DUCA D'AOSTA HOTEL
Special Mention at Premio Architetto italiano 2016.
The design of the hotel on Piazza Duca d’Aosta focuses on the construction of an element in tune with the tone of the place and its conservation, in assonance and continuity with the materials and formal memories of the city.
A new hotel.
The project covers renovation of a part of the building designed by the architect Baciocchi in 1953, separated from the remaining volume by a structural joint. It reconfigures the volume located on the lot between Via Vitruvio and Via Torriani, and in particular the main facade on Piazza Duca d’Aosta.
The new volume reprises the silhouette of the original building, without attempting to appear “new” or extraordinary. Instead, the objective is to establish a relationship of continuity by analogy with the image of the previous building and the portion of it that has been conserved, both in terms of overall size and in terms of proportional relationships and the language of the existing facade, replicating the massive, sober, regular character.
The design of the hotel on Piazza Duca d’Aosta focuses on the construction of an element in tune with the tone of the place and its conservation, in assonance and continuity with the materials and formal memories of the city. In this sense, the project sets out to make a careful reinterpretation of the replaced building, through the re-creation of a facade of strong urban character.
The result is an austere front that establishes a relationship with the massive, exuberant presence of the Central Station and the slim, crystalline volume of the Pirelli tower.
The facade of the new building is composed of a unitary pattern that reflects the structure of the building: the rhythm and depth are gauged starting with the measurements of the replaced building, of which the vertical module is doubled in tune with the monumental scale of Piazza Duca d’Aosta.
In this way, the architecture attempts not to impose itself as the mere expression of a limited iconographic program, but to narrate the engagement of different proportions, densities and rhythms the building enacts in order to express urban meaning and continuity.
- client: Reale Immobili S.p.a.
- site: piazza Duca d’Aosta, Milano, Italia
- architectural design: Onsitestudio
- architects: Giancarlo Floridi, Angelo Lunati
- design team: Chiara Molinari (project leader), Tommaso Brambati, Michele Miserotti, Andrea Morstabilini, Luca Penucchini, Francesco Marilli, Giulia Pagliara, Orianne Biche Scovrric, Federico Rosson, Federico Bettazzi, Christina Tsompanoglou, Sebastian Sanchez, Samuel Silva, Maja Tanevska
- structural engineering: Redesco s.r.l.
- electrical and mechanical engineering: Studio Massacesi
- energetic certification: Deerns Italia s.p.a.
- fire prevent: Ing. Antonio Corbo
- coordination and site supervision: Starching s.p.a.
- interior design: Cibic Workshop
- schedule: project 2012-2013; construction 2013-2015
- total area: 9.000 sqm
- costs: euro 24.000.000
