Curved forms clad in perforated metal wrap green courtyards at this campus for Bocconi University in Milan, designed by Japanese practice SANAA.
Occupying the site of a former milk processing plant next to the existing university, the campus provides a headquarters for the Bocconi School of Management alongside a sports centre.
Bocconi Campus is a university campus in Milan that was designed by SANAA. Photo is by Filippo Fortis
Instead of filling the 350,000-square-metre site, SANAA broke the programme into a cluster of organic, transluscent white forms that surround a public park cut through by a winding, covered walkway.
Informed by historical Milanese palazzi, each of these buildings has its own courtyard, and integrates landscaped routes, porticos and balconies. Perforated metal sheets blanket the exterior of the university buildings
"Every floor has balconies along its perimeter, screened by an undulating metal mesh that creates a porous relationship with the city," said the studio.
"Each volume has an interior courtyard, typical in Milanese architecture, and each is designed to have its own distinct character while being part of a larger system," it continued.
"These are lined with porticos at the ground level offering peaceful environments for socialising, studying and gathering in the open air".
The mesh sheets aid to reduce solar gain
The business school occupies four interconnected buildings in the northeast of the site, with the spor...