CityLife Milano
Project management consultancy
When most of the historic fair district transferred to the new Fieramilano centre at Rho-Pero, the area it left in the city, with a surface of about 255,000 m², was the target for an extraordinary urban redevelopment. In July 2004, the international tender was won by CityLife with a consortium of Generali Properties S.p.A, Gruppo Ras, Progestim S.p.A. (Gruppo Fondiaria-SAI), Lamaro Appalti S.p.A. and Grupo Lar.
The company CityLife, now controlled by Gruppo Generali, was formed after the assignment of the tender. The fulfilment of the project, launched in 2004, started in 2007. Most of the project had been completed by 2015, in time for Expo, but the work to conclude the whole compartment is still in progress.
The project was handled jointly by Zaha Hadid, Arata Isozaki and Daniel Libeskind, architects of different origins and culture, united by the privilege of having the most advanced experience of international architectural culture of recent decades.
The project
The CityLife project entailed important urban regeneration and requalification objectives thanks to its great visual impact because of the three famous skyscrapers: first of all, the creation of the largest pedestrian area in Milan, and also one of the biggest in Europe, with the circulation of cars and car parking only in the basement floors, secondly the halving of the existing volume, and the creation of the third central Milanese park.
In detail, the project concerned the creation of:
- Three towers for management functions: the Allianz Tower (by Isozaki), known as Il Dritto (the Straight One), the Generali Tower (by Hadid), known as Lo Storto (the Crooked One), and Libeskind Tower, known as Il Curvo (the Curved One), still in construction;
- A park of 168,000 m², which will become the third park in the centre of Milan, after Parco Sempione (Sempione Park) and the Giardini Pubblici di Porta Venezia (the Indro Montanelli Public Gardens at Porta Venezia);
The international tender for this was won by Gustafson Porter. The park will have integrated cycle and pedestrian paths and plenty of spaces for direct contact with the surrounding areas.
The new park will also complete the north-west Milan park group, thus making the activation of an effective ecological network possible;
- Five areas of residential development;
- The new Museum of Contemporary Art;
- About 20,000 m² for business and services;
- Parking for about 7,000 cars, all underground, for residents, workers and users of CityLife;
- A cycle and pedestrian path that connects CityLife to Sempione Park on one side and to the artificial hills of the Portelloarea and to Monte Stella, on the other;
- Line 5 of the Underground with three stations: Tre Torri in the centre of the area, and Domodossola FN and Portello neighbouring ones.
CityLife numbers
Project management and the supervisory body
NET Engineering carried out the Project Management Consultancy on behalf of the investors. The company was the Supervisory Body on the final design developed by the General Contractor and the construction.
This was a strategic function considering the amount of investment and the construction complexity – ensuring the contractual times and the costs budget are observed is an essential condition for guaranteeing respect of any Economic and Financial Plan.
The aims of the work concerned, firstly, the general co-ordination of the project in step with CityLife. This consisted of a contribution to the definition of executive strategies of the project, the co-ordination of scheduling and the cost control and guarantee of quality. The work was finalised with the risk management relative to the different stages of the project and the resulting ‘trend alerting’ necessary so that CityLife could take corrective action. An integral part of the work concerned the progress report on the project.
In addition to co-ordination, Net Engineering also carried out: support to CityLife in the negotiation and signature of the contract with the General Contractor, with special reference to the definition of the price of the works assigned, the management of variants and reserves from the technical/contractual and economic point of view, in co-ordination with the legal asset, the technical contribution and co-ordination for the definition of contracts with various people other than the General Contractor, including co-ordination with the legal consultants during the negotiation with the different contractual counterparts, technical consultancy to CityLife during the different stages of development of the design, ‘procurement’ in support of CityLife for the definition and prequalification of contractors/suppliers and professionals, Quality Assurance of the construction and inspections, and lastly, the interface with the technical consultant of the bodies financing the initiative.
Thus, NET Engineering was able to ensure Project Management organisation to the customer able to help them during negotiation of the contracts with the different contact people and, in particular, the General Contractor and control the development of the project by performing cost control, planning control and construction quality control.
