CANTU’ - OREFICI BUILDINGS

The complex of buildings on Via Cantù - Via Orefici is a piece of the great nineteenth-century design of Piazza Cordusio, an intermediate place between the Duomo and the Sforzesco castle, intended for the functions of the City (the Stock Exchange, the main banking offices, the central post office).
The redevelopment project involved limited interventions, aimed at improving the livability and functionality of the two buildings, without distorting their identity. The buildings have been the subject of intervention several times over the years, and for this further rewriting have been adopted the principles of transparency and rigor. The largest of the two buildings, on the corner between Via Cantù and Via Orefici, is a courtyard and is connected to the second building, overlooking Via Orefici via a covered passageway on the second floor. On the ground, the pedestrian Passaggio Centrale public street, inside the complex, separates them, and the main entrances overlook it.
The project meant to maintain the centrality of the court creating a double-height environment with a steel cover and volumetrically complex glass. The alignments of the structural elements were taken from the passage of the openings, already coordinated in the existing with the design of the pavement of the court; the plant terminals are integrated in a sober and minimal design.
The redevelopment and enhancement of the fifth floor led to the opening of a new glazed balcony overlooking the courtyard, cut into the roof pitch and open to the sky.
The recovery of unused spaces made it possible to obtain a new useful surface, and to equip the complex with a new and large terrace at the top of the smaller building with a small volume, again in painted metal and glass, to be used as executive meeting room and space informal work with a view of the city center and the Duomo. The redevelopment of the vertical connections has led, on the one hand, to enhancing the richness of the noble stairs in respect of the existing materials.
The new outdoor LED lighting project aims to enhance the historical features of the existing valuable building, but marking the contemporaneity of the redevelopment intervention, and thus adding a further piece and “a new light” to the renewed commercial district of Piazza Cordusio.

Photovoltaics

Solar water heating

Rainwater harvesting

Water-saving sanitary appliances

Sustainable building materials

Recycled materials

Low-emitting materials and finishes

High efficient lighting

Occupancy sensors

Sustainable transport