The dream of an ideal city

A new, improved use was needed for the two districts just a few kilometres from the city centre. Instead of developing these areas separately, Luigi Zunino, founder of real estate developer Risanamento S.p.A, had a vision of turning them into a large, homogenous urban development project. This led to the master plan for a modern and functional ‘city within a city’, which will eventually cover an area of 1,200,000 square metres.

Master plan for a huge project

The master plan for Milano Santa Giulia, as the urban development project is known, was developed by renowned British architect Sir Norman Foster, responsible for a number of prestigious projects in cities around the world.

The aim of the project is to provide those who live and work there with ideal facilities. As a result, Milano Santa Giulia will include a church and schools, a large congress centre, hotel accommodation, restaurants and cafes, a community centre, doctors and chemists,  numerous cultural and leisure opportunities plus offices and apartments. A 600 metre promenade with shops and other services is also planned.

The master plan includes a 316,000 square metre public park and intelligent traffic infrastructure. Overall, Milano Santa Giulia consists of more than 20 subprojects.

High demands placed on project management

The scale and complexity of this urban development project offer an insight into the challenges faced by the project management team. Add numerous international investors, architects, engineering companies, designer and other contractors to the mix, and the execution of the project and their requirements become even more complex, requiring a high degree of coordination. The project development company responsible, Milano Santa Giulia (MSG), decided to use the online project collaboration platform think project! to simplify these complex management tasks.

A joint solution for all processes and workflows

Right from the start, it was important for MSG to involve all decision-makers and project managers in the coordination process and connect them to the platform. A great deal of effort was invested into creating a shared solution for all communication processes and mapping workflows. These processes included plan and document management, as well as meeting minutes, information requests and decision templates. To ensure that all those involved like working with the solution and are satisfied with its capabilities, the jointly-developed concept for setting up the initial project platform has since become a standard that can be applied to each new subproject.