Strategically located in Milan along the city centre access roads and in proximity to the Citylife and Portello neighbourhoods, Pharo is a floodlit composition of towers by Park Associati that marks a new urban landmark and an urban morphology that emphasizes permeability and continuity of the city block.
The complex features active street frontages on all four sides, with the main façade and building access route off via Gattamelata. A central piazza, designed as an access route and meeting place, connects via Gattamelata to Piazza Tur and via Teodorico. Enhancing permeability by enabling a horizontal flow of pedestrians through the site, this walkthrough piazza area passes by communal areas on the ground level of the building and leads pedestrians to the vertical circulation areas of the main lobby.
At the corner of via Teodorica, the building is recessed back from the edge of the street, thus further opening up the development to the public and animating this corner as another permeability point.
The highest tower is 67 meters tall, while the lowest 8-meter-high building is designed to function as an auditorium on the opposite side of the lot. Both volumes are illuminated at night, with the higher tower resembling a lantern, a luminescent lighthouse that adds a new landmark to the cityscape.
LEED Platinum certified, energy saving was the central theme generating the design of the tower facades, which alternate transparent glazed surfaces and solid surfaces of anodized aluminum sheets or perforated sheets. The façade sections covered in metal serve to minimize irradiation – an inevitable problem common to all glass facades – while ensuring privacy.
The depth of the jutting sheet metal shielding elements increases as they climb from the lower floors to the upper floors, where their function of sun shading is needed most. Such size variations contribute to defining a fluid and dynamic perception of the entire project concept.
