THE 2026 WINTER OLYMPICS MASTERPLAN

The Winter Olympic Games of Milano Cortina have a program distributed around 4 cities that will host all sports competitions: Cortina, Milano, Valtellina e Val di Fiemme. Figure 69 shows the distribution of the sports venues around these cities. Embracing the new 2020 Olympic agenda its master plan attempts to built permanent as little as possible, having 93% of the competition sites (13/14) being either existing or temporary ( Figure 70 ).

Milan, in a closer look, will host only 3 sports: Ice hockey 1 and 2, figure skating, and short track. These sports will be distributed around the city in 3 venues: Milano Hockey Arena (PalaSharp), Assago Forum, and PalaItalia Santa Giulia. The PalaItalia Santa Giulia is the only new venue to be constructed in Milan, to host the Ice Hockey games. Aligned with the new concerns of Olympic games, this new Arena has to leave a strong legacy to the city, and that is why it is important to be built as a Multipurpose Arena and also be used in daily life. Besides the competition site, only the new Olympic Village (Milan) will be a completely new venue. It is important to know that both constructions (PalaItalia Santa Giulia and the Olympic Village) are inserted in a bigger Milanese plan, working as catalysts for urban regeneration, Specifically, PalaItalia Santa Giulia is being developed in a major plan running by a private developer, which will build a completely new neighborhood in Santa Giulia and plans also to have public services like the Sports venue.

It is important to notice that some constraints to the PalaItalia were proposed by this private developer. As an independent architecture work, this project aims at providing the best proposal and that means not following exactly all the conditions provided by the developer. That is why, for example, the integration between landscape, neighborhood, and Arena was completely redesigned in this work. Also necessary to mention that the 15000 seat constraint was also intended by the developer. However, the International

Olympic Committee (IOC) only mentions in its guidelines

2 kinds of venues for Ice Hockey competitions: one having 10000 seats (Ice Hockey 1) and another having 6000 seats (Ice Hockey 2). As Milan already had another venue for Ice Hockey with more than 10000 seats (PalaSharp), this work did not attain reaching a superior number of seats. Those goals are also in line with the idea of leaving a better legacy for the city. Ice rink sports are not traditional in Italy and making a huge venue for sports with little demand would be irresponsible. That is why the focus of the proposed design is to provide flexibility, adapting the number of seats according to the sport or use in place at the Arena.