Milan, how Piazzale Loreto will be redeveloped: the winning project

MILANO Loc, acronym of Loreto Open Community, already contains the whole philosophy of the winning project of the competition for the urban redevelopment of Piazzale Loreto, launched by Reinventing Cities. From an anonymous junction congested with traffic to the symbol of a new idea of square as an incubator of activities, a cultural hub and a district of neighborhood commerce, through a “contemporary architectural project that builds an open and empty space”, as defined in summary by Andrea Boschetti of Metrogramma, coordinator of the design team for the Loreto node and designer of the future square. 

The project, realized thanks to the plural contribution of Metrogramma Milano, Mobility In Chain, Studio Andrea Caputo, LAND, Temporiuso and Squadrati Srl, aims to become a model of living in Milan that promotes public and collective space.  “The new square, connected to NoLo and designed in continuity between Corso Buenos Aires, Viale Monza and Via Padova - explains Boschetti - will also be a ‘way of living Milan’ that promotes and enhances the public and collective spaces. To design it we started from the cultural and social history of the neighborhood, from listening to the different realities that live together in Via Padova and from a knowledge of the soul of Milan”. In the new urban district there will be mainly small businesses, in line with the idea of “a city in 15 minutes”, a co-working space, a neighborhood nursery school and an intense socio-cultural program that will also serve as a stable presence in a “former difficult area”.

A system of plazas developed on three levels will connect the street level, the subway access and the roofs of the buildings with steps and ramps that fluidly join the ground level with the basement level, protected by a ‘green curtain’. In addition, the building on Via Porpora, integrated into the plaza system, will be redesigned and will include a tower. Co-author of the masterplan for the redefinition of Piazzale Loreto is Andrea Caputo of the homonymous studio, which also dealt with the architectural scale design of the fourth side of the square, redesigning the aforementioned tower building on Via Porpora: “the project is integrated into the system of the square, which defines a new iconic landmark for the city”. The new architecture will give back to the citizens 10,000 square meters of green public space with 500 tall trees planted directly on the ground, in order to create a natural microclimate, an oasis where citizens can stop. The traffic will go around the square; the first part of Via Padova, up to the Giacosa roundabout, will be pedestrian.