Milan's Urban Regeneration Project Adds a Public Park
Bustler writes that London-based landscape architecture firm Gustafson Porter won the Milan CityLife international park design competition. The park is a key component of the new CityLife urban redevelopment scheme, a 3.2 million-square-feet, 532 million Euro project in the historic Fiera Milano quarter of Milan. The project's 170,000-square-meter park will take up a good-sized chunk of the site; the rest of the space is dedicated to new skyscrapers and private spaces designed by Zaha Hadid, Arata Isozaki and Daniel Libeskind. The new park will help "identity of a grand new quarter in Milan, an area of living, work and culture," said Letizia Moratti, the mayor of Milan.
Neil Porter said the new park will define the green, public part of the broader urban regeneration project and also connect with the city's existing green infrastructure. "We are delighted to have been chosen to create a green and sustainable open space. Our aim is to achieve the set goals of devising a park which is environmentally sustainable, symbolic of the city's transformation and connective within the existing and future green infrastructure of Milan, the 'Green Rays'. We wish to create a design that will set new standards for future urban parks and gardens – particularly with regards to issues of biodiversity and sustainability within a complex urban context."
Wikipedia writes that the new park will feature waterways that "evoke the canals of Lombardy." However, it's not clear whether these plans are part of the final design. To maintain space for parkland, parking for the 20-story high-rises is also said to be moved underground. There will also be a new building for the local Museum of Design.
The multidisciplinary team led by Gustafson Porter includes !melk, One Works, Arup Italia, Ove Arup, and additional support from Studio Tre Architetti and Ferrara Palladino. Work on the multi-phased project began in 2007 and will be complete by 2014.
