Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Rendering - Short video excerpt by Renzo Piano

Milan, November 25 2022 – "Open, green and permeable". Renzo Piano presented the Bovisa-Goccia Masterplan at the Polytechnic of Milan, in the presence of the Rector Ferruccio Resta, the Mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala and the councilor for Metropolitan City Development, Youth and Communication of the Lombardy Region, Stefano Bolognini.

The intervention concerns a total territorial area of ​​32 hectares, owned by the Municipality (23,4 hectares) and the Polytechnic of Milan (9,1 hectares) which thus expands its Campus with the creation of a science park/centre of innovation with areas dedicated to services for students, businesses and citizens. Work is scheduled to begin at the end of 2023, with completion in 2026.

The project by the RPBW studio with Renzo Piano was made possible thanks to the donation from the ION Foundation to the Polytechnic, and completes that for the gasometer area, aiming to reconnect the Goccia to the city and the region through interventions on mobility. The memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility, the Ministry of University and Research, the Lombardy Region, the Municipality of Milan, the Polytechnic of Milan, the FNM and the Italian railway network will thus be implemented.

The project involves the construction of twenty new 4-storey buildings, 16 meters high, for a total of approximately 105.000 m², to which will be added the civic schools, connected by tree-lined pedestrian avenues in a mix of functions that will make it a lively neighborhood. A large cycle-pedestrian axis to the south, between gasometers and the Lambruschini campus, will connect the 2 stations, Bovisa and Villapizzone, which will be renovated and interconnected to the entire Campus.

Next to the classrooms and laboratories of the Polytechnic, there will be space for student residences and an area dedicated to startups, in line with the highest international standards of connection between the university world and companies: 35.000 m² intended for deep tech innovation and the challenges of digital and sustainability. All in the name of an accessible Campus, open to the city and to the exchange of ideas and functions.

The buildings will be built on a strip of land identified between the gasometers and the large thermal power plant, an example of industrial archeology and an insurmountable limit beyond which the 24 hectare forest will be preserved, enhanced and open to citizens. The buildings will cover the same area of ​​land already occupied by the factory. These will be "white factories", places of knowledge and knowledge, respecting tradition and history.

The project, which aims at energy independence and the elimination of CO emissions₂, involves the construction of three buildings for classrooms, five for startups, an underground conference room, two university residences with approximately 500 accommodation spaces as well as the redevelopment of a historic industrial building for food and beverage serving Campus guests.

Large trees between the new volumes will create the connective tissue. The ground level of the Campus buildings will be totally transparent in order to allow people to have an immersive experience in nature.

"The essence of this project was already written in that place.
The idea was already there waiting for nothing else.
Meanwhile the forest with those majestic trees.
Then the traces of the factory on the ground, those ancient buildings that bear witness to the memory of the places and their DNA", explains Renzo Piano.

"Today is a special day for the Polytechnic of Milan, an important step in the history of our University – comments the Rector, Ferruccio Resta –. Together with Renzo Piano, we have shared a path that takes shape within a broad urban design, fruit of the agreement between public and private. A key project that defines a new way of interpreting university life and the Milan that will come in response to the great urban, technological and social challenges. A laboratory, a place of exchange and innovation, for the city and for young people, where we can feed that critical mass necessary to compete on an international level".

"The development project of the Bovisa-Goccia area presented today is the synthesis of the policies that we are pursuing as an Administration: development of the neighborhood with a view to a city 15 minutes away, attention to the environment, collaboration with the university in area of ​​research and innovation and new student residences which are protagonists here are all priority elements and themes on our agenda – comments Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of Milan – I thank Renzo Piano and the Polytechnic for giving substance to the vision and the idea of ​​a city that we want to create for the future".

"The Lombardy Region – declares the regional councilor Stefano Bolognini – fully and convincingly supports the Polytechnic of Milan in this innovative and cutting-edge development and regeneration project. I am sure that, also thanks to the 55 million euros of total investments made by of the Region, the entire area of ​​the Bovisa district affected by the redevelopment works could become a model throughout Italy, combining research, innovation, sustainability and new living spaces for the students who, increasingly numerous, want and will want to come to study at Polytechnic. Finally, I would like to underline the institutional collaboration that has made it possible to achieve a result of extraordinary importance not only for Milan and Lombardy, but for the entire country, managing to create a synthesis to create an exceptional project for the University, for businesses and for the city".