padiglione olimpiadi milano cortina 2026

The pavilion for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in Livigno (Sondrio, Italy) won third prize in a 2023 competition to redesign the town-hall square, via Sant'Antoni, via Bondi and the churchyard.

Cluttered furniture, kiosks, terraces, signs and through roads had broken up the public space. The project reunites it with continuous stone paving, free of steps and barriers, which favours pedestrians and slows cars without closing the road. A former petrol station is replaced by a new pavilion: a tourist info point in timber and metal, turned to sit on the axis linking the town hall entrance to the mountain view. Its rounded shape contrasts with the sharp edges of buildings and peaks and makes it a small landmark in the middle of the square.

Glass walls open the pavilion to the square and the alpine landscape, and the canopy shelters visitors from sun and snow. The bronze-coloured expanded-metal cladding recalls larch trees in autumn. Inside, a single room holds a central desk with touch screens and a 360-degree LED wall. The space is flexible: after the Olympics it can become a café or newsstand.

Planting brings the valley's nature into town. The churchyard becomes a small garden of white-barked birches and white alpine crocuses, a symbol of purity; more birches in bronze planters and a copper-leaved beech complete the square. Natural, local materials, a heat pump, roof-integrated solar panels and rainwater collection keep running costs low.