Affordable housing: Redo Sgr's 5Square project wins the Uli Europe Award

"The exceptionality," said Gianandrea Barreca and Giovanni La Varra, Barreca & La Varra, "lies in the fact that a building designed to house offices - in a city that has thousands of cubic metres of disused tertiary buildings - can have a second life. The task of urban regeneration architecture today is to take on the mistakes of the past, correcting, remediating, adapting and shaping new domestic landscapes".

Meanwhile, Carlozzo recalled, "Three weeks ago, the City Council gave the go-ahead for the first of the Plans implementing the Programme Agreement for the transformation of Milan's former railway yards. We are talking about the 'Scalo Greco-Breda' Implementation Plan", which develops the "L'Innesto" project financed by Redo, the winning project of the Reinventing Cities 2019 Bando Reinventing Cities 2019 and "envisages the construction of a new carbon neutral social housing district, while over 60% of the total area will be allocated to green and public spaces". The area involved covers a total area of approximately 63 thousand square metres between Via Breda, Via Rucellai, Via Gilardi, Via Sesto San Giovanni and Via Torcello in Municipalities 2 and 9, and is owned by Redo Sgr Spa, which is also developing the project together with Fondo Fil.
There will be 21,000 square metres of social housing, divided into subsidised residential housing for sale, lease-to-own and co-housing (approximately 8,300 square metres); residential housing for rent at moderate and/or agreed rents, subsidised rents and social co-housing (approximately 10,600 square metres); residential housing for rent at social rents (a minimum of 2,000 square metres). Shops and commercial areas are planned on the ground floor of the buildings, as well as an agreed university residence.

And again, there is the new Milan district that will be built on the Art Nouveau buildings of the former public slaughterhouse in Viale Molise. The public space will be redeveloped by Redo Sgr, which won the invitation to tender from Palazzo Marino. The six buildings will be granted surface rights for 90 years, for a consideration of approximately 12.8 million euro. The agreement will apply to all the buildings except the fourth, which will become a cultural space (for which the surface right will last six years).

"Today," added Carlozzo, "the areas available for building are few and far between, and net of reclamation, which often has to be done, you are good if you can build at 2,100-2,200 euro per square metre. This means that, with the additional charges, it is difficult, in Milan, to go out on the market - even with affordable homes - for less than 3,000 euro. So are rents per square metre, in the city at no less than 85-90 euro per square metre per year. It's hard to stay within the parameters of the municipality, which sets a limit of 80 euro per square metre per year for housing at controlled prices". The reference is to the Milan City Council's Housing Plan, which - in the absence of a national plan - sets itself the ambitious goal of creating 10,000 affordable dwellings within ten years, with calmierated rents at a maximum of 80 euros per square metre per year (about 400 euros per month for 60 square metres), aimed at workers with medium-low incomes, through the recovery of urban areas and public buildings, focusing on sustainability, urban regeneration and inclusiveness, with calls for tenders underway for the first areas.

'Out of 2350 flats built,' Carlozzo said, '800 we have sold at EUR 2,120 per square metre and 1400 are rented out at EUR 70 per square metre. Today we have 12 projects underway for 3,000 flats in social housing, about one third of the housing units the municipality would like to build. However, the redevelopment of the former Mameli Barracks area in Milan, which won the Reinventing Cities 2019 competition, only took six years for an implementation plan. Today, material and construction costs remain high, urban planning procedures are complex, and to cover the 75 to 100 euro per square metre rent bracket, the cooperative model must be supported, and patient institutional capital must be included'.