Università Roma Tre

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

NACTO National Association of City Transportation Officials, Urban Bikeway Design Guide, Whashington April 2011 Edition
NACTO National Association of City Transportation Officials, Global Street Design Guide, Global Designing Cities iniziative, Island press, New York 2016

RE-MOVE-ROME-ROADS, as an integral part of the Laboratory of Urban Space Design, provides a series of critical elements to reinterpret the space of the road, and in particular that of the roads in the Roman territory, on a design level.

The Roman territory that falls within the administrative limits of Roma Capitale has a road network extension of about 8000 km (Roma Capitale, 2022). This network is difficult to maintain, not only because of its linear extension, which is coupled with a large surface area of asphalt, but also because of the nature of the subsoil and the microclimate, which is characterised by significant temperature variations.

If the pandemic emptiness of the roads has made possible unprecedented forms of temporary appropriation of the space of the car by humans and non-humans, the performative capacity of the road tends to remain limited to mobility, mainly automotive.

RE-MOVE-ROME-ROADS investigates design tools and processes instrumental in subverting the still monofunctional understanding of the space of the street, exploring actions and processes that allow to multiply the horizontal and vertical relationships that this urban device can entertain with the context.

The course is part of RE-MOVE-ROME, an action-research project of the Department of Architecture of Roma Tre, which explores the possibilities of removing the impermeable surface layer that pervades the metropolitan area of Rome in order to give more space to water and its infiltration and thus strengthen the regional water cycle and at the same time facilitate reforestation processes, contribute to the absorption of heat waves and droughts, and encourage processes of re-appropriation by the inhabitants.

Jacobs, Jane (1961) Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House.

Viganò P. (2010), I territori dell'urbanistica, Officina Edizioni, Roma.