Metropolitane Milanesi SpA and the City of Milan created an innovative project, the first experiment of its kind in Italy: visual communication of the sites of the new Metro M4³ line in Milan.

The idea at the heart of the project comes from a simple analogy that sees a strong resemblance between the organic structure of a leaf under a microscope and the vision of a city seen from above.

With this interpretation, the building site is no longer seen as a dead cell, but instead represented as a living cell in continuous evolution, within a larger organic tissue: the city. Starting with this intuition a visual game of perspective was created: the lines that trace the different routes of transport are transformed, extending the gaze to observe the structure of living organisms. The tram lines are modelled on the veins of a leaf, a boat’s routes are transformed into the lines on a hand, and so on…

“Milan is transforming” and the change is translated into the presence of building sites which bring the city’s urban structure to life.