Zaha Hadid Architects has completed a new shopping complex in the city of Milan, located at the ground floor of a 44-storey ZHA-desinged Generali Tower. 

Developed as a 366,000-square-metre masterplan, CityLife redevelopment project is conceived to be one of the main projects of this kind in Europe - the plans also involve the world-renowned architects' projects, including Arata Isozaki, Daniel Libeskind, Andrea Maffei, alongside Zaha Hadid Architects. 

Named CityLife Shopping District, the project is located above Tre Torri station on the M5 line of Milan’s Metro network, which connects a new public park to indoor and outdoor piazzas, food hall, restaurants, cafes, shops and cinema as well as facilities for health and wellbeing.

The project's layout is based on three distinct architectural components: the shopping gallery over three storeys designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, the Tre Torri Piazza designed by One Works, and lastly an open-air pedestrian shopping street designed by the architect Mauro Galantino, a natural and symbolic entranceway to the Shopping District from the residential area and from the rest of the city.

One other distinctive element is the CityLife park, the third largest in Milan, which spreads around the entire project and covers approximately 170,000 square metres, and will offer visitors a green space that is closed to traffic in which people can take a walk, relax, play games and rediscover nature in the heart of the city.

Since its first week of opening, the 32,000-square-metre shopping district is expected to welcome seven million visitors each year when the CityLife redevelopment fully completes in 2020. 

CityLife is one of Europe’s largest redevelopment projects and will include 1,000 new homes, offices for almost 10,000 staff, the new 42-acre park, piazzas and kindergarten.

Defined by the three axes of the city that converge within CityLife, the shopping district's composition continues the geometries of the connecting 44-storey Generali Tower that will be occupied in 2018 by the insurer’s 3,000 staff based in Milan.

"These formal geometries are aligned with the city’s axes at street level, but twist incrementally as the tower rises, orientating its higher floors to face the Duomo, Milan’s renowned cathedral at the centre of the city," said Zaha Hadid Architects.

ZHA uses bamboo flooring, ceiling and columns in the shopping district’s interior. Selected for its warmth and tactility, the used an engineered bamboo as it is extremely durable and can be procured in a large quantity from sustainable sources.

The solidity of the bamboo floor and columns create the louvered bamboo ceiling at the capitals of each column, expressing a unity between the solid and porous surfaces. Two sculptural bamboo café counters follow this fluid design language.

Assembled with resins under high pressure, engineered bamboo blocks were carved by 5-axis CNC milling and hand-finished to create the shopping district’s interior columns, capitals and counters.

"The 90-acre CityLife redevelopment opens Milan’s old trade fair grounds to year-round civic use and integrates the new public park with Milan’s most extensive pedestrian zone, creating the largest new public space in the city in more than 120 years," added the studio.

"Designed and constructed to reduce energy consumption and emissions, the projects within CityLife have received LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council (USGBC)."

Lower ground floor plan

Ground floor plan

Sections

Project facts

Architects: Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)
Design: Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher
ZHA Project Director: Gianluca Racana
ZHA Project Associate: Paolo Zilli
ZHA Project Architect: Andrea Balducci Caste

ZHA Site Supervision Team: Andrea Balducci Caste, Pierandrea Angius, Vincenzo Barilari, Stefano Paiocchi

ZHA Design Team: H. Goswin Rothenthal, Carles S. Martinez, Gianluca Barone, Giuseppe Morando, Letizia Simoni, Arianna Russo, Annarita Papeschi, Fulvio Wirz, Marco Amoroso, Mario Mattia, Roberto Vangeli, Luciano Letteriello, Marco Guardincerri, Marina Martinez, Alvin Triestanto, Subharthi Guha, Massimo Napoleoni, Massimiliano Piccinini, Kyle Dunnington, Luis Miguel Samanez, Santiago F. Achury, Martha Read, Peter McCarthy, Line Rahbek, Matteo Pierotti, Raquel Ordas, Alexandra Fisher, Sara Criscenti, Mattia Santi, Shahd Abdelmoneim, Cristina Capanna, Alessandra Catello, Agata Banaszek

ZHA Competition Team: Simon Kim, Yael Brosilovski, Adriano De Gioannis, Graham Modlen, Karim Muallem, Daniel Li, Yang Jingwen, Tiago Correia, Ana Cajiao, Daniel Baerlecken, Judith Reitz

Consultants
Management: J and A/Ramboll
Structural: AKT (SD), Redesco (DD-Construction podium and tower), Holzner and Bertagnolli + Cap (basement)
M+E: Max Fordham + Manens-TIFS
Specifications: Building Consulting
Façade: ARUP
Elevators: Jappsen Ingenieure
Fire: Mistretta

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