Università Roma Tre

The course “Design of Open Spaces” deals with themes strictly related to those developed from other modules of the Laboratory of Architectural Design 3M, headed by Prof. Luigi Franciosini. The teaching activities, carried out during the first semester, are organized in lectures and in project experiences.
The system of urban and peri-urban open spaces, characterized by human and natural features, represents the main theme of the course which involves different aspects of landscape. Particular importance is given to analysis, assessment and planning/design, with attention to physiographic, vegetational, historical, and visual elements of sites as well as anthropic and ecological dynamics. These represent the local identity and are capable of stimulating innovative strategies of planning and design in synergy with the characteristics of the territorial context, on both a large or a small scale.
In this way, the lectures and project experiences can help the students to develop cognitive, assessment and design skills. These are based on the understanding and construction of relationships between architectures and open spaces, between identifying features and contemporary transformations, between spatial articulation and its evolutionary dynamics.

Sul paesaggio
- Cinti D. (2008), Questioni di metodo, in Cinti D., Progetto di paesaggio. Il bacino di Montedoglio e la golena del Tevere, Firenze, pp. 17-71
- Dixon Hunt J., Sette lezioni sul paesaggio, Melfi, 2012.
- Lynch K. (1964), L’immagine della città, Venezia, 1964.
Sui parchi urbani
- Ippolito A.M. (2006), Il parco urbano contemporaneo, notomia e riflessioni, Firenze.
- Panzini F. (1993), Per i piaceri del popolo. L’evoluzione del giardino pubblico in Europa dalle origini al XX secolo, Bologna.

The Open Space Design Studio intends to provide reading and interpretation tools of the urban landscape, i.e. to develop the right sensitivity to recognize its the material and immaterial values as well as developing creativity and technical skills to translate them into an architecture design that is both "device" and "detonator" of landscape quality.
The course aims at developing a specific critical / interpretative / theoretical background and contributing, together with the other modules of the Studio, to drawing up a complex and articulated design, a coherent set of architecture and open spaces, which is able to define or re-define the structure and image of a urban context.

- Clément G.: Manifesto del terzo paesaggio, Quodlibet 2006

- Koolhaas R.:Junkspace. Per un ripensamento radicale dello spazio urbano, Quodlibet 2006

The Laboratory will transmit knowledge about elements, devices and methods to read and design the architecture of urban space. Mostly, teaching will focus on relationships between building and open space architecture and among the different urban open spaces systems and the cultural, environmental and economic processes connected with city shape.
Teaching provides theoretical communications and design seminars to work out the final project, in close collaboration with the other modules of the Laboratory.

 ALVAREZ D., EL JARDIN DE LA ARQUITECTURA DEL SIGLO XX, EDITORIAL REVERTE, BARCELONA

 BELFIORE E., IL VERDE E LA CITTÀ. IDEE E PROGETTI DAL SETTECENTO AD OGGI, GANGEMI EDITORE,

ROMA, 2005.

 DESVIGNE M., "LE PAYSAGE EN PRÉALABLE" IN MASBOUNGI A., (A CURA DI), LE PAYSAGE EN

PRÉALABLE: MICHEL DESVIGNE, GRAND PRIX DE L'URBANISME 2011, JOAN BUSQUETS, PRIX SPÉCIAL 2011,

ÉDITIONS PARENTHÈSES ET DIRECTION GÉNÉRALE DE L’AMÉNAGEMENT, DU LOGEMENT ET DE LA NATURE

(DGALN), PARIS 2011.

 MOORE C. W., MITCHEL W. J., TURNBULL W., THE POETICS OF GARDENS, MIT PRESS, CAMBRIDGE-

LONDON, 1988, TRAD. IT. LA POETICA DEI GIARDINI, MUZZIO EDITORE, PADOVA 1991.

 PANZINI F., PROGETTARE LA NATURA – ARCHITETTURA DEL PAESAGGIO E DEI GIARDINI DALLE

ORIGINI ALL’EPOCA CONTEMPORANEA, ZANICHELLI, BOLOGNA 2005.

 THOMPSON, G. F. E STEINER, F. R., ECOLOGICAL DESIGN AND PLANNING, WILEY, NEW YORK 1997.

 ZAGARI F., SUL PAESAGGIO. LETTERA APERTA, LIBRIA, MELFI 2013.

The laboratory deals with the complex theme of urban regeneration, dealing with a large area of ​​the existing city, within which there are a plurality of themes for the redevelopment of public space starting from the construction of a network of cycle paths.
These are the main points:

1
IDENTITY
We all live the city on the move: from one point to another, each of us dynamically builds the map of our own city day by day
Moving from one place to another we build our identity as a sum of places with which we identify ourselves
A city congested by traffic limits freedom of movement

2
MOVEMENT
Cycling is freedom of movement
A bicycle tour is an opportunity to discover the city and get in touch with people
A bicycle route must link these points together
The paths should not be imagined as single paths but must be connected in a plot that extends according to variable trajectories in the folds of the existing city

3
CHOICE
A network of cycle routes must offer itself to people as a set of choices, alternatives not only as a means of communication from A to B
People thus interpret the various routes according to the occasion or moment, moving between the various points each according to their needs
The plot of cycle paths overlaps the existing city triggering new ways of use

4
PLACES
Cities are not poor in urban resources but are often used inefficiently
Beyond the primary spaces - monumental, institutional, .... - there are a myriad of public places that for a variety of reasons - use, maintenance, safety - are not perceived as potentially habitable by the inhabitants

5
NETWORK
Drawing a cycle network can be the pretext for bringing together fragments, wrecks, margins, troughs, and abandoned areas.
Places that maybe for a period have had a collective use that then got lost
Places that are the remains of processes of erosion, fragmentation and privatization of public space

