Designing for the public good. We feel we have turned an affordable housing project into an action to defend public space, giving it back to the community. The plot borders the park of Cascina Merlata, the largest housing development in Europe. Initially planned as a ‘gated community’, we have proposed to break the volume into two parts to give back the community a public space, creating a ‘urban door’ between the Village and the Park. The new Piazza is an open and accessible space for all people relating the different levels of the street and the park: a threshold between the built and nature. We physically design a square in material and chromatic continuity with the two towers of affordable housing (shred community spaces on the ground floor), to underline that sharing a collective space is a key point to strengthen the identity of the community. The square is a fun, fully accessible public space. The two towers (14 and 12 floor) seem to have been generated from the same volume, split in two. The towers are cladded in durable glass mosaic, recalling the Masters of Italian Architecture. The volume is NZeB, with photovoltaic, water recuperation and circularity of the materials.
