ARW Associates

The residential complex of Via Maffeo Bagarotti in the Baggio district represents an extraordinary opportunity to radically rethink the future of Italian public housing. This project demonstrates how the regeneration of social housing heritage from the 1960s-70s can transform from a maintenance necessity into an occasion for urban, social, and environmental innovation.
Milan's periphery, like many post-war European contexts, faces decisive challenges today: isolation, energy inefficiency, and social fragility. We chose not to consider these limitations as a condemnation, but as potential to be reactivated through a design methodology that integrates three fundamental dimensions: public space as a catalyst for urban relations, housing comfort as an essential right, and the building as a complex organism to be enhanced over time.
The intervention strategy is articulated across six design areas that, taken together, constitute a true manifesto for contemporary living. External spaces are transformed from functional residues into active infrastructures: shared gardens, lightweight sports equipment, modular and reversible pergolas capable of hosting self-managed services. These devices integrate systems for renewable energy production and rainwater collection, strengthening the environmental resilience of the complex. The urban perimeter is reimagined through 30 km/h zones and soft mobility, mending the relationship between neighborhood and city.
The ground floor becomes an "inhabited threshold": a hybrid space that accommodates coworking, intergenerational workshops, and multipurpose rooms. Through the opening of facades and the creation of visual permeability, this level transforms into an active filter between domestic intimacy and collective life, generating new economies and relations at different hours from traditional residential use.
The facades are reconceived through high-performance prefabricated modular panels, easily installable even on occupied buildings. These elements, starting from standard components, generate renewed visual identities through variations in rhythm, frequency, and dimension, integrating when necessary mechanical components, movable screens, and photovoltaic panels. The envelope thus becomes an intelligent interface between interior and exterior.
The intervention on housing units employs a prefabricated modular exoskeleton that expands loggias and balconies, radically transforming the daily living experience: more light, more air, greater possibilities for use. These threshold spaces increase comfort and visual connection with the neighborhood, fostering identification and sense of belonging.
The proposed mechanical system is based on a central backbone external to the stairwells, from which optimized connections branch out through false ceilings. From a structural standpoint, new load-bearing elements support the expanded balconies and strengthen the seismic response of the entire building. The roof, finally, transforms into an active surface: urban gardens, social spaces, photovoltaic panels, and rainwater collection systems make it an environmental and social infrastructure.
This is not simple renovation, but a transformation that unites architecture, ethics, and real impact, offering replicable and scalable solutions to address the challenges of climate change and energy poverty.
Our work demonstrates that public residential buildings can become engines of urban regeneration, transforming the right to housing into the right to quality of living, relationships, and common space. Every building can be a piece of a better city.