Rome

A Splendid Preparation for the Future

The fall semester at EPFL will engage with the municipality of Rome and its wider territory as a laboratory to rethink the socio-ecological transition, exploring its various spatial dimensions — social, ecological, material, and economic — while developing trans-scalar design strategies tailored to this specific territory. It will dedicate specific attention to bottom-up initiatives and alternative spaces that arise in opposition to the prevailing business-as-usual model, offering places for expression and practice of approaches that genuinely address the challenges of the socio-ecological transition.

Our work will be rooted in several selected areas within the City of Rome, allowing us to engage with the many socio-environmental landscape figures juxtaposed on the campagna romana. Located in the watersheds that feed into the Tiber River before it reaches the Tyrrhenian Sea, this landscape that unfolds between volcanic cones and finely carved valleys structures a rich and complexe ecological system. This landscape overlappes with exceptional archaeological heritage, remains of the long historical legacy of the Italian capital. Furthermore, within the diverse social landscapes that compose Rome’s urban fabric, the city stands as a place of marked socio-economic disparities. These structures are subject to strong real-estate development pressures, while also characterized by long-standing inertia and resistance. This area, with its specificity and complexity, will serve as a testing ground for radical design explorations of possible futures.

Different conditions will be considered in order to understand, read and manage the thick complexity of the contemporary habitat whereby densities, distances, relations and practices shape heterogeneous spaces and ecologies. Conceived as a place of interaction among disciplines, the studio also constitutes the main tool to develop interdisciplinarity within the design practice.