6
REGENERATION
The design of a cycle network does not only have to do with mobility but above all with public space as a place of the collective dimension of living
A cycle network can serve to materialize lines of movement along which unexpected places are reconnected to the use of people.
A cycle network can be the engine of a regeneration of the urban fabric

7
PUBLIC SPACE
Connecting residual spaces in the city to each other, allowing people to access them, by bicycle or on foot, even in passing, can be the first step in a process of re-appropriation of public space as a shared and collective place
 

8
SAFETY
When we think of a public space, security is fundamental: without it there is no place that can be called collective
Accessibility and visibility are minimum conditions for safe use
A network of cycle paths configures a system of flows that activates the public space of the city

The Tiber cycle path is today the only existing cycle-pedestrian path that crosses Rome from north to south, touching some of the most important central districts of the historic city.
Precisely because of its centrality it is possible to connect to it and connect relevant points of the urban fabric both from the monumental point of view and from the point of view of mobility.
The project of the laboratory consists in the creation of a network of pedestrian and cycle branches, which using the Tiber ridge as the main axis, extend towards the surrounding urban fabric on both sides, aiming to reach punctual places, in which there are be they monuments, universities or accesses to municipal and regional mobility.

In the initial phase of the laboratory a series of case studies will be analyzed, which can be used as a guideline for the design.
Subsequently, a series of specific references relating to the various aspects of the project will be provided.

These references will be available by accessing a shared Google drive.

To deal with a complex and delicate subject, such as the Central Archaeological Area (CAA) in Rome, needs to come to grips with the antinomy permanence-change: Antiquity is challenged by itself and by the projections of Modernity.
The course will go through the debate on the destiny of the area, from the Napoleonic era onwards.
From the previous treatment as a monumental area, accessible to the public as proposed by Berthault, current idea of everyday landscape seems to weaken the reasons for the protection in favor of a conscious use: the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum (2017) goes in this direction. This issue, subject of hot debates, is still open, calling into question sustainability and compatibility matters and ultimately also the need for a buffer zone designed to accommodate services and facilities for tourists and citizens.
However, the sense of place and its material experience should keep intact its aura, giving the community a lively awareness of the current time and welcoming the sense of memories in a problematic, allusive and enigmatic way.

• Insolera, I., Roma moderna, Einaudi, Torino, 1962.
• Clementi, A., Perego, F. (a cura di), La metropoli “spontanea”. Il caso di Roma, Roma, 1983.
• Aymonino, C., Progettare Roma capitale, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1990.
• Palazzo, A.L. (a cura di), Campagne urbane. Paesaggi in trasformazione nell’area romana, Gangemi, Roma, 2005.

An experimental workshop to activate new methods of urban and social regeneration of public space through the redefinition of the spaces followed by the realization of a bike route. Starting from this to explore new means to observe, narrate, imagine the city.
Students will be expected to:
• Gain knowledge on the site by direct experiences and urban survey;
• Narrate the city by means of thematic maps;
• Meet the communities and understand participatory practices;
• Make use of the traditional urban analysis and urban framework;
• Operate with micro urban interventions and urban actions in the territory.
The course will focus on urban space as a strategic element for contemporary urban requalification and especially PUBLIC SPACE, as crucial element capable to structure the urban fabric, bring identity. Build relationships and opportunities for environmental and functional issues at a major scale.
The course’s aim is to experiment. Such objective will involve new considerations for the everyday life spaces and the public realm. The final objective is to find and propose a form for the “good living” convinced that it’s achievement is the undeniable and structural priority of any urban strategy.
Obiettivi
The course aims at developing a critical, analytic and planning sensibility for the reading of an urban context and for the urban planning processes capable of obtaining the following objectives:
• Provide students a wide knowledge in urban planning theoretical inputs and urban problems;
• Provide students the instruments needed to develop a creative capability and critical sense in the design process of urban transformation;
• Provide students the instruments for an understanding of the urban context through the urban exploration and direct survey; also instruments for the urban planning design and a proper process of urban renewal.

Insolera I. (1962). Roma Moderna. Einaudi (Nona edizione).
Nigro G. (1986). Storia e natura: punti fermi per un progetto per l’area romana. Urbanistica 84.
AA.VV. (2001). Urbanistica 116. Numero monografico dedicato a “Il nuovo piano di Roma”.
Gabellini P. (2001). Tecniche urbanistiche. Carocci editore.
Piccinato G (2002). Un mondo di città, (Prefazione e Capitolo I°), Edizioni di Comunità.

Urban economy combines elements of economy and geography to study choices made in the urban space and the dynamics related to these choices.

The course is organized into two parts.

In the first part some introductory elements of microeconomics and basic models of the urban economy will be presented. Main concepts and theories underlying the topic will also be discussed together with some trends of growth and transformation of cities.

The second part will provide and put into practice the knowledge needed to evaluate policies and investments on a territorial scale and in particular on an urban scale. To this end, the cost-benefit analysis for investment projects will be presented together with some case studies to facilitate the understanding of how this can be applied to real cases. Afterwards, the students, divided into groups, will work on some projects that will be discussed and presented in class.

First part
Governa, F. e Memoli, M. (2011). Geografia dell’urbano: spazi, politiche, pratiche della città. Carocci, Roma.
O’Sullivan, A. (2012). Urban Economics, McGraw-Hill, Maidenhead

Second part
d’Albergo, E., & De Leo, D. (Eds.). (2018). Politiche urbane per Roma: Le sfide di una Capitale debole. Sapienza Università Editrice.
A.A. V.V. (2003). Guida all'analisi costi-benefici dei progetti di investimento (Fondi Strutturali, Fondo di Coesione e ISPA).