Covering around 3200 square meters, the project is located in the historic center of Milan, close to the most important landmarks and tourist spots, in an area that used to be the forum of the ancient Roman city of Mediolanum. The new building is composed of four wings with pitched roofs, creating three internal courtyards. It includes five stories above ground and five below ground, with parking spaces.
The building includes 193 high-end hotel rooms, a breakfast room and restaurant, a fitness center and commercial activities.
The ground floor of the hotel has three different entrances: a main pedestrian entrance along via Zecca Vecchia, with a car drop off station along the street; a vehicle entrance to the underground levels via two-way ramps, and a secondary pedestrian entrance from via Valpetrosa, along the portion of the street that leads to the nearby via Torino, one of the main commercial axes of the historic center.
The project aims to design a continuous frontage, by turning the heterogeneous nature of the facade into a design tool that highlights the hotel entrances. The materials and colors proposed recall the traditional milanese buildings, to perfectly fit within the context of urban fabric.
The area, predominantly residential along with more recent institutional buildings constructed in the 1800/1900s, is the heart of the historic center of the city. Before the demolition works in 2019, there was a single story parking building on the site, erected in 1949: an alien object that created a void in the city structure. The project aims to reconstruct the urban fabric of the historical neighborhood, restoring the connection with the surrounding context and following the maximum heights and the old roman orientations.
Additionally, because of its location the site presented a very high archeological risk, so a careful excavation is currently underway, with the objective of integrating any potential archeological discovery into the building design.
Careful background studies and analysis of the surroundings have been carried out, to make sure the proposed building would fit within the existing structure of
the city. The usage of traditional features such as stone, light painted render, iron balustrades, allowed us to stay true to the historical architectural language while delivering the design in a contemporary way.
Constant liaising with the municipality and other authorities ensured that the proposed intentions of the project would be shared and agreed with all involved parties.
To be able to reach the required depth for the archaeological excavation at -5 meters, retaining structures needed to be put in place. In order to optimize the ground works, the foundation piles have been sized and constructed to be able to bear the loads not only of the huge dig, but also of the new building to be erected above ground and the 5 stories of underground parking belo
