DUBINI STUDENTS RESIDENCE

Milan | 2010 

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The building constructed to host 328 university students is finished in Pompeian red plaster and encased in a dense mesh of Canadian cedar planks.

The roof holds together a composition of four blocks, which describe a large open-angle courtyard: at this level three volumes in the form of glass houses accommodate common spaces dedicated to sports and recreational activities. In the design there has been a careful bioclimatic study that have imposed the choice, for all windows and doors, of thermal break frames complete with argon gas double glazing to ensure thermoacoustic well-being and contain energy consumption. Part of the energy supply for the 124 housing units is also through solar panels placed on the roof. A mediation between ideas based on the principles of sustainable design and respect for the budget returns an architecture that to the characteristics of typological and formal sharpness adds an excellent quality of the interior spaces, designed as real housing units. All accommodations, equipped with large and well-distributed openings that allow maximum use of natural light, enjoy an exclusive outdoor space, paved with weather-resistant wood planks, such as Canadian cedar with which the outdoor “cage” is made, which can be opened or closed according to solar radiation. The composition of the floors where the apartments are located (from the first to the fifth) is distributed on the sides of corridors where, to dampen the tunnel effect, small hallways are drawn that conceal the access doors to the apartments. Each corridor, at each level, traverses the sides, through glazed bridges the surrounding passageway. Thin bridges, also glazed connect one block to another.