The IULM University of Languages and Communication (commonly known as IULM) is a centre of excellence for education in languages, communication, public relations, tourism, and enhancement of cultural heritage. It has always been a meeting point between academia and the labour market and a dynamic interlocutor in an ever- evolving system. This privileged condition allows it to interact beyond academia, developing projects of common interest that add value to education, research, and innovation. In this context, the University has promoted the expansion of its campus with the creation of the Knowledge Transfer Centre, i.e. the osmotic space through which the city and the university interact and share knowledge and skills. This complex project developed by 5+1AA Alfonso Femia Gianluca Peluffo started off from a tidy plan of the various buildings contrasting with the complexity of the volumes, indoor and outdoor walkways, and time-space relations between the various functional buildings designed to ensure maximum permeability both on a physical level and in terms of thought interaction. The new complex rises in a plot of land south of the existing facilities and in continuity with them. Its image consists of four key elements. The tower, surrounded, as the designers point out, “by a continuous ramp, an edgy yet unique promenade, the nostalgia of the heroic James Stirling and Wright’s Johnson Wax Headquarters”. Inside, it houses a digital library, the archives, and reading rooms. In a nutshell, it’s the database of all IULM initiatives and activities and, at the same time, a place of education, study, research, and communication. The northern building, which houses the university’s general library and traditional archives, is synergistically connected to the tower. A linear two-storey building that rises in direct contact with the IULM headquarters and will serve as a direct connection to the city once it opens to the public. Inside, it houses the canteen and kitchens for the entire campus. On the southern side of the plot, rises a low and linear building designed to provide maximum flexibility and to house both academic facilities (classrooms, laboratories, offices) and activities and events related to public and private institutions that consider the collaboration with the university world as an excellent opportunity for specialisation and growth. A vision that aims at moving beyond the traditional idea of the relation between universities and the labour world through organic and continuous cooperation to face the future challenges together. The core of the intervention, surrounded by the volumes of the other buildings, is the body covered in green ceramic, which encloses a 600-seat auditorium. A spectacular surface consisting of thousands of three-dimensional diamond-shaped tiles designed by 5+1AA Alfonso Femia Gianluca Peluffo and manufactured specifically for this project by Casalgrande Padana. The auditorium has a high architectural impact and represents the place of communication between the university and the territory hosting congresses, showings, cultural and art events. An artefact that goes well beyond its function, as Femia and Peluffo point out: “It represents disorientation and surprise. It’s our answer against the universal greyness. It’s Luigi Ghirri’s traffic lights in Modena. It’s Bruno Munari’s traffic lights in Milan’s fog. Today, there is not as much fog. There’s only the nostalgia of those who, once the fog has lifted, discover that it was the city that was grey all along.”


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