Co-partner in the project: Caputo Partnership


The area known as Cascina Merlata is located to the northwest of Milan, on the axis leading from the Malpensa airport. The zone is adjacent to the A4 Milan-Turin highway, to the north, and to Via Gallarate, to the south. The Masterplan of Cascina Merlata aims at achieving major territorial transformation within the municipal limits of Milan, with the primary goal of innovative development at a high level of quality. The project creates a new urban segment based on the most advanced principles of environmental sustainability, while developing a new focal point and improved territorial image thanks to a detailed mixture of functions, from housing to commerce, hospitality to office facilities, supported by services on a neighborhood scale and an urban scale, with the formation of a vast central park that will become the sustaining feature of the new urban area. The non-residential functions are concentrated to the north of the area, along the east-west axis of the A4 highway. The shopping center is composed of two buildings, one to the east and the other to the west of the off-ramp of the A4, connected by a third Bridge-Building, also set aside for shops. The natural level difference between the A4 highway and the level of the countryside in this area makes the emerging profile of the building correspond to the level of the shopping center, with the parking garage kept below the viewing level of motorists on the highway. The shopping level and the roof, utilized for physical plant elements, are contained in a semitransparent metal enclosure, about 10 meters in height, whose macro-scale texture of curved aluminum parts, like scales, shaped at the edges, conveys an immaterial image of the large constructed volume, whose contours are thus blurred and lightened by the semi-transparent skin that reflects light. The hotel tower has 19 levels; the main functions can be seen from the pedestrian plaza of the shopping center, faced by the entrance lobby, the restaurant, the bar and the offices. The building is in concrete; its wrapper, with a high level of thermal and acoustic performance, will be made with a facade of cells that can be opened only partially, and screened on the south and southwest sides. The office tower to the southwest of the plaza completes the system of non-residential functions with about 10,000 sq meters of space for offices; the building has 14 floors. The design calls for a continuous glass facade, with sunscreens to the southwest, similar to the screening planned for the roof of the shopping center.

Total surface sqm 70000