Carbon neutral district project for regenerating a suburban area within the Reinventing Cities C40 framework

Abstract

A multidisciplinary approach to urban regeneration is crucial when the project of suburban areas provides a functional program that includes the combination of technological, environmental, and social innovation. The Reinventing Cities C40 design contest represents an opportunity for designers to deal with the crossing topics of innovation, sustainability, and circular economy. The project proposals focus on the regeneration of urban areas with specific needs, ranging from the reconstruction of urban ecosystems to the re-weaving of fragile and damaged urbanity, to the promotion of areas devalued by functional empty. The Reinventing Cities C40 framework is supporting worldwide the cities in the renovation process, oriented in developing the abandoned areas with the aim of social, energy, and environmental resilience. The framework promotes the link between the Municipalities, the designers, and the local communities to create innovation on multiple levels, in the design process, in the architectural product, in the validation tools based furthermore on the new contractual definition of business models for social support. The renovation of the Crescenzago area in Milan, Italy, is based on an architectural project that entails an integrated mixed-use system of tower and line buildings ensuring an adequate social and housing mix and connection with the surrounding points of interest and green areas. The architectural project relates to the existing context with a synthesis between macro and micro-urban scale: territory, neighborhood, and the new district. The project moves by the definition of the open spaces that imprints the built ones and defines a direct connection with the green system, which pledges the carbon neutrality of the intervention. The site-specific proposal results from the matrix of strategic and technological transferable solutions that provide solar electricity for 82% of the energy needs and the green capture allows to achieve the zero-carbon goal of the district.