From Milan’s largest roof garden to Green on the Ground

A new landscape of care is taking shape in the heart of Milan. On the roof of the new Padiglione Sforza at Policlinico di Milano, work is progressing rapidly on a 7,000 sqm therapeutic garden – a suspended green space as large as a football pitch and located approximately 20 metres above the city.

Designed for patients, families and healthcare staff, the garden will offer a place to pause, meet and spend time outdoors during hospital stays. It will bring together planted courtyards, flowering islands, trees and shrubs with spaces dedicated to children, meditation, physiotherapy, cultural activities and social interaction.

Visible from the hospital rooms and surrounding buildings, the garden will also transform the experience of the new pavilion from within. Nature is conceived not as a decorative addition, but as an integral part of the care environment, supporting physical and psychological wellbeing while contributing to improved microclimatic conditions.

A landscape shaped through collaboration

Bringing a project of this scale to life requires close collaboration between architecture, engineering, landscape and construction. Within the wider project team coordinated by Techint Group, LAND Italia is working alongside Stefano Boeri Architetti, Barreca & La Varra and the many professionals involved in the transformation of the Policlinico.

LAND’s contribution focuses on the landscape works and their operational supervision, following the garden as it moves from design to implementation. As construction advances, the first planted areas are beginning to reveal the character of the future landscape, with the roof becoming greener by the day.

The project reconnects the new pavilion with the Policlinico’s long relationship with plants and care. This tradition dates back to the historic Giardino dei Semplici, created in the seventeenth century for the cultivation of medicinal plants. The new garden interprets this connection in a contemporary way, including areas dedicated to medicinal and officinal species alongside spaces for rest, rehabilitation and encounter.

From the roof to the ground

The transformation will not stop on top of the new pavilion. Through Green on the Ground, Nature will also return across the hospital grounds, extending the landscape vision from the roof to street level.

More than 100 trees will be introduced within the Policlinico’s courtyards and open spaces. Areas currently covered by asphalt will gradually become gardens, tree-lined routes and places for patients, visitors and hospital staff to meet.

Together, the therapeutic roof garden and Green on the Ground outline a broader approach to healthcare environments: one in which Nature connects buildings, open spaces and people, becoming part of the infrastructure of care.

From the roof to the ground, the Policlinico is evolving into a more welcoming, connected and nature-rich place at the centre of Milan.