Ex Cotonificio-Milano

EX - COTONIFICIO MILANO Anna Serio PDM 2021

EX COTONIFICIO MILANO : reuse, public space and urban factories.

Ex-cotonificio is a project that questions the opulence of contemporary metropolitan cities, which are now entirely devoted to consumption and are getting increasingly exclusive, pushing less wealthy social classes and material production respectively into the urban peripheries and the undeveloped countries.

The project is located northeast of the central station, an area at risk of gentrification on the edge of Milan’s historic center. The lot features the ruins of a late 19th-century cotton mill: a symbol of Lombardy’s past industrial bourgeoisie and at the same time of the fashion industry, a pillar of the economy and a source of fame for the city.

It is this very presence that acts as the trigger for the project: a platform and a tower come together around the former cotton mill, creating a new urban space that confronts both the pedestrian scale of the neighborhood and the city’s skyline, adding a new tower building for the city of the Pirelli skyscraper. This unusual tower takes on the function of a public research center for the production of textiles from recycled materials, thus standing in stark contrast to the current capitalist culture of fast fashion and becoming a vibrating and active center, a symbol for a new Milan. The plinth of the tower is a platform, fully accessible, that fits squarely into the irregular urban fabric of the area. At the center of the platform, we can find the ruin, rehabilitated as a cultural center, and the circular patio surrounding it, a tribute to Milan’s public space par excellence: the hidden cloister.

plan of the north of Milano

aereal view of the North of Milano

photographs of the ruins of the Cotonificio of Via Padova

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plan of Milano, area of Piazzale Loreto

the cloister, the hidden garden

the grid

ground floor

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roof floor

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research center floor

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auditorium floor

FABRIC WASTE

BROUGHT IN PLACE

VALUABLE ITEMS

NON VALUABLE ITEMS

WASHED

TRASFOR MATION RE USE

FABRIC WASTER

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RECYCLED

CREATION OF A NEW ITEM READY TO BE SOLD

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SORTED OUT

WASHED

DECOMPOSED

REYARNED

MILANO

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PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSIO basement section basement floor

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION

EX-COTONIFICIO

FABRIC WASTE

TRASPORTATION

COLLECTION

4’000L OF WATER

COTTON GROWING

RE-USE PRODUCTION

BRAND NEW ITEM

NEW ITEM

UNWANTED CLOTHES

DECOMPOSE FABRICS INTO FIBERS

-99% WATER USE

NEW YARN

view of the kiosks of piazza San Babila, Milano

view from the north side

cross section

longitudinal section

tower section

grand dessein

axonometric views of the platform

detail section of the ground floor detail section of the auditorium

view of the entrance from Via Padova

view of the public space of the platform

view of the tower from the roof top of the platform

outside view of the project

view of the inside of the ex-cotton mill structure, reused as a social center for the neighboorhood

view of the basement floor of the tower, where the urban fatory production takes place

view from the inside of the tower, the atelier/research floor

view from the inside of the tower, the auditorium

aereal view of the project from viale Monza