THE COURTS OF BAIRES | External Reference

Type of project: Residential, commercial, office Project: Refurbishment of four courtyard buildings, the Courts of Baires Location: Milano, Italy Status: Competition, First Prize Handing over date: March, 2008 Client: AEDES, S.L. Built up area: 5.000 m2 Project team: Nacho Toribio, Carmelo Zappulla with M. Tepedino, E. Rovira, F. Librizzi Collaborators: S. Maderna, M. Cassani, M. Norite, M. Poli Constructor: AEDES, S.L. Budget: 12.000.000 € The winner design for Courts Baires is a complex of five buildings connected by a shopping gallery. It is located at the end of Corso Buenos Aires to Milan, a historical commercial street of the city. In this segment of the road, the intensity of commercial activities is lower due to the big distance from the city center and therefore it needs to improve its visibility and attractiveness. With this objective in mind, a rich program has been devised: a mall, a hotel, a spa, apartments and offices. In paticular, the building facing the road, which should house the shopping mall, is transformed through large openings on the facade, which match with the escalators and reveal the pedestrian flows. The pitched roof of the same building is replaced by a block of luxury flats and the new glazing rock-like hotel replaces an existing building. This latter represents the inner core of the project and the active center of the plot. To conclude, the floor pattern gives continuity to the pathways and follows the heterogeneity of the interventions with its deformations.