Feel UpTown’s landscape design creates a vibrant, light-filled sanctuary in the heart of the R6 residential complex. Reinterpreting classic Milanese courtyard traditions, this green space opens up to and interacts seamlessly with Cascina Merlata Park.
Designed for Everyday Life
The elegant, minimalist layout serves a dual purpose: a functional space for daily living and a stunning visual garden when viewed from the upper floors. Flowerbeds are shaped into gentle hills. This design technique multiplies green perspectives and provides the necessary soil depth for thriving root systems. Walkways are crafted using carefully contrasted materials to deliver a rich, sensory experience underfoot. The organic forms designed by landscape architect Valerio Cozzi provide a soft counterpoint to the sharp geometries of Studio Labics’ buildings. The result is a welcoming, human-scale environment.
Feel UpTown trees
Feel UpTown trees are nearly fifty: flowering cherry trees (Prunus serrulata ‘Accolade’), magnolias (Magnolia liliflora ‘Susan’, M. soulangeana, M. tripetala), katsura trees (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) and Chionanthus retusus. The planting layout takes into account the size at maturity of each species, to let crowns grow free following their natural shape.
20+ green islands
Shrubs and evergreen herbaceous plants are establishing on the more than twenty green hills of the plaza which is a private space open to the public. The use of ground cover perennials instead of lawns is intended to protect the soil from wheather erosion and solar radiation. They will also create a favorable micro-climate that will reduce watering requirements. The arrangement of green islands is designed to maximize freedom of movement in the area and privacy for residents on the ground floor.
Anemones and ferns have taken their place in the cooler flower beds. The concept of the Feel UpTown green courtyard is inspired to the often overlooked importance of private courtyards for the city of Milan. Set apart from the city buzz, they are quiet and cool islands inhabited by evergreen foliage or unassuming blooms, such as aspidistra and bergenia.
2,000 sqm green roof
Feel UpTown green heart is a 2,000 sqm intensive green roof located above a level reserved to residents. The isles are obtained layering lightweight soil, water storage and drainage technical materials to root systems and structural needs. The courtyard is accessible from via Pier Paolo Pasolini and from Parco Cascina Merlata through wide staircases and ramps accompanied by trees.
Feel UpTown and SuDS
The entire Feel UpTown green courtyard project has been designed to support sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS) in Milan. Not a single raindrop is lost or causes the underground civil systems to overload. Both the green area, which covers approximately 1,000 square metres, and the paving allow rainwater to infiltrate the underlying layers and reach the storage tanks, from which the irrigation system draws water.
The concrete slabs that make up the paths are grouted with aggregates bound by permeable bio-resins.
FEEL UPTOWN
Where: Milan, Cascina Merlata
Landscaped area: 1,925 sqm
Year: 2019-2020 (project), 2024-2025 (construction)
Real estate developer: EuroMilano
Architectural project: Labics
Structural and MEP project: SIO Engineering
Irrigation project: Paolo Pessina, agronomist
Landscape project: Valerio Cozzi architetto landscape designer
Landscape services: Concept, Preliminary Design, Detailed Design, Construction Assistance on landscape-related topics
The construction works of the green court
At the end of 2025, vegetation conquered the islands that are the hallmark of the new R6 residential complex in the booming Cascina Merlata neighborhood.
Read the review of the project here
