Casa BFF designed by OBR Paolo Brescia and Tommaso Principi wins the MIPIM Award 2024.
The leading international real-estate event has honoured BFF Banking Group’s new headquarters – designed by OBR Paolo Brescia and Tommaso Principi – bestowing it with the MIPIM “Best New Development” award.
Milan – Cannes, 15 March 2024 – Casa BFF, the new BFF Banking Group headquarters currently under construction in Milan, was amongst the prize-winners at yesterday’s MIPIM Awards 2024, the international event celebrating the real-estate sector’s most useful, sustainable and visionary projects.
Designed by OBR Paolo Brescia and Tommaso Principi, Casa BFF stood out in the “Best New Development” category, which is reserved for any type of building or development – currently under construction or for which construction is slated to begin soon – that demonstrates a holistic commitment to sustainability through its distinct architectural, technical and environmental qualities.
Massimiliano Belingheri, CEO of BFF Banking Group, stated: “The MIPIM Award recognizes international best practice and, as such, it confirms that we have made the right choice with Casa BFF by bringing to life a design marked out by its environmental and social sustainability. BFF Banking Group’s new headquarters will represent, in the best possible way, our identity as a transparent bank, and our desire to integrate with the city and the wider community.”
Paolo Brescia, Founding Partner of OBR, added: “The Casa BFF project is, above all, an urban project. This is why we think it should not indulge in ostentatious solutions; on the contrary, it should give something back to the public realm, in the form of a new piazza, a super-urban place in which people can enjoy spending time and meeting up, a civic space open to all in which to celebrate a renewed ritual of urban living”.
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“Casa BFF” is an integral part of an ongoing project to overhaul the BFF Banking Group facilities, and will benefit from LEED Platinum and WELL Gold certifications. It also constitutes a more wide-ranging city project, contributing to the regeneration and development of a neglected space in a time-honoured district within the city: the Portello area. Indeed, the building aims to foster strong links with the local area: set back from the street, the building will provide the backdrop to a new city square, an urban space for everyone, a city garden overlooked by the atrium, the auditorium and the museum of Casa BFF, which showcases the works of Italian contemporary artists that the bank has been collecting since the 1980s.
Moreover, the area occupied by the new building will become a sort of bridge, connecting the local schools with one of the main convention centres and with City Life Park, which is amongst the largest car-free zones in Milan.
The square will also be defined by a 40-metre-high portico holding aloft the building’s massive “energy roof” – the so-called “Flying Carpet” – a regular geometric shape that is fast becoming a recognizable feature of aerial views of the city.