RESEARCH PROJECT
WALLS OF ROME

The city walls represent in their dual nature a form of physical-perceptive barrier but a means of union-division. The Walls of Rome, the ancient Aurelian Walls are all this. Visual margins, which hide, from one part of the city, the different urban events that happen in the other. At the same time they constitute the background.

The walls obstruct the gaze but contain the power to convey it.

During this work we questioned the role of the walls themselves as disintegrating elements or traits of urban continuity still capable of merging and shaping new connections.

The project aims to create new exchange hubs, therefore more than linear elements on the design of the city, "point elements" NODES; Synergistic exchange hubs and hubs of new opportunities.

The node represents the founding interconnection of the urban network. Without nodes, the network does not exist. The node is a place, therefore it is a spatial element, with its own identity and which develops on a multitude of levels, both abstract and physical. The dimension of the node can be investigated in several areas; the urban dimension, in networking (of functions, transport, services?), the management dimension in relation to forecasted development and economic factors, finally, the physical dimension, which develops spatially generating connections, exchanges, opportunities. The link between node and context is inseparable, analyzable by a morphological, social study and by a study relating to the history and stratification of the city. The node is the metaphor of a magnetic force capable of attracting activities, city users and local and "translocal" functions to its interior, capable of leading from the embryonic layer to the growth of infrastructural networks and their redefinition in connection with opportunities and needs for urban regeneration.

The node originates flows and directs exchanges. By definition, it contains the potential for economic growth and development because it stimulates and supports social and commercial interaction. It plays a decisive role in the relationship between territorial planning and sector planning. It often coincides with the access door to an interchange site, to a station, characterized by a stratified and therefore dynamic street layout, of passage and movement. The nodes of the contemporary city are meeting places between subjects with heterogeneous and multiple interests, but an opportunity to reorganize urban and extra-urban relationships in the interrupted fabrics of the city.