Project description

The small building, in an eclectic style, is located in Milan, number 7 of via Rovani, a road parallel to via XX Settembre representing the first internal limit of that smart district imagined by the second Piano Beruto (master plan of Milan) (Magenta District) at the end of the XIX century. It was intended to accommodate a large part of the Milanese upper class looking for modern and comfortable buildings.

The renovated building, perfectly inserted into the perimeter continuous façade, shows its eclecticism with no special distinguishing features. The listed façade was restored with its original colours while the additional storey (set back from the road) is measured and graceful. The intervention allowed renovating that spirit of modernity typical of the original building, projecting it into the new millennium.

The existing building was completely renovated, keeping the façade of via Rovani intact and building a scaffold to support the façade itself, to help demolishing and rebuilding the internal structures. The masonry façade, underpinned and founded on micropiles, was strengthened through injections of binders from the inside, to avoid compromising the façade aesthetics.

The TOP DOWN technique was used to build an underground carpark near the internal courtyard. The multistorey carpark structures were built from the top to the bottom, at first resting the slabs on micropiles and reducing the excavation thanks to a soldier pile wall. The parking was connected to the main building through some staircases and a lift. The lift reaches down to a depth of 14 metres from the courtyard, with a pit excavation supported by steel struts.