A Piece of City

The idea was to make two worlds, one hovering over the
other, with the space of the city flowing between.
We took the public space of the city through the building
bringing with it the stone floor of Milan.This opens the
university to the life of the city.The building feels like a city
in miniature.

A Window to Milan

At the most public corner we made a ‘window’ to Mila. The
aula magna occupies this corner asserting a symbolic
presence, a register of the prestigious status of the
University.The widened pavement forms a new urban space,
which reaches out to the city and beckons the visitor into the
heart of the interior.

A Place of Exchange.

The university is designed as a ‘place of exchange’ and Il
Broletto, the medieval market building in the centre of
Milan, was a reference point.

In order to make a grand space we thought about the
research offices as beams of space, suspended to form a
grand canopy, which filters light to all levels.The offices
form an inhabited roofscape.The underground world is solid,
dense and carved.

This floating canopy allows the space of the city to overlap
with the life of the university. Allows internal and external
public spaces to merge.

In search of gravity;

Responding to the character of Milan, hard on the outside,
friendly on the inside, we have made an edge which is like a
crusty ‘shield’, constructed in a robust material, Ceppo, the
local stone of Milan. We have worked this material in order
to give a sense of depth, density and mass as is the quality
of so many buildings in Milan.

Large concrete piers and wall beams at 25m centres support
roof beams from which the offices, courtyards and gardens
are hung. The structure has an elemental heroic quality at
the scale of the site.

Sustainability

For both architectural and environmental reasons the Aula
Magna and the Meeting Room volumes are expressed as
solids, either embedded and rising out of the ground as is
the case with the Aula, or cantilevered and floating over the
street as is the case with the Meeting Rooms.
This solid edge forms a microclimate giving protection
against solar gain from the west together with acoustic
protection to the north.
The strategy of the labyrinth of courtyards provides natural
ventilation and natural light to all of the offices and to some
of the public spaces below.
A study of lighting levels coordinated with design of
window systems and dimensions of glazed opening
provides limited glare and solar gain with max light to the
offices.
Opening windows in each office.
Artificial lighting can be modified accordingly with the
external lighting levels
All the Energy for the heating system is provided by a
ground source heat pump that uses the water table heat and
has zero emission in the atmosphere.