Property redevelopment
Principe Eugenio
Type
Location
via Principe Eugenio, Milan
Year
in progress
Surface area
1500 m2 apartments | 300 m2 terraces
Client
Private
Head Designer
Arch. Marco Vigo
Construction Management
Ing. Giorgio Piliego
Professional services
Concept, architectural and interior design project, construction management
Principe Eugenio
The project is developed on a residential area near the centre of Milan where, to date, there is a small building located within an urban void. The Master Plan, in this specific case, allows the building curtain wall facing Via Principe Eugenio to be rebuilt.
This opportunity is exploited by the proposed design, starting from an existing building of about 400 square metres, then evening and placing the new surface within the area in order to complete the street front.
The design therefore envisages restoring this discontinuity, leaving, however, the memory of the existing building through the use of stone as the covering material around the base of the current building in stone and brick.
The extension, which is considerable, however, must also be connected with the two lateral buildings that have an offset in plan of about one metre. It was therefore decided to play with this misalignment by creating different volumes that interact with each other; the left side, in dark gray stone, interacts with the adjacent building while the right side, characterized by a white coating, is instead aligned with the building on the right.
The facade that restores the building curtain wall has a fairly regular modularity given by the module understood as the span between the walls. This creates a continuous grid within which irregularities are inserted through the alternation of openings and infills. The grid allows a balanced composition while at the same time it meets the needs arising from the internal layouts that can change over time without involving the general structure of the facade.
One of the fundamental elements of the new building is the careful choice of materials, including with regard to the external elevations where stone is used for the ground connection of the building, which is therefore more textural, and wood for the infills that warm the facade and make the apartments more welcoming. Particular attention is also paid to the choice of windows with elegant proportions and recessed as much as possible to allow light to enter inside, and the design of the pedestrian entrance but also the car entrance.
Unlike the facade overlooking Via Principe Eugenio, which is quite a busy street and can therefore be noisy, the rear overlooks a green courtyard that is very quiet. For this reason, this elevation is characterized by terraces and loggias that give the apartments outdoor space.
The building regulations, moreover, allow a more flexible front inside since there is no longer the reconstruction of a building curtain, though still complying with neighbours’ rights to a view and the alignments of the existing lateral buildings. In this sense, the right part of the new design is emptied in order to comply with these rules and is characterized by the grey stone cladding while the central part is different, with the wide loggias that overlook the garden.
The composition of the loggias is characterized by sun screen sections that create an irregular, yet sophisticated and elegant, play of solids and voids and also shield against the afternoon sun, since the inner facade has north-west exposure.
Inside the building is composed of a basement floor reserved for garages, a ground floor which also houses the storerooms, technical rooms and other service rooms for residents, six floors of apartments and an accessible roof, partly owned by the sixth floor apartment. The lower floors are characterized by small apartments with two or three bedrooms while on the upper floors there are apartments with four bedrooms and a penthouse on the sixth floor.
