Land may already be secured, infrastructure may already be present and operational relationships may already be established, but the original masterplan can limit how much additional capacity the site is able to absorb.

MIL01 explores how an existing metropolitan campus can be intensified while retaining a coherent relationship with the city around it.

The challenge

Intensification is not simply a question of fitting another building onto available land.

New capacity changes circulation, servicing, security, phasing, infrastructure and landscape across the wider campus.

In a metropolitan context, these pressures are accompanied by planning expectations that are different from those of an isolated industrial estate.

The campus therefore had to accommodate additional digital infrastructure while remaining legible as a coherent urban place.

Design response

The project began by treating the existing campus as a system rather than as a collection of independent plots.

Capacity, phasing, access, security, energy, landscape and building form were tested together.

The reference-design logic established which elements could remain consistent across the wider portfolio, while the masterplanning work concentrated on the relationships that were specific to Milan.

This allowed technical density to increase without allowing servicing, security and plant to fragment the site.

Landscape and movement were used to establish continuity between successive phases and to reduce the visual and operational separation that often emerges as technical campuses grow incrementally.

The planning strategy developed alongside the capacity studies so that intensification and consent remained part of the same design problem.

Outcome

MIL01 demonstrates how existing metropolitan campuses can absorb additional capacity without becoming increasingly fragmented.

The value lies not only in the extra MW that can be developed, but in using existing land, infrastructure and planning investment more effectively.

The project treats intensification as a design discipline: extracting more value from an established site while improving the coherence of the campus as a whole.