Babila
Hostel

Milan, Italy

Vaulted room with Artemide pendant lamp over lounge area featuring red Egg chair, gray sofa, and long conference table with chairs

Year / 2017
Category / Hospitality
Author / Studio ARX2
Photo / Riccardo Gasperoni

Modern reception area in vaulted space with Artemide globe pendant lights and colorful neon cross wall installation above dark reception desk.

Giancarlo Noce, Giovanni Picolli and Angela Natale, architects associated in the ARX2 Studio, worked on the conversion into a hostel of a neo-Gothic building of 1900 located in the centre of Milan.
The intervention, agreed with the Superintendence of Monuments and Fine Arts of Milan, maintaining the morphological characteristics of the building organism, aimed at adapting the original spaces to the needs of use of an accommodation facility.

Gothic-arched corridor with white walls lit by Artemide wall sconces providing upward and downward light, leading to a pointed arch window.

Hostel dormitory with white bunk beds under vaulted ceiling, Gothic window, colorful lockers, and a spherical white pendant lamp.

Modern bedroom with white bed, colorful wall art, and Artemide wall reading lights on headboard shelf, lit ceiling recess above

The formal choices adopted, particularly minimalist, have been happily integrated with the expressive force of the original architecture; inside, artistic lighting installations and lighting solutions with a very high design content enhance the plastic richness of the roof vaults, while outside they highlight the decorative stone elements of the imposing brick facade.