When I first arrived in Rome I was struck by the initial awe of being in a foreign city, especially one as beautiful as Rome. Living in Trastevere became somewhat of a fantasy. Once the initial excitement had worn off, I realized that I was an outsider in a foreign city and I needed adapt. Navigation became a major concern, how streets are organized, how people travel throughout the city, and which ways were most comfortable for me.
I quickly realized that Rome is a city that is thousands of years old and was built in a time where the pedestrian ruled and the same thing holds true today. Living in Trastevere, I was able to witness Italians and foreigners alike walking through the small and narrow cobblestone street. Mostly everything one could need is within walking distance. Also, not only do locals walk nearly everywhere they also inhabit public outdoor space much more frequently than in familiar U.S. cities like Philadelphia.
The Italian piazza is a well known and frequently used space in every local town, village, city, and area. Rome is littered with these piazzas. In a predominantly pedestrian city Piazzas are prevalent, easily accessible, and shared by everyone. I had specifically taken an interest in one particular piazza in Rome, Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. This piazza is located only a few hundred meters from my front door. I started to use this piazza during my everyday activities, just like the Romans. It would not be out of the ordinary to go to the piazza, sit at the base of its beautiful fountain and have lunch as the sun shined brightly down into the piazza. The liveliness of the piazza made it a great place to complete drawing assignments. More than once I was able to locate a nice spot, sit down, and draw the fountain within the piazza. The brilliant light and abundance of people also made it a great place to tackle photography assignments.
However, my most intimate experiences with the piazza came when rehearsing for the Temple Rome talent show. I was going to juggle in the show and had nowhere to practice. My room was too cluttered and small and the streets outside my apartment accommodated too much traffic. Piazza Santa Maria became a welcoming space in which I was free to practice my skills. All the while I would be watched and even approached by many of the people in the piazza who were interested in my juggling. Particular pair of young sisters sticks out in my mind. They stood very close to me and did not move for what seemed like about twenty minutes. Even though we did not speak the same language I was still able to kneel down and start to teach them some basic juggling skills as they giggled while their parents watched from the fountain. By the night of the show I had spent countless hours in the piazza and I was able to observe how people interacted with one another, how people interacted with me directly and indirectly, how people moved around in the site. I began to notice which people frequent the piazza. I even began to recognize stray dogs. I really began to understand how a space like a piazza works and its importance and it started to find its way in some of my design work in Rome.
I had discovered through my time juggling in Piazza Santa Maria that one great way to animate a space to design an accessible piazza at a pedestrian scale. In my first studio assignment I was asked to design a kindergarten. I immediately became concerned with not only creating a fun and safe place for children to go to school but also with allowing the space to be an asset to the community while school was not in session. My solution became to create piazzas using the building as a boundary and also designing piazza like spaces through roof access to the building via landscapes in the site. The final design that was presented to the jury was successful in creating public community spaces where interactions can happen and in having safe play areas for the children.
In the second assignment I was faced with the task of designing a new Temple Rome campus. One thing I had noticed about the current Temple Rome is that there are not many opportunities for students to interact with one another outside of an academic setting on campus. Allowing campus to become a place that is not always about learning in a classroom would allow the students to be more comfortable and also allow for more interaction with professors. In true Roman fashion I also decided to incorporate a type of piazza. I ultimately decided to plug the classroom program within the steep wall face overlooking the river while the spaces above, at street level, became about interaction and student life. These spaces became composed of different types of piazzas, each one contributing something different. One type is green space, another type is for large group gatherings, and a final type caters smaller, more intimate groups of students and or professors with seating which creates tiny individual piazzas.
During my time here in Rome I have become more and more interested in the idea of how to design spaces in which people will naturally feel inclined to interact with one another. The Roman style piazza has become a clear inspiration to me and is clearly successful. I have been trying to design different ways of incorporating spaces like these into my designs. This inspiration is something I am sure will follow me in my future and I look forward to discovering new and unique ways to achieve to goals of the Roman piazza.
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