Not an architecture, but a system.
The Project Area identifies a connection perimeter between historical and cultural presences and outstanding architectures of excellent quality, The Pyramid of Cestius, the Aurelian walls, the non-Catholic cemetery, Monte testaccio and the post office building, magnificent architecture of Italian Rationalism by the master Adalberto Libera.
In this context, the compositional lightness is a creative gesture, a hinge, a formal mediation that does not want to compete with the architectures mentioned above. A project that does not subdue, but dialogues with the context, qualitatively elevating itself.
The project is a fragmented and spontaneous reality that has compromised the urban quality of this area which has no relationship with the surrounding city. The project begins by the need to recognize the surrounding values and put them in connection.
The scope of the project is configured as a connecting element between the Testaccio, Ripa and San Saba districts. The project site becomes a system of squares and greenery which connects Monte Testaccio to the Resistance Park and Piazza Testaccio to Piazza Santa Maria Liberatrice.
The thought behind the project is to offer a range of socialization opportunities which can transform a place into a city within a city.
The large canopy on Via Marmorata defines the main entrance to the project area and doubles the canopy of the post office building, the Italian rationalist masterpiece by Adalberto Libera.
The area of artists 'and artisans' workshops and the park emphasize even more the idea of an open city, highlighting the physical and visual permeability of the courtyards that define the external spaces of the workshops.
The new green park, integrated with artistic and sports activities, involves all age ranges and makes this project a sort of reconciliation and rediscovered public spirit and citizenship.
The architectural choices, which deepen the system of building modules, are the result of a study that aims at a zero-impact intervention, through ecological and self-sufficient materials and technologies, capable of improving the psychophysical well-being of the users. Not simple wraps for activities, but "Life containers".
The genesis of the project was to fragment the permitted cubic meters into individual seperated modules which host artists and artisans workshops, integrating them into a unitary complex that includes not only the interior spaces but also the design of the park, opening the project to different and varied moments of aggregation. Each single workshop is independent and enjoys a view of the greenery,and through these benefits from maximum concentration and creativity and creates an optimal relationships with the park users and the neighbourhood citizens.
The areas outlined by the compositional grid are spaces available for exhibitions for artists, but also for moments of contact with the public of school buildings, which can take advantage of these areas for educational activities carried out by the artists to approach any form of creative expression. Even artisans have the opportunity to divulge arts and crafts, coming into direct contact with young people and passing on their work to them.
The project proposal tends to reprogram the territory using a construction methods and the energy and plant engineering methods to direct the new intervention to maximum environmental sustainability.
The opaque enclosures have been designed based on a wood system with high thermal mass, anti-seismic, fire-resistant and soundproof; integrated with a transparent envelope with very high energy efficiency and special glasses with low emissivity magnetronic coating and applications of soundproofing films, which make optimal use of the free solar inputs through the management of solar shields, which are protection from summer overheating. The end result will be a casing system with a very high level of impermeability to air infiltration.
We foresee energetically active laboratories, a sports center with systems aimed at energy efficiency, therefore a building that produces more energy than it needs; the project aims to create a single network of energy derived from renewable sources based on "geothermal heat pump" generators with horizontal exchanger (so as to bury the pipes at low depth and avoid incurring the probability of finding archaeological remains) and a photovoltaic system with high production modules, peak power 315 W each, which will be installed on the roofs of the built and the canopies provided, to constitute an energy community.
