“This building, like many arenas, was really conceived from the inside out, starting with the seating bowl. Practically, an oval-shaped amphitheatre is one of those typologies that survives because of its functional success. But there’s a clarity to that. At the beginning of the project, David [Chipperfield] said, ‘It’s good to have a building that looks the same from all sides and that is quite easily recognizable as an arena.’ You might be driving around getting lost on your way to a 9 p.m. concert, and it helps to spot the building from two kilometres away and realize ‘Oh, that’s the arena.’ ”

“The media facade is made from these aluminum tubes with integrated LED strips. Each LED can be controlled like a pixel, so basically, it can show anything you want. The Sphere in Las Vegas was a definite reference point during our discussions with the client. But the Sphere is very seldom turned off — and when it is, it’s a big black football. For us, it was important to think of our facade as more than just a big TV set, and as a facade with a strength and expression of its own. Typically, an arena is very introverted — people outside can’t see in, and the people inside don’t really look out. The glass allows for maximal extroversion, and anyone attending an event gains this incredible view to the Milan city skyline. I have tickets for one of the first Olympic hockey games — Italy versus Sweden — and I’m very excited.”

“Just by changing all concrete from cast in situ to prefabricated, we saved about two and a half to three months of time. On this tight of a time frame, moves like that are quite significant. Then, in terms of flexibility, when it comes to the design of the seating bowl, its permanent configuration is asymmetrical, but there are retractable and removable stands that can create a range of different symmetrical configurations suited to everything from concerts to sports.”

“Our vision for the student housing was a very porous site, but for security reasons, there absolutely cannot be strangers walking into the Olympic Village, so there will be a temporary protective wall built to seal it off. The athletes’ village also demands a lot of hardscaping so buses can drive in to pick people up, which means a lot of the landscaping won’t be coming until later. On the other hand, all the student furniture is already installed, whereas in the past, when an Olympic Village was being converted to market rate condominiums, they would be using temporary cardboard furniture. Turning the project into student housing makes the conversion a lot simpler.”

“The residences were influenced by the area in and around the rail yards, where there are these long, linear bar buildings that you could drive a train up next to and unload right into. Our parcel of land also had two very pragmatic old rail yard buildings in various states of decay, and we committed to giving them a new life. They connect the project with its context and bring in some additional character. There’s a concept to develop one of them into a brewery, and the other possibly into a co working space — things that draw people to the site from the surrounding area.”

“This is the most prefabricated thing I have ever worked on. First, we framed the building by craning in these three-storey-tall columns. For each floor, we then installed prefab concrete planks, followed by a concrete topping slab that was poured in situ. Next, all the bathrooms were craned in, already fully formed as these little prefab boxes. Finally, for the facade, we started with prefab mass timber insulated panels before then following up with scaffolding and a plaster facade applied on top. Each of these steps allowed us to meet both a very low price point and a very aggressive schedule — all while holding sustainability and safety as equal priorities.”

“There’s a long, rich tradition of communal balconies in Milan, and especially for students who might be coming to the city for the first time, it was important for us to ground the project in that history. We worked with the landscape architect Michel Desvigne to develop a system of irrigated planters and cables that allow these native species to climb up the facade. Over time, they’regoing to be completely covered in head-to-toe green, which will really soften these otherwise very simple, pragmatic structures.”