From housing to homing: from the apartment to the solidarity village
Sustainable, flexible architecture that brings together private and shared spaces, placing relationships, colour and wellbeing at its centre.
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From housing to homing: from the apartment to the solidarity village. La Corte di Quarto is a new build in the courtyard of CasArché, in Quarto Oggiaro, designed by 23bassi for the Fondazione Arché: a home for fourteen mother-and-child units — or elderly people, or families on the path to independence. The chosen typology is the access-balcony building, a legacy of the Milanese tradition and a device for social life. Fourteen modular 38-sqm units, a bridge-like ground floor that frees up play space for children, coloured louvres in the Fondazione Arché palette, and sustainable technology — no boiler, a heat pump and rooftop photovoltaics.
La Corte di Quarto is a new build in the courtyard of CasArché, following sustainable solutions (both economically and environmentally) and open to the surrounding community; it is a home for 14 mother-and-child units or units of other kinds (elderly people, mothers who have left CasArché and are beginning a journey towards independence, etc.).
The access balcony. The building draws on the traditional access-balcony typology, deeply rooted in the Milanese tradition. Historically, the access balcony is the typology most geared towards sociability and integration among its residents. It also has countless technical advantages. It is inexpensive, eliminates the deterioration of façades and window frames, lowers cooling costs by shading the façade itself, and makes maintenance easier over time, being in effect a permanent scaffolding for the building.
The units. The plan is composed of 14 dwelling units of 38 sqm, which can be used individually or joined together modularly to form larger apartments.
Technology. The building uses traditional reinforced-concrete construction, but has a highly efficient external thermal-coat envelope that wastes as few resources as possible. It has no boiler: heating and cooling are provided by a heat pump combined with controlled mechanical ventilation. The roof also carries photovoltaic panels for electricity generation.
A flexible space. The ground floor has two important features. It is built bridge-like, to reduce the building’s footprint and give children a covered play space. This also allows a connection to the garden and park behind. In addition, one of the two support blocks on the ground floor is in fact a multipurpose space open to the city and its surroundings, with which it communicates through large windows.
Colour. Colour is a central element in Fondazione Arché’s project. For this reason, the façade is articulated by aluminium louvres painted in the colours of the Fondazione Arché palette. The interiors, too, are conceived around the use of different colours, as was the case for the adjacent CasArché welcome home.
To make a concrete contribution to the Corte di Quarto project, you can take a look here.
