Orto Botanico di Brera
A green oasis of approximately 5,000 square meters, hidden in the heart of Milan and incorporated into the Palazzo di Brera, the Orto Botanico was founded in 1774 under Empress Maria Theresa of Austria with the objective of teaching botany. After the Napoleonic period, it remained neglected until the late twentieth century when restoration work was undertaken thanks to the intervention of the University of Milan, of which the Orto remains a part today.
Educational Classroom in DNA Urbano
In anticipation of Expo 2015, Interni magazine promoted a further renovation project, completed with the conservative restoration of an educational classroom within the Orto designed by Architect Luca Scacchetti.
The primary objective of the project was to restore the site to its primary mission (teaching), transforming the classroom intended for botany lessons into an element of greenery as explained by Arch. Scacchetti: “It was a matter of transforming this seventeenth-century structure into an element of continuity with the Orto, focusing on the principle of non-separation in terms of both internal and external views.”
Natural elements were therefore used to bring this vision to life, so that the entire structure could blend into the surrounding greenery. In this context, Stone Italiana slabs in the DNA Urbano collection proved ideal. A full expression of the company’s philosophy, these surfaces are composed of street sweeping materials. The recovered materials thus become new raw material, allowing energy savings as well as the reduction of disposal costs for aggregates that are usually waste.
Installed as flooring, DNA Urbano fully met the requirements dictated by the project’s mission: its aesthetic rendering, very similar to that of a street surface, appears to provide continuity (in colors and texture) with the external gravel flooring, thus eliminating the boundaries between indoors and outdoors.
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