Implementing Advanced Knowledge
bits
6.6.1 Rome 20-25
IaaC Research
Rome Agri-Fab City
A productive Landscape for a self-sufficient metropolis Curators: Manuel Gausa Navarro, Silvia Brandi, Marco Ingrassia
In 2015 IAAC joined the Rome 20-25 research, a one-year long collaboration program where 25 schools of architecture where asked to envision new futures and paradigms for the metropolitan area of Rome. The research assigned a 10x10 km area to each participant, together resulting in the superimposition of a 50x50 km virtual grid on the map of the city. This abstract subdivision provocatively ignores the city-landscape, center-periphery, historic-contemporary dichotomies, and for the first time represented Rome in its territorial dimension and fragmented composition. The final outputs of the research were exhibited in December at the MAXXI museum in Rome. The following text was published in the exhibition catalogue , introducing the visitors to the IAAC project: a dynamic and immersive installation where simultaneous interpretation and design strategies where projected on the tridimensional model of the territory. Furthermore the project included the production of prototypes, all this developed together with IAAC students, and representing the Institute’s multiscalar vision and strategy: from bits to geographies. With a new century a new scenery of technological and social transformations has emerged, more complex, interconnected and cosmopolitan, nowadays the systemic crisis of our economic, settlement and ecological model has configured a new idea of progress – no longer the “superposition of a new universal order”, but the (dis)positive and informational re-activation of the reality itself - capable of answering issues related to climate change, scarcity of resources and environmental degradation. The entry in the Urban Age2 can proof the need to focus on urban innovation through shared researches and conceptual challenges, affecting different cultural fields and disciplines. It is a multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary vision that can find in the “Rome 2025” workshop a field of exploration of new paradigms for Mediterranean and European cities. This is the target with which the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia has applied its multiscalar, informational and technological vision on the metropolitan area of Rome. Cover - IAAC installation in the Rome 20-25 xhibition - MAXXI Rome, December 2015 2
The investigations on this selected area cannot overlook a holistic vision, capable of analyzing territorial scale dynamics and relations with the other parts of the metropolitan organism. Nevertheless, this approach can outline an interesting methodological strategy in transforming the area into a case study, a comparative tool and a field of exploration of proposals for the entire metropolis. The city is no longer defined by the administrative borders, but characterized by a continuous uncontrollable growth. It is a metropolitan organism with a territorial dimension and a tentacle shape: a multi-city3 made by lineal system grown through processes of densification and extension, on the Consolari radial infrastructure system.
“The city is no longer defined by the administrative borders, but characterized by a continuous uncontrollable growth�
The open tissues of the different linear cities (Roma Casilina, Roma Tuscolana, Roma Ostiense, and so on), configure an extended and discontinuous urban organism crossed by landscape systems – the ancient Agro Romano, the forre system, forests, humid areas and river systems - that penetrate the city reaching the archaeological center. If in the XX century, the mono-nodal Rome of the second postwar (that we define as Rome 1.0) evolved towards a multipolar centralized system (Rome 2.0), having the Consolari as the center-periphery connection; in the XXI century we can define the transformation of the metropolis in a distributed and resilient system4: Rome 3.0 can be defined as an Agri-Fab City, a self-sufficient5, creative and interconnected city, where a productive landscape6 can structure a new territorial framework and urban protocol. 4
Figure 1 - Rome 20-25 - 50x50 km grid superimposed on the metropolitan area of Rome. Figure 2 - Physical configuration, metropolitan dynamics and systemic representation, for an interpretation of Rome through three phases: Rome 1.0 –compact city and territorial enclave, with concentrated dynamics in a mono-nodal system- evolved during the XX century in Rome 2.0 , a linear multi-city, a centralized system innervated by center-periphery connection on the radial infrastructure system. In 2025 we can define Rome 3.0 as an Agri-Fab city, a territorial metropolis structured by a productive landscape as a transversal connections in a distributed system. Figure 3 - The Castelli area between the villages of Montecompatri and Colonna. A productive territory an
The current urban prospective lets us think about a discontinuous, complex and interlaced dimension of a new kind of relational geography: a networked geo-urbanity associated to a vision of the territory as a mesh, capable to combine intensive movements and extensive progressions. From an “extra-urban” territory to an “intra-urban” one. From a territory-surface to a territory-mesh. From a passive territory to an active territory. - enhancing and reactivating the existing urban structures; - articulating the different infrastructural networks; - coordinating different landscape patterns into new models of integrated planning. Today we might interpret infrastructure as landscapes, and landscapes as infrastructure; or rather the infra-structures as eco-structures and ecostructures as intra and infra-structures. It is a complex approach associated to the new challenges offered by the public space, today not only designed as a shared open space but as a more and more “interactive” and informational space, affecting the society, the environment and the local cultures. The territorial city can be proposed as a “non-linear” structure of situations, processes, sequential programs, related to heterogeneous physical and virtual networks and to a combinatory and evolutionary logic capable to generate transversal relations and a new “interlaced freedom” in events and movements.
