Country/Region: Italy

Milano 2035 –The Youth Housing Coalition In Milano

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Milano 2035 –The Youth Housing Coalition In Milano

Mismatches Price
Promotion and production Public promotion

Main objectives of the project

In a global city as Milan, young people struggle to find a housing option that suits them. Yet, a city, to thrive, needs to retain young professionals and students. For this reason, Milano 2035 was born. Consisting of a network of institution, private entities and foundations, Milano 2035 offers alternative housing options (social housing, cohousing, intergenerational housing…) to young people in the Italian city, building a coalition and an innovative governance scheme to guarantee the right to the city.

Date

Stakeholders

  • Milan City Hall
  • Cariplo Foundation

Location

Continent: Europe
Country/Region: Italy, Milan

Description

The Milanese metropolitan area offers abundant work and training opportunities, but these advantages are counterbalanced by an insufficient and exclusionary housing system, especially in terms of affordable options. As young individuals embark on their careers, they often find themselves relying on the private rental sector due to its flexibility and their limited financial resources. Unfortunately, social rent options are scarce for young people in Italy, leading them to face high rental prices, particularly in major cities like Milan where rents can soar to around 750 euros for a room in a shared household, despite relatively modest salaries. This disparity in housing affordability often means that their prospects are heavily influenced by the level of financial support they receive from their families.

Recognizing this challenge, "Milano 2035 – The Youth Housing Coalition" was established to address the housing needs of young people in the Milanese metropolitan area. This coalition, comprising 30 public and private entities such as associations, foundations, cooperatives, businesses, and local institutions, operates under the umbrella of the Cariplo Foundation's Welfare in Action program and receives sponsorship from the Lombardy Region and the Municipality of Milan. It encompasses 22 housing projects, ranging from individual residences or buildings to dispersed arrangements, providing a total of 300 housing units. These projects encompass various models including youth cohousing, residences accommodating both young people and those with specific needs, intergenerational shared housing, and apartments within public housing.

In addition to housing provision, Milano 2035 offers additional services such as a "repair café" for refurbishing furniture and household appliances, support for volunteering and active citizenship, and guidance services for both prospective landlords and young tenants. By fostering collaboration and synergy among existing youth residences, supporting practitioners in developing new projects, and facilitating spaces for idea exchange between young people, practitioners, and institutions, the coalition aims to amplify the impact of individual initiatives and advocate for youth housing issues on the political agenda.

The creation of this coalition aims to consolidate isolated projects, share best practices, and establish a critical mass to advocate for youth housing needs. By nurturing this extensive network, stakeholders feel empowered and gain access to vital resources. For young people, this translates into increased availability of affordable housing, reduced living costs (e.g., through furniture reuse), and enhanced relationships and community engagement opportunities.

Links

Authors:

CSCAE Consejo Superior de los Colegios de Arquitectos de España

Villaggio Gandusio - Fight Energy Poverty and Act on the Community

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Villaggio Gandusio - Fight Energy Poverty and Act on the Community

Mismatches Segregation Functional adequacy Vulnerable groups Climate change
Policies and regulations Participatory processes
Promotion and production Public promotion Participatory processes

Main objectives of the project

Bologna is a vivid city, with a dynamic university atmosphere and a rich diversity of people and economy. Yet, rental prices are one of the highest in Italy. Moreover, the few social housing units that exist face two interrelated issues: building degradation and social vulnerability. To tackle both of them, the Municipality of Bologna started a refurbishment of Villaggio Gandusios social hosuing units. The goal was to make them ecologically resilient in a context of increasing heat waves while acting on their communities, building a stronger social engagement of the neighbours.

Date

  • 2018: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Promotor: ACER

Location

Continent: Europe
Country/Region: Bologna, Italy

Description

Over time, the public housing complex located at Via Gandusio no. 6-8-10-12 has not only suffered from typical physical deterioration but has also witnessed a rise in social tensions. This escalation is partly attributed to the clustering of vulnerable situations within the same environment, negatively impacting the overall housing quality and neighborhood dynamics. In response to these challenges, the Municipality of Bologna, operating through its management entity, ACER, initiated a comprehensive endeavor in 2018 to renovate the buildings and enhance energy efficiency. However, the primary aim extended beyond mere energy resilience of the buildings regarding heat waves. The main goal was to address the social needs of the residents.

