2024 Summer Issue of Urban Land - 67

A long-separated part of the city
But Koop thinks this village has the makings
of a champion: " The site is an incredible
[one]-most Olympic Villages don't have the
site we have, " he said.
Milan's Olympic Village, which is currently
under construction, is located in the first of
seven railyards slated for redevelopment in
the city of 1.35 million people-parcels that
will eventually add 247 acres (100 hectares) of
green space and mixed-use development to
Italy's fashion and finance capital.
The 47 acre (19-hectare) former railyard
(scalo) is located in the semi-industrial Porta
Romana neighborhood.
Porta Romana " is at the very extreme
southern edge of Milan. If you walk 10 to 15
minutes south, you start to see farmland. It's
got a very, very sharp edge-there are no suburbs
on the southern side of Milan, " Koop said.
The Porta Romana neighborhood was
once outside the city wall. " Porta Romana just
means Roman gate, " " and you used to have
to pay a tax to bring anything [through] the
gate .... People who wanted to avoid paying
that tax would build their facility just outside
the city wall, in the middle of farmland, so it
has this agrarian-industrial legacy. The imprint
of that [practice] you can still see-some of
those older buildings are still around. "
Today, however, the Porto Romana is nearer
to the cutting edge of fashion than to the
edge of town, the area near the gate having
found a new life as a cultural quarter whose
highlights include the Milan venue of the
Prada Foundation, an old factory in the Largo
Isarco complex that was reinvented by architect
Rem Koolhaas as a contemporary art and
cultural exhibition space.
The opening of the Prada Foundation
space in 2015 helped spur residential growth
in the neighborhood, according to Koop, with
gentrification proceeding along the usual lines:
first, " the young people come, then the young
professionals come, and then the wealthier
professionals come, and these waves of
change start washing over the neighborhood, "
he said.
Developers hope that the redevelopment of
the Scalo di Porta Romana, which is located
across the street from the Prada Foundation,
will further enliven a section of the city long
separated from the center by the fenced-off
railyard.
Working on the railroad
Planning for the railyard's redevelopment as
the Parco Romana began in 2020, when the
Gruppo FS Italiane (the Italian State Railway
Group), opened a tender for the scalo.
Fondo Porta Romana, a development
consortium formed by institutional investors
COIMA SGR, Covivio, and Prado Holding, won
the bid to develop the parcel in 2020, and
master planning began in 2021. The master
plan, which was executed by the OUTCOMIST
team-which consists of Diller Scofidio +
Renfro, and other design, engineering, and
architecture firms-was completed in November
2022, when the consortium finally closed
the deal with Gruppo FS, purchasing the
parcel for €180 million ($193 million).
In addition to the roughly 318,000 square
feet (29,570 sq m) of student accommodation,
the developmesnt will eventually have
another 602,000 square feet (56,000 sq m)
of office, hotel, and retail space. Ultimately, the
Parco Romana will encompass apartments,
offices, social housing, and student accommodation,
and entail the redevelopment of
the 47-acre (19 ha) parcel as a pedestrian
area, including more than 23.5 acres (9.5 ha)
of green space, most of it located in a large
central park.
But Koop and the SOM team were focused
on the first stage of the railyard's life, as a
six-dormitory Olympic Village. For this first
incarnation, the complex needed to be both
fortress and a light-transit hub, Koop said.
Then came the bigger design challenge, a
vision for the buildings after the games end
in March 2026: " How do you make something
that works for that first phase but actually
functions as [part] of the fabric of ... Milan for
a long time? " he said.
The team needed to build the complex and
grounds in such a way that they would ultimately
help " stitch two parts of the city back
together. "
Being the suture
" For us, the most interesting thing was how
to be that suture, how to actually make this
place porous and interconnected, and vibrant
and welcoming to all sorts of people, not just
SUMMER 202 4
URBAN LAND
67
" How do you
make something
that works for
that first phase
but actually
functions as
[part] of the
fabric of ... Milan
for a long time? "
- Colin Koop,
SOM
FEATURES
2024 Summer Issue of Urban Land

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 2024 Summer Issue of Urban Land
