Scalo Greco-Breda: Milan approves the implementation plan for Italy’s first carbon-neutral social housing district
The City of Milan’s municipal council’s approval of the Scalo Greco-Breda Implementation Plan marks a significant milestone for ‘L’Innesto’, the winning project of the 2019 Reinventing Cities international competition.
L’Innesto will regenerate a former railway yard in a strategically important area in the north-east of Milan. The project involves transforming a 63,000 sqm site in the Greco-Precotto area into a new zero-emissions social housing district, where over 60% of the total area will be dedicated to green spaces and public areas.
The project will connect the surrounding neighbourhoods by creating new cycle and pedestrian links between Bicocca, Precotto and the university district. This will connect an area that has historically been cut off by the railway yard, creating an accessible, inclusive, zero-emissions district.
The project includes:
▪️ 21,000 sqm of social housing, including affordable housing, co-housing, and student accommodation;
▪️ 39,000 sqm of public spaces, including parks, squares, footpaths, and cycle paths;
▪️ the planting of around 700 new trees.
Mobility has been a key consideration throughout the project, acting as a structuring element of urban quality. The redevelopment of Via Breda will transform the existing street into the central pedestrian axis of the new district, with the new vehicular road running alongside the railway line.
This mobility approach is particularly important in the context of regenerating a complex railway yard, where the transition between infrastructure and the city requires a multi-layered planning vision. Key aspects include flow management, continuity of pedestrian routes, safe crossings, a hierarchy of access points, and the integration of active mobility, public transport and new urban attractions.
A model where social housing, public space, infrastructure and sustainability converge to create an integrated vision of the contemporary city.