Work is in progress in Milan’s Tortona district, where the city’s first professional hub is steadily taking shape. Two years ago Giorgio Armani acquired part of the former Deloitte complex - the consultancy giant having since relocated to another area of the city - and began transforming it into a campus open to all, where work becomes something altogether more special. Three surface buildings remain available, awaiting innovative, visionary buyers capable of integrating into the project and helping to create a multitasking urban space, open to ideas, expertise, services, opportunities and sociability, continuing the urban revolution long driven by Superstudio Più and Armani himself.

A handful of narrow, tightly clustered streets, lined with a dense sequence of buildings marked by an equally dense succession of street numbers.

From the outside they appear more or less alike; inside, they are anything but. Beyond shop windows, gateways and entrance doors unfold homes, small shops, cafés, bars, and courtyards belonging to both old and new Milan. But there are also museums, showrooms, galleries, event venues, multifunctional hubs and corporate headquarters. They coexist in harmony. They have little in common, yet that little, a shared sense of ferment and novelty, change and experimentation, is more than enough to redraw Milan’s urban map and project the Lombard capital onto the world stage and into the future. That’s how it is today, tomorrow who knows is the subtle impression one absorbs while walking through the Tortona Design District. A constant urban work in progress, a city perpetually under construction. That is simply how things function here. Further confirmation now comes from the vast complex between Largo delle Culture, Via Tortona 25 and Via Bugatti, owned by real estate giant Hines. Following the sale two years ago of one of the four buildings to Giorgio Armani - the former headquarters of the multinational consultancy Deloitte, 9.200 square metres across nine levels overlooking Largo delle Culture and already partially occupied by the Maison’s offices - development of Milan’s first office campus continues apace. The vision now extends to the remaining three buildings (22.400 square metres in total), which, together with the Armani-occupied structure, aim to further regenerate and enhance both the site and the district itself, transforming it into a place of work, networking, professional dialogue and social exchange. Not merely a cluster of corporate offices, but a crossroads of services and liveable spaces, places where people can meet, exchange ideas, share experiences and build connections. Perhaps between a coffee and a workout. For it is far from unlikely that, between one open space and another, gyms and refreshment areas may appear, echoing the model of American university campuses, yet reinterpreted in a professional, distinctly Italian key. Everything is permitted. Everything is possible. Provided it is multitasking, innovative, visionary, exactly in keeping with the mood and DNA of the neighbourhood.