Public Artifacts

4A Studio | University of Waterloo Rome Program | Collaboration with Nicole Rak

Coordinated by Beatrice Bruscoli + Piper Bernbaum, University of Waterloo

In the present crisis, refugees are often placed in leftover sites, disconnected from any distinct community. This is not owing to a lack of space but a lack of acceptance and understanding from the existing community. Our plan aims to meditate and connect between the current residents of Trastevere and the perceived “other”.  To address this, our plan appropriates existing historical buildings to create new nodes for interaction and public use, that benefit both the transient and existing communities. By locating these “nodes” in sites of historical importance we can attempt to tie the new and old communities together.

In our analysis of the site we found that the surrounding context is striated both physically and conceptually. A series of physical walls and masses as well as programmatic divides cut the site into strips. There is also no direct pedestrian access through the site that connects the city to the waterfront. Keeping in mind that disconnecting the refugee and transient community from the city is problematic, we decided to create connectivity, both socially and physically, as a main focus for our masterplan.

The main pedestrian throughway to the waterfront is an outdoor public space that interacts with our three historical nodes, creating a central spine. The spine provides an adaptable surface for the adjacent programs to extend into. A series of secondary access routes defined by the context and historical references branch off of this spine, connecting the surrounding neighbourhood’s striated programs. 

The site is wrapped by a historical wall that separates the site from the cultural programs beside it. Instead of emphasizing this separation by building up against it, we wanted to create a park that would celebrate the wall and respect the existing context. This green strip follows the lines of the wall and creates public access over it that relates the park program to the sports and cultural programs on the other side. At some moments, the park slopes up into the public green roofs framed by residential buildings.