LAND is part of the winning team for the competition Parco Romana
An international team that includes OUTCOMIST, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, PLP Architecture, CRA—Carlo Ratti Associati, and Arup has won a major competition to realise Parco Romana, an urban-scale redevelopment project in Milan’s Porta Romana district.
The project interprets the site’s industrial legacy while reanimating it with contemporary programs centred on sustainability. Parco Romana transforms a disused railway yard into connective tissue that links the southeast area of Milan to the city centre. It creates a welcoming public space rich with biodiversity, including a large urban park at the heart of the new development.
The Parco Romana design team is led by OUTCOMIST, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, PLP Architecture, CRA – Carlo Ratti Associati and Arup.
Images are courtesy of the Design Team.
Representing a paradigm shift in the sustainable regeneration of Milan, Parco Romana aligns with the goals of the Paris Agreement, the European Green Deal, and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan defined at the SDG level of the United Nations. It adapts the Athletes Village for the Milan 2026 Winter Olympics into a permanent intergenerational residential community following the Games.
The scheme rethinks a large railway yard that has divided the area for over a century. It stitches together a fragmented urban realm, reconnecting surrounding neighbourhoods with a vibrant mixed-use district rooted in the principles of inclusivity, biodiversity, resiliency, connectivity and well-being. Built around a new Great Park that serves as the green heart of the development, Parco Romana celebrates its layered histories while offering shared environments for living and working that unite a diverse community of residents, students, office workers, athletes and visitors.
The Parco Romana design team is led by OUTCOMIST, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, PLP Architecture, CRA – Carlo Ratti Associati and Arup.
Images are courtesy of the Design Team.
The park forms a unique topographic feature extending over the active railway that currently bisects the site, creating an accessible and multifunctional green space for the neighbourhood. The Suspended Forest – a linear elevated greenway that helps to contain, rather than erase, existing railway infrastructure – includes hundreds of trees providing dedicated walking routes with unexpected views overlooking the surrounding area. A biodiverse woodland and wetland Eco-zone interspersed with community gardens runs alongside the tracks at grade, offering a range of communal activities focused on health and wellbeing while dovetailing with Milan’s Rotaie Verdi environmental network.
