It’s the end of May 2020, the government has eased the strict rules imposed when it has declared a complete lockdown. As a result we can now proceed to finalize the construction. It’s a surreal situation, we see carpenters, plumbers, architects, interior designers on the construction site, as if they were working in a sterile environment. Gloves, masks, blouses, thermometers, sanitation tools….

Despite all those ultra-complicated procedures that we had to put in place to guarantee all workers a safe working environment, everything goes on fast and smoothly. The building structure and technological systems (heating, cooling VMC etc) at the end of June is complete.
We like the result, definitely.

It’s time to finalize all interiors now

It’s time to finalize all interiors now, to assemble the furniture and the kitchens that we have ordered from an artisanal producer located in a little town nearby Milan. Moreover, we need to buy all necessary equipment, textiles, pots and pans, lights and all the plants to beautify the courtyard. And so, we frantically work on that.

Since the beginning of the project, we wanted to create a new way of living based on quality, comfort, sustainability and respect, in a city centric location.

Now that we have the finished work on hand, we have a feeling that we did it right. We managed to finalize the construction on time despite all the encountered difficulties: 8 months to complete our project, notwithstanding an entire month of rain at the beginning, a pandemic, a lockdown and several strict new rules to abide to. It’s an achievement, indeed.

To stress further our goal towards Sustainability, we’ve also decided to add to our living proposal to offer our tenants 10  brand-new bikes so they can exploit the most sustainable means of transport of all.

“Michele, gosh, it’s late June” was my cry of alarm. “We need to promote our project!”

As a matter of fact, we totally focused on completing the construction on time and we lost an appropriate lengh of time to properly promote the eco-living way of living. Universities’ new season was about to start in a few weeks…

Michele’s answer: “We are in a fight against all odds, dear friend. As Bruce Lee said, the essence of fighting is the art of moving at the right time“

Despite Michele’s apparent calm of a Tibetan monk, and with the worldwide pandemic still going on, we started having some serious concerns: will we be able to find someone interested in coming to Milan despite all those shocking alarms on the global health situation?!?

Fortunately, we’ve started receiving the first requests of information immediately after launching the eco-living website at the beginning of July. Our anxiety eased shortly after as the requests kept flowing smoothly and so did the reservations.

In just four weeks, we’ve filled all our apartments with a fantastic mix of people.

“Eco-livers” living in the compound are now young women and men from 3 continents and 11 different countries.

We’ve interviewed them all, one by one, in video. Firstly because we wanted to make sure that the principles of Sustainability and Respect for the environment (and for the others) were important decision-making issues for each of the candidate. Secondly because we wanted to establish a key common “platform” for all those living in the compound. 

We are now rather happy to have managed to gather such a diverse group of people. Different languages, different habits, culture, age, interests, ways of living… We’ve always considered diversity an added value and we are happy to promote it thru our “new way of living” proposal.

It’s now September 2020, and it’s time to start welcoming the first “eco-livers”. On September 15th we will have quite a few check in.  
Let’s make the bed, complete the cleaning, fix the last details!

Conclusions

Our aspiration to realize a new concept of urban living based on Sustainability, Wellbeing, Respect and Independence is now a reality.

To realize it, we not only had to face the usual difficulties when facing a new challenge, but we also had to coop with a totally unexpected, unknown, and unpredictable situation.

“We ought to be proud and happy about what we have done – Michele – don’t you think so?”

Michele’s answer: “as my Grandma used to say “Chi si loda si imbroda! (whoever praises himself, becomes imbued!) ” 

Ok, let’s than just hope that our guests will feel the same happiness that I feel now!

Giulio&Michele