Innovation in the façade design for the new Fiera di Milano Hotel buildings

The paper aims to present the various innovations the author introduced in the design of the façades of the two 5° leaning towers, tall about 70 meters each, whose construction is almost ended just in front of the west entrance of the new district of "Fiera di Milano" in Rho - Pero. Such innovations have been defined and developed to provide the best answer to some peculiar needs introduced by the unconventional architecture imagined by Dominique Perrault, winner in 2006 of the design competition published by "Fiera di Milano". They concerns, in particular, the micro ventilated veneer, made of a combination of porcelain stoneware and glass, whose choice has required a number of experimental texts on the material resistance and durability, the fixings, the understructure, the rain screen effect and the water drainage, the very complex details of the intrados of the very many kinds of windows, the easiness and the flexibility of the mechanical assembling, the maintenance and the maintainability of each front.