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The project stems from the ambition to breathe new life into the former Vita Mayer and VIMA paper mills, once key industrial sites along the Olona River Valley. The abandonment of these structures and the gradual loss of local identity made it urgent to envision a new framework capable of transforming an urban void into an innovative, circular technological hub. The choice of green hydrogen responds to the growing demand for clean, renewable energy produced within disused industrial areas. The design strategy begins with analysing and reshaping the existing edges into a complex system integrated with the surrounding urban fabric.
At the architectural scale, the project aims to preserve the memory of the site by maintaining and enhancing key industrial archaeology elements from the former paper mill complexes with strong formal identity. The new buildings constantly engage with the existing structures through an expressive device inspired by the world of paper. A white “accordion-folded” sheet defines the exterior of all new buildings, enabling them to relate to their context as simply as possible. The design consistently works with visitors’ memory through fragments that create an ongoing dialogue with the past.
Sustainability drives the project as a circular system where energy, water, and soil are managed in an integrated way. Green hydrogen is produced on-site through the photovoltaic field and Solar-to-H₂ and Waste-to-H₂ processes, reducing emissions and promoting the area’s energy autonomy. Reusing industrial buildings limits land consumption and preserves the site’s material memory, while the renaturalization of the Olona River enhances biodiversity, improves the microclimate, and supports CO₂ absorption. Slow mobility, permeable surfaces, and water recovery systems strengthen the balance between production activities and the new public landscape.
The project primarily aims to redefine the role of the Olona River for the cities it traverses, envisioning it as a dynamic green corridor. Through a carefully articulated network of sustainable mobility routes connecting urban centers, the river links and intersects spaces of diverse functions and characters within and around the intervention area, transforming the rigid boundary between city and watercourse into a generous, permeable riverside that fosters connectivity, contemplation, and social exchange. The restoration of the riverbanks delivers a multitude of benefits extending beyond social strata and physical limits. It operates as a novel participatory infrastructure addressing both local and global challenges, drawing communities toward innovative new urban functions and proposing a renewed framework for dialogue, knowledge, and cultural exchange. By harmoniously integrating natural, social, and architectural layers, the project cultivates a landscape where even the buildings engage in a continuous, subtle dialogue under a coherent and expressive architectural language.
H2Olona Hydrogen Valley is, above all, a major urban regeneration project at the territorial scale. Its primary goal is to become a benchmark for initiatives where historical memory meets the need for innovation. Looking to the future should not prevent existing heritage from actively participating in innovation processes aimed at goals that may seem distant from the industrial roots that shaped our territory and society.
https://www.expand-eu.it/hydro...
