Landscape design of the residential complex Feel UpTown translates the agricultural past of Cascina Merlata into a contemporary park. The project cuts down water consumption and maintenance needs, contributes to urban drainage and promotes botanical synergies to support biodiversity.
The green heart of Feel Uptown is a two thousand square meter roof garden. It rewrites the rules of the typical Milan court, because it is both a courtyard and an open space. Feel Uptown Garden is located at the core of R6, the residential complex designed by Labics for Euromilano real estate, in the context of the urban redevelopment of Cascina Merlata.
Overlooking the city and the Cascina Merlata Park through slits and wide stairways, Feel Uptown Garden consists of green isles arranged in a studied way to multiply the perspectives and to allow full freedom of movement.
Gentle ground movements encourage the spread of root systems, therefore reducing water consumption. Wide seats sheltered by trees invite to take a break outdoors.
Feel Uptown Garden lyes on top of the underground level dedicated to the residents of the new complex, borrowing techniques already applied with success in similar prestigious contexts in Milan and Como. Integrating architectural and vegetation through technical green solutions allows to improve the quality of life in the city and to reduce land consumption.
Permeable pavement works together with green areas to infiltrate and reuse rainwater thanks to proper collection cisterns. Ophiopogon japonicus will blur, over time, the limit between slabs and vegetation.
Feel UpTown Garden is also a view garden. The layout of plants is designed bearing in mind also the apartments overlooking the courtyard from above. Spring blooms of magnolias (Magnolia x soulangeana, Magnolia liliiflora ‘Susan’, Magnolia tripetala) are followed by bright green foliage, that together with Cercidiphyllum japonicum and Chionanthus retusus screen the summer heat and invite to enjoy the place. During winter months, naked trees let the underlying vegetation come on stage: pittosporum (Pittosporum tobira ‘Nanum’), ferns (Dryopteris erythrosora), cast-iron-plant (Aspidistra elatior), heartleaf bergenia (Bergenia cordifolia), Carex spp. and Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuifolia).
Private gardens of the residences take part to the composition. Tall hedges protecting privacy, in fact, also work as a green backdrop that improves the feeling of being surrounded by nature.
FEEL UPTOWN
Where: Milano, Cascina Merlata
Area: 1925 m2
Year: 2019-2020 (project), building in progress
Real estate company: EuroMilano
Landscape project: Valerio Cozzi architect landscape designer
Architectural project: Labics
Plant and structural project: SIO Engineering
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