“The Pink Panther” Social Housing
The collective social housing “The Pink Panther” was built under the Brutalist sign and the direct influences of other mega-structures such as “Park Hill” designed by Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith (1957 -1961), “Gallaratese” designed by Aldo Rossi and Carlo Aymonino (1967 -1974), “Robin Hood Gardens” designed by Alison & Peter Smithson (1968-1972) and “Runcorn” designed by James Stirling (1972 -1977), remaining, unlike most of the others, in use until today.
The design proposed to rethink the urban planning by that time, creating a homogeneous structure able to accept repetition and to stimulate a more urban life, with blocks with commerce at the ground floor, and residential apartments at the other levels.
The layout of the buildings starts from the idea of creating a sequence of spaces through several structuring urban elements: street, square, block, internal street and passageways between buildings. The central square opens onto the street, acting as a transitional space around which the buildings are displayed in order to reduce the street’s noise and presence whereas the buildings’ corners are cut according to the diagonals of the square, in order to route the space to the inner street, while in its turn the other diagonal fits a visual alignment to the outer urban space.