Opening in the future in Milan: the biophilic office, a place to work in symbiosis with nature, immersed in the creative vision of Kengo Kuma. An impressive avant-garde project initiated by the independent platform Europa Risorse, slated to open its doors in 2024 in the former Rizzoli area at Parco Lambro, to reimagine space on a human scale in the post-Covid era.
Milan is a city that offers a unique, exciting combination of modernity and tradition from the standpoint of art, architecture and crafts, and this makes it the ideal place for our work. Thanks to the skill of Italian artisans, it is possible to achieve a high level of quality through an organic approach to design and the use of wood.
Kengo Kuma
“The noble objective of this project is to make work days more livable – says Antonio Napoleone, President of Europa Risorse. – Natural light, acoustic comfort, ways to encourage movement, healthy food, large indoor and outdoor spaces, easy circulation, and many other incentives for people, in line with the new post-Covid culture. The project Welcome, feeling at work goes beyond sustainability, which is now a moral duty, no longer just a choice.”
Financed by a fund managed by PineBridge Benson Elliot, the impressive project Welcome, feeling at work will be built in Milan, in the former Rizzoli area, and it will be an authentic revolution of workspace. Conceived as a place on a human scale, in which to become more aware of the natural environment, relying on the most sophisticated technological and digital innovations – as well as effective measures to protect against future pandemics – the facility has been organized like a green citadel: an auditorium, offices, co-working spaces, restaurants, supermarkets and shops are surrounded by a plaza full of vegetation, open-air courtyards, vegetable gardens, flower gardens, greenhouses and terraces as extensions of the interiors. With the aim of creating one of the most sustainable buildings in the world.
“The project calls for the use of organic, natural elements that stimulate the senses and respond to our tendency to seek comfort and inspiration in natural contexts,” says Yuki Ikeguchi, partner of Kengo Kuma and Associates and designer of Welcome, feeling at work. “This is an architectural space completely interfaced with plants, and made with organic materials. A biophilic urban approach brings life back into the city: this will be the start of a new era in which green architecture intervenes to redefine the urban horizon.”
An ideal city, accessible to all, which foreshadows the vision of the city of the future: made in total respect for the environment, with substances having low CO2 emissions, the structure of the building uses three materials in a synergic way, namely concrete for the foundations, steel and wood. To usher in a new vision of green architecture, in constant dialogue between the contemporary and the tradition.
Render © Kengo Kuma and Associates
