Login
Registered users
The vision grew from Milan itself - its cherished alleyways, hidden gardens, and piazzas where life unfolds at a pedestrian scale. The project reimagines these enduring urban forms, returning to what already works: simple, human-centered spaces woven into a living tapestry. A generous lawn leads into intimate alleys lined with storefronts that mirror daily life. Quiet courtyards act as thresholds to the residences above. Paths converge in a town square alive with gatherings after dark. New structures extend the city’s grain, framing historic railway structures and honoring the site’s industrial past. Egress stairs are pulled out to double as connected balconies, communal terraces draped in plants. An adaptable framework for urban life-porous, layered, and unmistakably Milanese.
The Olympic Village repairs a void in Milan’s fabric and extends the city’s grain into the former rail yard. Streets and passages align with existing rhythms, creating permeability and continuity with surrounding districts. Two historic structures that once served as train repair halls are restored to their original structural typologies as cultural anchors, while the new residential bars reinterpret Milanese housing types with contemporary clarity. Courtyards, arcaded passages, and living terraces carry forward the city’s tradition of intimate, shared outdoor spaces. Materials - stone, stucco, timber, and planted façades - further ground the project in local character. These strategies create a dialogue between past and present, both authentically Milanese and forward-looking.
The Olympic Village is part of the Scalo Romana masterplan that seeks to transform derelict land into a connected piece of the city, stitching together fractured neighborhoods with parks, passageways, and public space. Sustainability is approached as a design ethic: build less, build efficiently, design with flexibility. Two industrial structures are adaptively reused rather than replaced; new residences employ modular construction and prefabricated timber-framed facades to lower embodied carbon and waste. Photovoltaics, planted balconies, and porous landscapes knit environmental performance into daily life. Just months after the Games, athlete housing will convert into student residences with minimal intervention, proving that adaptability itself is a form of ecological resilience.
The strength of the Scalo Romana Olympic Village lies in its dual nature: a short-term home for Olympic athletes and, almost immediately after, a lasting Milanese neighborhood. The project embraces a ‘zero-waste conversion,’ seamlessly transitioning athlete residences into student dorms after the Games, providing affordable housing to meet the needs of a rapidly growing student community in an area where supply is limited. This adaptability - social as well as environmental - ensures the site will remain active well beyond the Games. Two historic repair halls are restored as new hubs for the communities, while six new residential bars extend the city’s existing grain, alongside courtyards, shaded alleys, pocket gardens, and a new town square. At each building’s end, egress stairs double as terraces, where circulation becomes communal and daily life unfolds - echoing the shared balconies of Milanese apartment blocks. Over time, climbing plants will soften the concrete forms and shift with the seasons. Sustainability here is understood as restraint and precision. Prefabricated columns and slabs, modular bathrooms, and panelized facades reduce waste and accelerate construction. Stucco is applied directly to a timber substructure, lowering material use and embodied carbon while producing a surface of subtle depth. Energy and water are managed at the district scale: all-electric systems, photovoltaic roofs, and a shared water loop fold performance into everyday campus operations.
The Olympic Village has been designed with a long-term vision beyond the Games, taking into account both its environmental impact and the well-being of its future users. Simplicity and efficiency have guided the design approach. In particular, the project was developed with a strong focus on carbon reduction, both during construction and in operation—restoring the historic structures of the former railway yard and using low-carbon modular construction for the new buildings.
