Reinventing Cities, Milan

This project was a research plan for the redevelopment of the old meatpacking district in Milan, Italy. Our strategy aims to celebrate its heritage, bring vegetation back, encourage low-carbon mobility and create a framework for sustainable lifestyles through a culturally and historically engaged approach.

ROLE

GXN Research & Innovation Intern

CLIENT

Reinventing Cities

DATE

Competition: May 2020

TEAM

3XN/GXN Architects

The Ex Macello site will become a new sustainable attractor in Milan 📍

This project was a research plan to find the best strategy to activate an abandonded site, with the concept of sustainability at its core.

Previously, this site was a place of great activity; people from all over and around Milan came here to sell and purchase meat. Every building in the site had its own purpose and identity and the industrial structures were tailor made for these uses.

Today the exchange of meat has become an exchange of music, art, and exhibition. Greenery has naturally taken over the old industrial structures, giving the area not only a new use but also a new green character. We want to maintain and build upon the multiple strands of heritage of this site – both cultural and natural.

THE CHALLENGE

A masterplan that will respect the culture of the area and inspire community growth.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Designing with sustainability, well-being and user engagement as the main drivers.

Project intentions

A distinct and authentic identity is the starting point for creating a sustainable neighbourhood that will endure over time and become knitted into the broader community and culture. The story of this unique site and how it has changed over time presents rich opportunities for placemaking - allowing us to grow and build upon the existing identity rather than importing a new and unconnected atmosphere.

👁 See

The visual identity of the site: a place where nature meets city.

❤️ Feel

The experience people will have here: a lively, village-like atmosphere.

🧠 Think

The values of this project: a resilient and inclusive community.

Combined, these three strategies guide us in creating a holistic, resilient, and authentic sense of place.

Placing the site in Milan

The Ex Macello site is situated in the south-east precinct of the city, on the edge of the city zone. The new residents of Ex Macello will be close to the city yet still able to take a walk around or a swim in the nearby Suburban Rural.

The site is surrounded by neighbors that exhibit many characteristics and traits that we believe our project must learn from, in order to be stitched into the surrounding context. These include a variety of functions, scales, and activities as well as varied materials and details.

Potentials of the site

The existing structures gift the site with a clear identity and a strong brand which vary in quality, scale, and materiality.

The redevelopment of old industrial areas into new uses is not only a sustainable approach but also gives a unique appearance to new facilities and the opportunity for distinctive, place-specific housing, which will be attractive to today’s city dwellers.

Development strategy

Our development strategy is subdivided into six approaches: urban city edge, lush green heart, connecting flow, four identities, active groundfloor, and vibrant public spaces.

Responding to the 10 challenges

The 10 Challenges, as presented by the Reinventing Cities initiative, provide a solid framework within which we have created our sustainability strategy for the Ex Macello site.

The challenges cover many aspects of sustainability at both the urban and building scale, and we have grouped them according to three main principles: 🌿 Designing with Nature, 🎉 Celebrating Heritage and 👫 Social Synergies.

These 3 principles have helped guide and focus our sustainability goals and architectural approach.

We believe in a holistic approach to sustainability – creating an internal ecosystem of interrelated strategies that support and reinforce each other on different scales. This ecosystem approach has helped us to identify areas of overlap between the strategies for each of the 3 principles.

We have paid particular attention to these overlaps, as this is where we can address multiple challenges at one time.

Celebrating Heritage

A distinct and authentic identity is the starting point for creating a sustainable neighbourhood that will endure over time and become knitted into the broader community and culture. The story of this unique site and how it has changed over time presents rich opportunities for placemaking - allowing us to grow and build upon the existing identity rather than importing a new and unconnected atmosphere.

Social Synergies

Environmental and social sustainability are core values for the creation of an inclusive, resilient community. We plan on building upon and celebrating the existing, while ensuring future adaptability and resilience. Social sustainability is nurtured via shared indoor and outdoor amenities that invite interaction. A mix of tenants is curated to seamlessly accommodate a wide variety of budgets, needs and functions – from social and assisted to market housing.

Social Synergies

A green park with lush vegetation in the heart of the site will offer a variety of different public activities while a vibrant and urban city edge will frame the park and respond to the urban and cultural context. The existing buildings will be stripped back to become open structures used for public activities and amenities such as greenhouses, no-waste food markets, sports activities, and exhibition pavilions. Some structures will be allowed to be taken over by nature, creating natural shaded areas and an authentic green setting.

User engagement

We will take a bottom-up process in engaging the community to encourage not only consultation but active participation. We believe that such a process, carried out from early in the development phases, will allow us to really understand the local context, who we are designing for and their needs, and provide a support system for the design.

1. The first round of workshops will be all about having open ears and eyes to find out from local people – of all ages and backgrounds – how they see the neighbourhood, what is important to them, and what sort of programmes and spaces they feel are most needed and wanted.

2. The next set of workshops will focus on roundtable discussions to define key principles that underpin the design. These principles do not necessarily involve the shape and form of the project, but the underlying values, themes and affects.

3. The final round of workshops will deal more specifically with the design proposals and options themselves, asking people for their reflections on the design, opening up a discussion and debate as to how to refine the design at both the urban and human scales.

Final thoughts

Learnings

🌍 Masterplans require extensive cultural research and community engagement.

Designing for a successful masterplan can be one of the most challenging tasks in architecture, especially in a place that has such a rich and long history. We understood that celebrating the culture, enhancing interactions and planting a lush green "heart" would be the most effective ways of creating a lasting and meaningful design.

🧨 Masterplans should be developed over many years, with designers acting as the initial "activation" catalysts.

The most successful cities enhance community interactions. However, they took years even centuries to develop layers of complexity and culture that make them unique. The same is true for masterplans– while designers can spark activation of an area, ultimately, it should be shaped and molded by its inhabitants. Users play an extremely significant role in giving a city its identity.

Next Steps

🗣 Conducting user workshops.

Carrying out the workshops to get feedback from various user groups of the community.

👂 Designing based on user feedback.

Developing our design so that it responds to the community feedback.