A Green and Open Campus for Bocconi and Milan
Milanese, green and open to the city. These will be the characteristics of the new Bocconi Campus in the area of the former Centrale del latte, between via Castelbarco and Parco Ravizza, designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa's SANAA studio and presented this morning at the University in a meeting with Milan's mayor, Giuliano Pisapia, the city councillor for city planning and private building, Ada Lucia De Cesaris, Università Bocconi's rector, Andrea Sironi, and the CEO, Bruno Pavesi.
"The project for the 35,000 sqm of the former Centrale del latte area meets three Bocconi priorities", said Bruno Pavesi. "First, we are going to concentrate all the activities of SDA Bocconi School of Management, fulfilling the diverse demands of different users, thanks to three buildings devoted, respectively, to MBA and Masters Programs, Executive Programs and the Administration, besides a smaller common services area. Second, we are going to provide a sports and recreation center open to the public with an olympic-size swimming pool, indoor training facilities and a fitness center. Third, we are going to meet the growing demand for lodgings for foreign students and visiting professors, thanks to a dorm with 300 places".
The area will be serviced by an underground parking lot and only half of the surface will be covered: 17,500 sqm will be left green, and there will be 4,000 more sqm of created greenery.
Università Bocconi reckons to invest €130M at current costs and to complete the effort, after the reclamation of the area, before the end of 2018.
It's a Milanese campus because it's been designed for the Milan urban context and scale, said the designers, who won an invitation-only international competition announced in 2012. The project revisits the porticos and the cloisters of historical Milanese palaces with a modern twist, creating a series of communicating courtyards and gardens, enclosed by the buildings or by portico awnings These areas touch one another directly in order to allow smooth flows of people through the buildings and the park. The dorm tower, as is the case with other Milanese residential buildings, saves surface, which can thus be given to greenery.
It's a transparent campus because Università Bocconi's openness to the surrounding city is symbolized by the porticos which underpin the buildings, so that the harmonious sequence of columns, openings and trees is visible from any viewpoint. Exterior walls are 50% opaque and 50% glazed.
"Communicating spaces and transparencies highlight the idea of flow", Bocconi's rector, Andrea Sironi, said, "that in a university means both flow of ideas and flow of people. This development will complete our urban campus, which includes also the buildings in via Sarfatti, via Roentgen, via Gobbi, piazza Sraffa and via Bocconi".
The 21,500 sqm green area has been designed in continuity with the nearby Parco Ravizza. Oak, common hornbeam, black poplar, elm and European nettle tree have been chosen due to their ability to adapt to the soil (they are present in Parco Ravizza) and their shading capacity. As a counterpoint to these large trees, smaller trees already present in the Milanese ecosystem, even if not autochthonous, have been chosen, such as sweetgum and Japanese pagoda tree.
The park (closed only in the night hours for security reasons) isn't the only part open to the public. The same is true of the sports center, three storeys high, which will rise along viale Toscana. The project includes the first indoor olympic-sized (50-meter) swimming pool in town, and a smaller training and therapy pool. On the second floor there will be modular gyms equipped for basketball and volleyball, a 2,000 sqm fitness center and an indoor running ring 250 meters long, while the third floor will be for student associations. The sports facilities will be available to the public following agreements to be made with city authorities.