CityLife is one of the largest redevelopment projects in Europe, covering an area of , m. Located in a prestigious area of Milan, only a short distance from the Duomo,  CityLife currently consists of three iconic towers surrounded by a green public realm. While an international design competition asked for a new tower on the site, BIG took the opportunity to explore a different typology for the city.

BIG&#;s third proposal for the new Kimball Arts center is designed as a series of gabled roofs, oriented on site for best daylight conditions and creating a volume that is compatible with the vernacular of the Park City area. Layering the program and mitigating the height difference between the site edges, the geometry steps back from the busy road at the upper level and extends towards ground plane to create a unified roofscape that houses galleries, classrooms, art studios, restaurant, and administrative spaces.

Rather than a traditional block, the House stacks all ingredients of a lively urban neighborhood into horizontal layers of typologies, organized around two smaller, more intimate courtyards. Connected by a continuous promenade and cycling path up to the th floor, the building has become a three-dimensional urban community where suburban life merges with the energy of a big city and where business, housing, and nature co-exist.

Beneath the slopes, whirring furnaces, steam, and turbines convert , tons of waste annually into enough clean energy to deliver electricity and district heating for , homes. The power plant&#;s infrastructure, from ventilation shafts to air-intakes, helps create the varied topography of a mountain; a man-made landscape created in the encounter between the needs from below and the desires from above.

The new Kimball Art Center will replace the existing Kimball building which is a horse stable, turned car repair shop, turned museum. In designing the winning proposal, BIG asked &#; could the iconic Silver King Mining Coalition Building which the city lost in a fire be revived in the design for the new institution Could the new Kimball Art Center tell the story of the past while still looking to the future