Milan’s Already Thinking About the Second Life of New Olympics Village
Also today: What happens when the Winter Olympics can’t rely on winter, and NY Governor Hochul gets a key endorsement for re-election.
Milan's new athlete's complex at Porta Romana, shown here in rendering, is the first building completed on former railway yards just south of the city center.
When architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed the new 1,700-bed athletic complex for this year’s Winter Olympics in Milan, they didn’t just consider the athletes who will begin filling it his week. Rather, the village — located on the former Porta Romana rail yard — was designed to meet a discrete need after the games have ended: addressing the city’s shortage of student housing.
That foresight, which hasn’t been typical in past Olympic construction, ensures an easy transition at the end of the games, allowing the city to skip the long and emissions-intensive process of adapting the development for its next, longer-term tenants. The units can stay much as they are, writes Feargus O’Sullivan: apartments with private bathrooms, kitchenettes and better-quality furniture not made out of cardboard. Today on CityLab: Milan Olympics Housing Is Built for Easy Reuse