The renovation process encompassed various measures, including upgrading façades with thermal insulation, improving maintenance of balconies, roofs, atriums, and stairwells, enhancing electrical and gas systems, replacing fixtures, and installing heat meters across 160 apartments and communal areas.

The overarching challenge was to transform one of the city's most problematic public housing areas into a hub of social innovation, serving as a model for potential replication. Villaggio Gandusio aimed to integrate seamlessly into the neighborhood fabric, prioritizing living quality and social inclusion through sustainable social diversity and collaborative projects. Achieving this objective necessitated coaching, social mediation, and fostering peaceful coexistence among residents. To facilitate this, dedicated facilitators maintained a permanent presence within the community, supplemented by training sessions to empower residents as facilitators themselves. The refurbishment office also housed social mediators who actively addressed conflicts and introduced digital communication channels for neighbor interactions.

Furthermore, efforts were made to enhance communal spaces and green areas through community-driven activities, fostering a stronger sense of belonging and unity among residents. A key aspect was promoting a more diverse community makeup, exemplified by an agreement with Er.go (Regional Authority for the Right to Higher Education) to allocate certain apartments to low-income university students engaged in community care projects, particularly assisting residents' children with after-school activities, which proved to be highly successful.

This transformative project turned Via Gandusio from a conflict-ridden and neglected area into a beacon of civic engagement and cooperation between residents and public institutions, serving as a blueprint for similar interventions in other large social housing complexes. Through the dedicated efforts of social mediators, this approach instilled a positive sense of community, empowered residents, nurtured care and respect for shared resources, and facilitated the formation of self-support networks among neighbors.

Links

Authors:

CSCAE Consejo Superior de los Colegios de Arquitectos de España

Viale Giulini Affordable Housing

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Viale Giulini Affordable Housing

Policies and regulations
Urban Design
Promotion and production

Main objectives of the project

A compact and down-to-earth architecture.

Date

  • 2020: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Junko Kirimoto
  • Architect: Massimo Alvisi

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Barletta
Country/Region: Barletta, Italy

Description

The complex, divided into 3 blocks, counting 50 residential units including car parks and commercial activities, looks like a C-shaped monolith, spanning a height of 6 floors. The regularity of the elevations represents the main character of the building: the uniform dark grey brick curtain becomes a neutral score where dynamic rhythms are delivered by white protruding loggias.

All the apartments are organized around a courtyard, which occupies over 70% of the lot. The courtyard is designed as a small park, where the inhabitants can leave the chaos of the city behind, and enjoy trees and deciduous plants, which provide shade in summer and natural light in winter.

During the day, natural light reduces the apparent weight of the building, the volumes of the loggias and balconies become slight, combining the material and the abstract, lightness and gravity with maximum simplicity.
The project, conceived as the 'zero point' of a general redevelopment of this part of the city, breaks away from the typical forms of social housing construction. The main interest was working on the typology and quality of the spaces, not only on the design.

To balance the gravity of the volume, whose profile on the ground floor bends to expand the public space, we imagined a series of light and permeable loggias hanging on the facade, 'democratically' attributing extra space to everyone. What’s more, thanks to their white and perforated surfaces, they reflect natural light within the domestic environment, and they add a further 10 to 15 m2 to the apartments, enhancing the spatial quality of the more modest and limited typological cuts.

Rigorous lines, essential shapes and balanced colors: the result is a simple and refined design - in contrast with the eccentricity of the surrounding buildings - which restores dignity to social housing in the suburbs. A project that, with the same grace with which it stands, brings the theme of quality accommodation at affordable prices back to the heart of the architectural debate.
The building is highly innovative from a technological aspect. The solutions adopted ensure that the internal and external loggias are prefabricated and reproducible in series, without renouncing the richness of detail and durability. This strategy, shared with the client, has made it possible to make quality social housing and to deliver a unique, safe and durable home, with an extremely limited budget for the current market.

