877_CHRONOS NAVIGLI

The CHRONOS 66 project envisions the regeneration of Palazzo Galloni as an urban Longevity Hub, restoring to the city a historic complex of great value that is currently unused and transforming it into a place dedicated to prevention, well-being, and the culture of longevity. The intervention is based on a balanced approach that combines the protection of architectural heritage with the introduction of contemporary functions capable of generating long-term public, social, and scientific value.

The historic courtyard layout becomes the core of the entire project. The inner courtyard is reinterpreted as a therapeutic garden and a space of mediation between the different functions, clearly organizing public, semi-public, and private areas. The articulation of pathways allows activities open to the wider community to coexist with more exclusive uses, ensuring accessibility, safety, and a high-quality user experience. The public entrance connects the complex to the surrounding green system and cultural spaces, while the historic entrance on Alzaia Naviglio Grande is reserved for members, patients, and guests.

Public-interest functions are concentrated on the ground floor. The Longevity Education Hub hosts outreach and educational activities focused on prevention and active ageing, enhancing the historic spaces overlooking the courtyard. The Longevity Café is conceived as a place for conscious nutrition and social interaction, open to the neighbourhood and capable of activating the complex throughout the day. The Chronos Lab, in continuity with the historic presence of the Centro dell’Incisione, accommodates fine manual practice workshops and research on cognitive well-being, preserving and enhancing the cultural memory of the site.

The upper floors are dedicated to integrated hospitality, with rooms designed for researchers, artists, and participants in longevity programmes, as well as a slow, experiential micro-hospitality linked to well-being, culture, and design.

A defining element of the project is the historic underground icehouse, preserved and transformed into an immersive space for sensory experiences and regenerative rituals, capable of uniting memory with contemporary experimentation. The entire intervention adopts an approach of active conservative restoration, in which constraints become a design and identity resource, returning to the city a place that is accessible, vibrant, and fully coherent with the historic context of the Navigli.

From an architectural standpoint, the project follows an active conservative restoration approach that preserves the original morphology and materials while discreetly integrating the technologies required by the new functions. Constraints thus become an integral part of the design concept, helping to define the identity of CHRONOS 66 as a place where history, innovation, and well-being coexist in balance, generating lasting value for both the city and the community.