Enhancement of the Existing Through Redevelopment: The Case of Historic Social Housing in Milan (Italy)

Redeveloping existing buildings is a fundamentally important issue that is becoming increasingly relevant in today’s landscape. To address it, awareness of the multidisciplinary complexity of design, which requires a critical balance between different disciplines and skills, is essential. The study presented intended to show an educational experience addressing the redevelopment of a public housing complex in Milan. The complex was built between 1938 and 1941, following an important competition announced in 1932 by IFACP. Currently, the area’s housing stock is in critical condition in terms of accessibility, housing size, maintenance, building envelope, and energy consumption. In addition, as things stand, there is a disparity in conditions between the buildings themselves. ALER, the responsible entity, carried out some extraordinary maintenance and renovation work on only one part of the lot in 2004. The intervention objective was to solve through the project the critical issues described so far, by improving on the one hand the accessibility, distribution, and sizing of interior spaces, and on the other hand the energy performance through the retrofit of the envelope and technical systems, solar control and the use of renewable energy sources. Software for performance assessment through dynamic energy simulation, analysis, and evaluation of useful data was used to support this process. Design methodology and technical analysis merge in an educational project aimed at achieving architectural quality, environmental comfort, and energy efficiency in an existing social housing neighborhood.