When discussing facades, besides the immediate architectural context, one must have in mind the feel it creates. This street facade is very simple in its layout. It is an alternation of 1m modules of mate metal panels, windows, and loggias. The material was chosen as a way of not trying to resemble the Milan facade tradition with the use of stone, bricks, and ceramic tiles, but rather reflect upon it, and by that, I think also quite literally reflect the surroundings.
That idea of the “feel reflection” goes very good with the fact that this urban layout and massing solution had created and separated two very different spaces and atmospheres, the dark, gloomy, constant, and unchanging surroundings of via Rovello, and green, alive, lush, seasonal changing feel of the main courtyard. Thus by having the same facade, in materiality and layout, both on the street and the courtyard, you could have two completely different looks of that facade depending on what time of the day it is or the season.
But besides reflecting the immediate surroundings, the facade also reflects the colors and the shades of sky, therefore from a man perspective, creating an effect of building dissolving to the sky, which could be very pleasant in an atmosphere of via Rovello previously described.
The same principle about the character could be applied to the facade of the inner courtyard. Its intimate and soft character demands having a soft and unobtrusive facade vail. This use of perforated “whiteish” metal mesh by day gives a glimpse of the depth of the functions behind it, but at night it completely reveals itself.
As Richard Meier once said: “Architecture which enters into a symbiosis with light does not merely create form in light, by day and at night, but allow light to become form.”