The city of Milan has announced an international competition for the design of a Daycare Centre in the new district of “Isola”, characterized by the presence of the tower Unicredit, the Pirelli Skyscrapers and the thematic wood/park “Library of Trees”, which is now under construction.

The neighborhood of the Daycare Centre plays an essential role in the project; in comparison with the large scale of the surrounding building, we propose the archetypal form of a house, with its gable roof, recognizable and welcoming, which receives and protects children from the "looming" around. It’s the “Library of Trees", the urban element that most influence the project; we take the circular form, used in the design of the thematic woods, changing the scale and making it the element generating both indoor and outdoor of the Daycare Centre. The circle, which is repeated in the project vertically and horizontally, is used to articulate the space of the Daycare Centre, it’s its structure, and it’s also the basis of the design of the façade, where a system of structural arches, in reinforced concrete beams, originate the envelope of the building. Through the circle, the interior, the exterior and the park are related to each other. The boundaries between inside and outside, imposed by the envelope area, are conceptually exceeded by the formal continuation of the rooms with their outdoor play areas. This spatial organization, where each circle is a space consisting of a circumscribed inside and outside, makes spaces embracing and reassuring. The arches that define the interior spaces turn their convexity towards the distribution area, making it a soft and fluid space that invites you to enter into different rooms.