Onsitestudio

Duca D’Aosta New hotel . Milan

Onsitestudio won a restricted competition for a new hotel in Milan with 170 rooms in the center of the City. The project proposes a new building substituting an exsisting one and representing a strong urban element of the Central Station square, just opposite to the Pirelli skyscraper. The object of intervention is only a portion of a 1953’s building originally designed by arch. M.Baciocchi. The hotel will open April 2015.

“Continuity” and “environment”
The project is not just aiming at being a “new” building. Troughout an analogical relationship of Continuity, the general idea combines the atmosphere of the existing building and the part being maintained, both in terms of overall dimension, in terms of proportion, the language of the existing façade and his massive, sober and regular character. The project works on the characters of the existing using them as material for a new project, able to express an urban presence, solid, without the aim at adding an element of novelty to the urban environment but rather trying to get in tone with the idea of “context” through the continuity of its formal character, spatial structure and phisical consistency. The research in this project is about how to produce a contemporary and new element in accordance with the surrounding tone and maintaining an assonance and continuity with the material and formal memories of the city . The color and texture of the precast concrete elements of the new façade refers to the clinker tile of the pre-existing façade, a characteristic material of the milanese’s after war context, once again reproducing the sober and repetitive character of the pre-existing facade as an austere setting in relation with one massive and exuberant presence, the Central Station, and the thin and crystalline volume of the Pirelli tower.
Facade and depth.
The facade of the new building is an unitary representation of the building structure. The project is overlooking the historical city using a gray-brownish color palette to create a massive form that echoes the qualities of Milanese architecture, how did the existing building. The facade depth and the shadows of the new building once again retrieve the existing ones in consonance with the depth of the architectural urban context, contrastly with habitual lack of thickness in the contemporary facade interventions. The facade depth is articulated by displaying the vertical elements oriented towards the west to collect the light reflection of the sunset, transmitting the tone and color of the materials into the inside spaces.

Atmosphere and materials.
Corresponding to a contemporary theme of invention of abstract shapes and rhythms it has been choosen to follow a theme of objectivity and soberness of detail which is coherent with the rich history of urban environment of Milan.
The atmospheres created by the new architecture has its origins in the memory of places and the character of the old building, finding its new identity from an objectivity of repetition, by the treatment of its mass, color and rhythm of the elements, its shadows trace. The project is enriched by details able to interact with the human presence, its openings size, the relationship between the surface of the outer façade plane and the inner metal surface of the the openings reflecting the light, the system of steel frame fixtures that articulates the opening opaque part of the windows distinguishing it from the fixed one enlighting the rooms.

Energy
The entire property, has been designed according to sustainability criteria and making use of high-performance technologies in accordance with the ethics code of the Client. In order of the entire complex, defined as building-plant system, it has been operated on the reduction of energy consumption due to a strong performance casing (transmittance of opaque external closures equal to 0.16 W/m2K and transmittance of transparent enclosures of 1.3 W/m2K), an architecture system able to propose energy-efficient strategies using a high level components. By this holistic approach, the part attached to the air conditioning of the complex, the energy savings achieved per year are around 35%, making use of specialized groups for simultaneous production of hot and cold thermal vectors, plant types with high emission efficiency and components for the treatment of ventilation air bearing recuperators characterized by an efficiency of energy recovery of the order of 70-80%, in relation to the values abutting use them on 50%. As for the the productio of domestic hot water, which fin the hospitality industry is major share of energy consumption, the same is produced by 65% through out the use of renewable energy sources, by means of heat pumps, increasing as required by the regional regulations from the most recent RES Directive, which implements the invitation of the European Community to develop the theme of sustainability.

architectural design: Onsitestudio
architects: Angelo Lunati, Giancarlo Floridi
design team: Federico Bettazzi, Tommaso Brambati, Francesco Marilli, Michele
Miserotti, Chiara Molinari, Andrea Morstabilini, Giulia Pagliara, Luca Penucchini,
Federico Rosson, Sebastian Sanchez, Orianne Scourzic, Samuel Silva, Maja
Tanevska, Hiroki Tanigaki, Christina Tsompanoglou

Duca D’Aosta New hotel
Milan, Italy
Client
Reale Immobili S.p.a.
Location
Piazza Duca D’Aosta, Milan, Italy
Schedule
design phase: 2012-2013
construction phase: 2013-2015
Data
area surface: 9.000 sqm
Costs
24.000.000 euro
Consultants
mechanical and electrical engeneering, environemental strategy: Buro Happold
L.t.d. (London)
hotel design: Studio Montanari & Partners (Milano)
fire prevention and emergency safety: Ing. Andrea Colombo (Milano)