The balconies overlook Viale Giulini to optimize the natural light, and carved into the volume in the other elevations to limit the solar radiation. Protected from rain at the top and laterally by perforated sheet metal screens to increase the privacy. Their shape allows for maximum customization, without altering the general aesthetics of the facades.

The ground floor of the building transmits solidity and dynamism: the cladding starts from the ground, rooting the building, while a clear vertical diagonal cut boosts the volume. The same inclination is applied horizontally between the lateral elevations and the main front, as well as the roof parapet, which hides the thermal solar panels.

Authors:

Residential Complex at Gallarate

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Residential Complex at Gallarate

Financing
Urban Design
Promotion and production

Main objectives of the project

Construction of 20 apartments in the historical centre of Gallarate between via Roma e via Postporta distributed in two four storey building. The urban insert is conceived giving great importance to the external spaces, to the public and private paths, reproposing the traditional Lombard courtyard and the alleys of the ancient town.

Date

  • 2020: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Marta Rodrigues
  • Architect: Edison Okumura
  • Architect: Roberto Cremascoli
  • Architect: Álvaro Siza Vieira

Location

Continent: Europe
Country/Region: Italy

Description

Gallarate is a small town between Malpensa airport and Milan, situated within the natural area of the Park of Ticino, therefore submitted to lanscape bound. The vacant plot (50x60 m approximately) available for the construction is inserted in the limit between the fabrics of the historical centre and the Liberty period – the twentieth-century Borgomaneri factory facing the complex in via Roma is a good example. The functional program consists of 20 apartments with surface areas ranging from 75 to 270 m2, and housing typology varying from studios to four-bedroom apartments, 94 parking spaces and 20 cellars. There are 4 levels above ground and 2 under ground. The buildings are 15 m wide inclusive of the loggia (2m). The main courtyard is 10 m wide and 41.6 m deep. The apartments on the top of each builiding are duplexes with large terraces facing the urban landscape and the Park of Ticino.
The main concern has undoubtedly been to respect the continuity to the urban grid, designing the new volumes considering the hights of the sorrounding buildings and the conformation of the adjacent plots. Despite the fact that it consists of a private intervention, the functional program included municipal parking spaces, and a public autonomous pedestrian pathway (permeability of the plot), open during most part of the day, connecting via Roma to via Postporta. All this results in the city entering and crossing the complex. Both the resident and the no resident pedestrians experience the feeling of entering a small town marked by some elements that provide the complex with an articulate characterictic: from the portals that sign the entrances, to the volumes that rise from the basements, illuminating the underground levels with natural light. From the study of the dwelling typolgy point of view, the choice of designing apartments with double exposures (east-ovest) ensures a better thermal efficiency (cross ventilation) and an optimal solar orientation. Large balconies work as an extension of the living rooms.
In the 50x60 m plot, the two buildings, with reinforced concrete structure and post-tensioned floors, placed 10m apart from one another, bound a large rectangular courtyard with generous green spaces, and are designed as two different typologies of buildings: the smaller one, facing via Roma is an autonomous body, similar to a modern villa; the larger one, U-shaped, encloses another courtyard and interacts with the oldest part of the town.

The green spaces run through the plot, under covered passageways, galleries, or climbing the ritainig walls at the limits of the project. The stone material travertino cover entirely the construction, reaching the underground floors through the ventilation patios. The external paths are covered with grained stone and curbs in travertino. The vegetation characterizes not only the external ground floor level, but also the roofs of the buildings which are covered mostly with green areas. The only exception is where the photovoltaic panels are located. The concern about the energy efficiency is highlighted also by the presence of geothermal probes, used both for heating (floor heating) and hot domestic water.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

Social Housing at Marianella

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Social Housing at Marianella

Policies and regulations
Financing
Promotion and production

Main objectives of the project

The Marianella project (1983-1988) in Naples focused on rebuilding post-1980 earthquake. Objectives involved transforming a serial-type plan into dynamic urban interventions, creating three-floor residential blocks with courtyards. Using the French prefabrication system, it successfully addressed both housing needs and the reintegration of the outskirts.

