successive expansion that would soon double its size. The complex was composed of three buildings aligned with the traffic artery. The project creates a new harmonious layout by aligning seamlessly the classroom-turned-office spaces with the brick building and demolishing a portion of the connecting building, thus emphasizing the courtyard facing Viale Fulvio Testi.
The renewal of the building’s appearance and insulation not only addresses practical concerns but also revitalizes its visual impact fostering a new harmony and proportion among the construction components. Testi 223 achieved the LEED® Gold Certification and WiredScored Certification employing strategies through material selection, energy-efficient systems, and sustainable construction practices to minimize both embodied and operational carbon footprints. Moreover, Testi 223 has won the In/Architettura Lombardia 2023 Award in the “Building Renovation” category, “for the enhancement of the typological and constructional characteristics of existing structures achieved through an elegant contemporary reconfiguration of the architectural elements.”
Minimal planimetric changes ensure the preservation of the surrounding park and revisiting the original structural modules and reclaiming their potential, the design seeks to honor the building’s heritage while aligning it with contemporary needs. The office building’s body, characterized by a neat system of metallic panels, maintains the same proportion as the existing concrete panels but is painted in a matte brick-red colour, standing in contrast with the horizontal body of the brick building. Instead, the former Pirelli factory building is entirely preserved, except for modifications made to the windows and roof for energy efficiency reasons.
We were amazed of the transformation from an abandoned building complex into new office spaces, all while preserving the historical character of the site. The tough challenge in fact, was to restore a building so closely tied to the post-war industrial history of Milan without being afraid to intervene, yet without radically altering it. The pursued goal was to adapt it first into a high-quality space and then to meet the high-performance energy standards that are essential today.
ARW was founded in 2016 as a workshop that turns a specific situation into a reflection and into a statement concerning the meaning of architecture. Lead by two architects and founding partners Camillo Botticini (1965) and Matteo Facchinelli (1977), who propose research able to synthesize meaningful architectural forms and deal with contemporary living spaces and their meaning, from an urban scale to that of the object.
The practice is constantly looking for the project’s site-specific identity as in the best Italian tradition, able to be local in a global world an essential reference point. The dialogue between the concept of an idea and the conditions of the surroundings generates the juxtaposition in which the design transformation interval is placed.
