CSG 3

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The project involves the reconfiguration and merging of two adjacent building particles, inside an old dairy factory, in  Milan.

The longitudinal and linear development of the apartments along the entire external balcony of the building was the design starting point.

The connection of the two apartments has been achieved through the demolition of a brick partition that, after a preliminary analysis, has been assessed not affecting the general statics of the building.

If the removal of this partition did not raise any concern, the condition of the floor slabs requested more attention, since the central inflection reached important values.

The excessive deterioration of the concrete screed has led us to completely free the plan of the apartment, eliminating the entire system of internal partitions. The static requirement has thus proved to be an opportunity to rethink the distribution of interior spaces. Once the existing floors have been consolidated with a new reinforced platform and integral with the underlying steel beams, we have worked on a simplified planimetric installation, in which a service block filters the passage between two rooms in direct communication. As in other projects, all the services have been contained within the new plasterboard partitions, in order to avoid any impact on the new slab.

Minor interventions, instead, were carried out in the adjacent housing parcel where our attention was focused on connecting and finishing the existing spaces. In these rooms, the removal of the partition wall between the two apartments was an opportunity to enlarge the old living room. In parallel and in the same way, the extension of the bathroom has allowed to restore dignity to the old kitchen, located in an alcove at the end of the hall. With small movements, therefore, a much larger space has been created, whose dimensions confirm the centrality of this room in the new home. The continuity of the new spaces is underlined by the widespread use of a Douglas solid wood floor with single slats that, in winking at the geographic roots of one of the Clients, is proposed as a long and uninterrupted carpet that connects the premises.

A different but similar solution was adopted in the bathrooms only, where the use has led us to cover the horizontal and vertical surfaces with a spatula resin whose colors, once again, are a direct reference to the geographic roots of one of the Clients and to the industrial nature of the building. The lighting design of the new spaces, instead, was designed and built with the support of Davide Groppi that designed and created an ambient light to underline the volumes of the spaces more than their directions. To complement this architecture of light, we inserted specific elements that in their connotation, once again, tell the roots of those who will live these places.

Lastly, bespoke furnishings were adopted only where necessary to the architectural needs of the spaces. With this intention and with the support of a valid and trusted craftsman, we have designed an articulated volumetric machine that connects the kitchen to the living room in an even more fluid way, underlining the importance and centrality of these spaces in the new house plan.