Politecnico di Milano joins our 'Sustainable Districts' forum

Image: CGI of part of Bovisa-Goccia campus project, courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop for Politecnico di Milano

Future Cities Forum is delighted that Carolina Pacchi, Professor in Urban Planning at DAStU Politecnico di Milan will be contributing to our 'Sustainable Districts' discussion event, hosted by Generali Real Estate, the Italian insurance and asset management company at its headquarters in Torre Hadid, Milan.

Professor Pacchi will represent Polimi and contribute to the round table discussion as Delegate of the Rector for Institutional and Regional Relations.

The centrepiece of the CityLife development is its three skyscrapers, each designed by a different world-famous architect. Zaha Hadid, the late British-Iraqi architect, designed the twisting Generali tower, as well as the shopping centre at its base and one of the landscaped residential complexes that CityLife plays home to.

The forum aims to look at good practice and design in developing and curating new districts based on sustainable principles.

Carolina, Ph.D. in Urban and Environmental Planning, is Full Professor in Urban Planning at DAStU Politecnico di Milano, where she teaches Urban Planning and Local Conflict Resolution. She is Polimi’s Vice-Rector for Institutional and Community Relations and she coordinates the MSc Programme in Urban Planning and Policy Design.

She has carried out research on the transformation of urban governance in European cities, on forms of alternative politics and grassroots activism at local level and she is engaged in research on the transformation of workspaces and their impacts on territories in Italy and in Europe.

Carolina has been involved in several EU funded research projects on governance in urban, environmental and local development policies. She has obtained grants for research periods at Kingston University, London (2010) and at the Technical University, Berlin (2016).

The University and the Comune di Milano are currently developing the Bovisa-Goccia Masterplan, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop. The Comune di Milano described the project in 2022:

'The project involves a total territorial area of 32 hectares, owned by the Municipality (23.4 hectares) and the Politecnico di Milano (9.1 hectares) which thus expands its Campus with the creation of a science park/innovation hub with areas dedicated to services for students, businesses and citizens. Work is scheduled to start at the end of 2023, completion in 2026.

'The project by the RPBW studio with Renzo Piano was made possible thanks to the donation of the ION Foundation to the Polytechnic, and completes the one for the gasometer area by aiming to mend the Goccia to the city and the region through mobility interventions. The memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Sustainable Infrastructure and Mobility, the Ministry of University and Research, the Lombardy Region, the Municipality of Milan, the Polytechnic University of Milan, FNM and the Italian railway network will thus be implemented.

'The intervention involves the construction of twenty new buildings of 4 floors, 16 meters high, for a total of about 105,000 m2, to which will be added the civic schools, connected by tree-lined pedestrian avenues in a mix of functions that will make it a lively neighbourhood. A large pedestrian cycle axis to the south, between gasometers and the Lambruschini campus, will connect the 2 stations, Bovisa and Villapizzone, which will be renovated and interconnected to the entire Campus.'