The plaza will consist of two overlapping spaces. One space is conceived like a contemporary interpretation of the Souk, the vast shaded public space where people gather during the day. Tall slender columns mushroom at the top forming a continuous canopy of interconnected disks. Like light filtering through the leaves of the trees, daylight will seep through the gaps through the canopy above. Each disc is tilted towards the center, rising towards the perimeter – the result is a shaded square – opening up to receive visitors from all directions.
Daily users and visitors enter directly into the Gastro Hall, the backbone of GOe. This central space runs from the ground floor all the way to the roof. Like a promenade, the grand staircase connects all programs and levels within the building and doubles as an amphitheater for events and lectures, allowing visitors to observe the showcase kitchens and ongoing research during their visit. Moving up, visitors can continue into the auditorium, public terraces, or experience world-class cuisine at the top floor restaurant.
The museum is conceived as a confluence of the park and the city nature and architecture bookending the Charpak Park along with the city hall. Like the mixture of two incompatible substances oil and vinegar the urban pavement and the parks turf flow together in a mutual embrace forming pockets of terraces overlooking the park and elevating islands of nature above the city.
The new OPPO R&D Headquarters, or O-Tower, resolves these competing requirements by translating a traditional office slab with the perfect depth for access to daylight into a cylindrical courtyard building that is compact yet also providing large, contiguous floor area. Pushing down the southern edge of the building to the ground minimizes the external surface area of the more solar exposed façade while maximizing views out from the inward façade, which is in turn self-shaded from solar gain by the geometry of the tower. The massing is a manifestation of a building form optimized to reduce energy use and maximize access to natural light.
CityLife is located on the former site of Fiera Milano. The fairs primary axis, called Domodossola Axis, was the main pedestrian walkway to the pavilions dividing the site diagonally between Largo Domodossola and Piazza Amendola. This axis is maintained in the CityLife masterplan as a visual connection and further enhanced by the underground metro. BIGs site acts as an entryway to the axis, split in two parts.