ARIA: a regenerated lighthouse district in the heart of Milan

18-12-2023

“ARIA” (the Italian word for Air) is one of the winning projects in the framework of the Reinventing Cities Competition. It will be developed in the city of Milan and will deal with the urban regeneration of the Ex-Macello site, consisting of a neglected area spanning around 15 hectares on the site of a communal slaughterhouse and the poultry and rabbit market in the real estate compendium of the Milan wholesale market. Just two and a half kilometers from Milan Cathedral, ARIA will bring affordable housing, open spaces, business opportunities, a new international university centre and a new science district dedicated to infotainment and the dissemination of technologies of the future. This pole will host a program of long-term initiatives dedicated to citizens, and promote cultural events and activities with a global and local approach. In the area of the Ex-Macello the idea of city is redefined, and innovative and collaborative practices of adaptation and mitigation are experimented with, respecting the environment and health.

The ARIA project team, led by Redo sgr, is composed of architects, environmental experts, financial partners, and housing experts, among them Delta Ecopolis Società Cooperativa, which will be in charge of the Community design and management. Delta Ecopolis is a member of Legacoop Abitanti, and is one of the largest housing cooperatives in Italy: it has very deep roots, since its building stock dates back to the early 900s and responded to the housing needs of four generations of cooperators. Delta Ecopolis looks at the future and proposes itself as a cooperative manager that provides energy services aimed at saving and respecting the environment and redesigning pieces of cities perfectly inserted in the socio-urban fabric.

ARIA unites and mixes different components: the historical sediments and those of new proposition, different activities and social functions that will inhabit this new part of the city, nature, and human intervention, intending to generate the mix and richness typical of a complex urban landscape. ARIA aims to be the first Carbon Negative Area of the City of Milan and to realise a district energy system, with a large scale of intervention, a mix of functions, and, above all, a high level of integration at the city level.

Key elements:

Intergenerational housing: a collaborative social housing (60,212 m²) including cluster flats for both young and elderly and innovative forms of social living.
Affordable housing: more than 1,200 families will settle with rents on average 30% lower than those allowed by the local Social housing regulations.
Urban Adaptive Zone: a collaborative, user-managed infrastructure that allows residents and neighborhood users to share spaces and services.
Proximity services: about 2,000 m² that will host a medical center, a mobility hub, the concierge of the neighborhood, a memory lab, community welfare, and a workshop on arts and crafts for start-up and social inclusion.
Municipal educational services: about 2,000 m² (kindergarten, playroom/play space and integrative services for children).
Student housing.
Free residences for sale.
Flexible spaces for work (offices, workshops).The creation of a new attractive pole for the tertiary/commerce/receptive sector
Carbon Negative Area: the recovery of the buildings is functional in terms of both overall strategy of sustainability: thanks to the reuse of more than 30,000 m² of built area, there will be a saving of about 2,160 tons CO_2eq. This approach, combined with the use of industrialised solutions for construction, allows ARIA to reduce climate-altering emissions during construction by 54% compared to business as usual. However, it would remain impossible to reset the initial carbon footprint of the realization. Therefore, the ARIA Team has chosen to face this challenge by realising a Carbon Negative Area, which, in line with the Paris Agreement and the EU Green Deal, aims to create a district able to subtract CO₂eq from the city thanks to the Renewable Energy Communities and the construction of PV systems for 36, 000 m².
Fabbrica dell’Aria will respond to the health needs of residents: through the innovative use of plants and soil, it will purify the indoor environments through phytoremediation and renaturalise the areas of relevance, purify water, capture CO_2, and filter atmospheric contaminants.
The additional objectives related to the origin and certification of the materials used, the sustainable management of construction phases, and the circular solutions complete the commitment of the ARIA Team towards the City of Milan, which will be awarded, in line with the Protocol “LEED for Cities and Communities: Plan & Design”, and with the objectives of C40, with at least the LEED Gold level certification for the buildings of the site.
Social inclusion measures for the workforce employed on site and for service providers will be implemented and a new generation of contracts will be introduced, aimed at certifying residents’ and city users’ engagement in the fight against climate change. The Next Generation ESG Contracts will connect all tenants to the digital infrastructure and monitoring system to contribute significantly to the commitments of the Paris Agreement fairly and inclusively.