Date

  • 1989: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Franco Purini
  • Architect: Aldo Aymonino
  • Architect: Laura Thermes

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Naples
Country/Region: Italy, Naples

Description

The idea behind the project for a block in Marianella, a center of the outskirts of Naples, consists in making react a type-morphological plan of serial nature, with the outline of the area, considered as a perimeter on which are projected different conditions of the context. In contact with such a outline, which is configured as an active margin, the model undergoes a series of subtractions that are proposed as architectural variations of the plan. It is subtracted so to the repetition inherent in the initial model by purchasing a geometric and plastic variability, which results in an increase of the complexity of the urban intervention.
The intervention for sixtyfour accommodation in Marianella, in the metropolitan area of Naples, was designed in 1983 and completed in 1988 after the earthquake of 1980, an event that ruined not only the historical center of the city but also the peripheral expansions. The project was thought both to be to rebuild a number of destroyed houses and to reconnect separate parts of the peripheral tissue. A urban fabric in which was spread a courtyard typology, which gave rise to complex residential units designed to accommodate families of farmers in the Neapolitan countryside. The project has taken this typological matrix, obviously transformed, proposing a series of residential blocks of three floors, organized around two types of courtyards. On the larger courtyards overlook houses with continuous balconies supported by iron pillars; the smallest include the stair’s towers which, through four gangways, distribute eight apartments for each floor. The residential blocks are made with the French prefabrication system “banches e tables” and then plastered. The stairs have an iron structure covered with tuff. Also the portals of entry to the courts are made with tuff.

Documents

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

Apartment Building D, Giudecca

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Apartment Building D, Giudecca

Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

This building is part of a large urban renewal plan on the former Junghans industrial plant site. The plan involves constructing a new urban fabric and converting existing industrial buildings into residential spaces. The D building replaces a utilitarian structure on a corner between two canals. The building utilizes traditional materials and technical solutions, with three types of window openings that align with varying floor plans. The design aims to capture glimpses of the surrounding area while transforming traditional elements into graphic motifs. The project seeks a contemporary approach that values the innovations of the Modern Movement without being limited by its rigid principles. It prompts us to consider the challenges of contemporary architecture in avoiding commercial pastiches and questioning the balance between modernity, permanence, individuality, and the collective nature of cities.

Date

  • 2001: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Constructor: Fratelli Carnieletto snc
  • Architect: Cino Zucchi Architetti

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Venice
Country/Region: Italy

Description

This building is part of a large urban renewal plan on the site of the former Junghans industrial plant on the island of the Giudecca. The general urban scheme, implemented on the basis of the results of a closed competition won by the author, acts as a sort of microsurgery within the delicate body of the city with the construction of a new urban fabric and the renovation of existing industrial buildings converted to residential use. The D building is a new construction which substitutes an utilitarian building on the corner between two canals.
The materials and the technical solutions of the building are very traditional and the details of their use reveal the impossibility of an historicist replica. The façades have only three kinds of window openings and their irregular disposition follows the varying floor plans of the apartments in a search for glimpses of the Redentore apse, the canals and the Laguna. The traditional plain white stone window corniche of the minor historical Venetian architecture is changed in proportion and transfigured into a graphic motif and the crowning of the perimeter walls hides the gable roof required by the local regulations, reconducting the volume to an abstract image which is doubled by the reflection in the canal waters. Beside its specific attributes generated by the very constrained technical and economical reality of subsidised housing, the project is trying to establish a contemporary attitude toward our urban landscape, which treasures the spatial and formal innovations of the Modern Movement without being trapped into its Sachlichkeit moralisms.

If Walter Benjamin prophetically understood the complex relationships between high-brow and popular culture in the age of technical reproduction, one wonders about the possibilities of contemporary architecture to employ the resonances of the well-known and the banal without falling into the pastiches of commercial architecture which is transforming the whole world into a commodified skin-deep image. The resistance to urban kitsch, at least in Venice, cannot take the simple forms of structural honesty or adopt fashionable avant-garde attitudes, but forces us to question again the problems of modernity versus permanence and individuality versus the collective artifact of the city.

Authors:

Housing on Giudecca

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Housing on Giudecca

Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

Collective housing

Date

  • 1986: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Valle Architetti Associati

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Venice
Country/Region: Italy, Venice

Description

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona