The Via Cenni project concerns an experimental social housing complex and is the result of a design contest related to the implementation of the program for the so-called “Fondo Abitare Sociale 1”. The lot is located along the Via Novara, at the south-west of the Milano city center, and is surrounded by settlements with strong functional connotations, including a tram Depot, sport grounds of the U.S. Triestina Society, the Santa Barbara Barracks and the former Champ de Mars.
Its surface measures approximately 17.000 sq.m. The works concern the construction of a complex of four towers, spread over nine floors above ground, and four in a row buildings, spread over two floors. The project is characterized by the mixture of three different housing typologies: “tower” flats, balcony houses, and private dwellings with independent access from the gardens. The whole complex, set in a context of green areas and children play grounds, provides a ground floor used for shops, services and special dwellings, and a basement containing parking spaces, cellars, utility rooms and waste deposits.
The particularity of this intervention is that, excluding the underground structures made of reinforced concrete cast on site, all the floors above ground are constructed using solid cross laminated timber panels (commonly known as XLAM).   The one for Via Cenni is the first project in Europe for buildings with solid wood structures over 25 meters in height. The whole complex is also designed in the energy class “A” CENED.