Milano Is Burning

Heat has no scale. From the almost unlimited source of the sun to the microscopic processes of bacteria, it is everywhere. In humans, in the soil, in the atmosphere, in architecture. And in recent times so much so that it has become extreme, critical, dangerous. Summer 2023 in Milan exceeded every threshold limit of heat and was an occasion to raise a question. Humans experience physical, mental, behavioral disorders. They react to this by abusing air conditioning, isolating themselves in their climatic bunkers and completely losing all possibility of sociality. But what about an alternative? The research investigates locally the heat effects in Milan, while analysing globally its causes and consequences in order to understand how current behaviours may not be appropriate approaches to resist. Living soil, the element where life begins and ends, has the potential to become again a thermal device, providing answers to urgent contemporary challenges related to global warming. Changing the recent narrative that has marginalized it to unwanted, it is possible to turn it back into a key actor in human existence, crucial element for what we are experiencing in terms of densification, higher temperatures, loss of species, health risks. The project starts from the analysis of some soil deposits in the city of Milan, made for engineering purposes, to show how it is possible to reactivate one of them into a biological and climatic device. This unimaginably soil embankment was hidden inside Stazione Centrale, a massive icon of Fascist architecture. The proposal reactivates this soil and a system of underground tunnels and unused storage rooms, Magazzini Raccordati, now storage of cold air, to extend the climate impact of the soil within the context, suffering from heat stress and air pollution.