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If the Rome 2.0 is structured by infrastructure (Consolari) and nodostructures (urban nodes), the configuration of Rome 3.0 can find a resilient and efficient configuration of eco and info-structures. These eco-structures are not an idealized, bucolic landscape dedicated to contemplation, nor the territory available for the growth of the future urban fabrics. They can be rather a “Productive Landscape�, a multifunctional system, capable to produce energy (through new self-sufficient systems on a territorial scale), food (enhancing the agricultural character of the territory), goods (through the potentialities offered by a diffused network of Fab Labs) and relations (reactivating the local communities and economies). If production represents an identity tool, testifying to ancestral activities and historical relations with the environment, re-discovering these values in production can empower local communities and redefine the way in which we conceive urban space: not just the place for consumption, but a relational space. It is in this respect that IaaC elaborated a polyphonic proposal for the selected area through a process that involved the students form the Master in Advanced Architecture 14/15 – coming from 20 different countries - with the collaboration of FabLab Barcelona and Green FabLab. A proposal based on an open and multiscalar logic, not directed to the simple definition of formal projects, but focusing on the individuation of processes, strategies and economies. An urban protocol structured through an innovative methodology, capable of reading the territory through the collection and
visualization of real-time data, and therefore defining devices, technologies and spatial strategies for the implementation of a relational and informational urban ecosystem. If the absence of resources and credible public actors reveal how big scale regeneration programs are today unfeasible and anachronistic, projects that can appear avantgardistic reveal their concreteness in the capability to define processes where technological innovation offers accessible tools, capable to empower local communities as main actors of the modification of their spatial and economic –ultimately urban- context . -The first phase of this work was focused on the territorial scale and was developed by the “Encrypted Rome” seminar. Seven groups of students analyzed the assigned 10x10km area in order to propose visions and speculative models of agrarian growth. An experimental methodology that involves programming in order to define aprioristic parametrical models that, when applied on the territory, highlight unexpected potentialities of territorial and relational development.
“Rome 3.0 can be defined as an Agri-Fab City, a self-sufficient, creative and interconnected city, where a productive landscape can structure a new territorial framework and urban protocol” 8
Figure 4 - Encrypted Rome seminar – methodology and project
The Open-source Processing software has been used to define a script, showing coherence with a site-specific analysis: with the introduction of data coming from the territory, the software generates several data-responsive visions, applying automated models of organization for a distributed system. The result is a territory fixed by the already existing or proposed nodes, interconnected by continuous meshes, structured by physical and virtual interactions.
Figure 5 - Encrypted Rome seminar, Fractal outpour project: fractal low density network on the landscape as new transversal connection 10
The proposal for the area individuates new connections – transversally to the radial infrastructures of the city- as landscape system and slow mobility links capable to reconnect existing urban nodes and generate new relations on a local and metropolitan scale. The proposed strategy defines a network of collective and public space giving a new meaning to the existing nodes dispersed on the territory – farmhouses, historical buildings, sport facilities and manufacturing areas.
Figures 6,7 - Processes and territorial strategies for the 23 area. New connections, landscape and slow mobility systems to reconnect existing urban nodes and generate local and metropolitan relations.
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The second phase dealt with the landscape scale, through the “Rome AgriFab city” workshop. It explored the new eco-structural connection between the villages of Colonna and Montecompatri. Each group of students explored a 1x1 km area, composed in a strip of 5 squares, where 6 projects propose strategies and processes for the definition of a self-sufficient and interconnected habitat.
Figure 7,8 - “Rome Agri-Fab city” workshop – methodology and projects Strategies and processes capable to interpret the territory through data visualization and to propose devices, technologies and spatial strategies for a relational and informational urban ecosystem 14
Territorial networks where production permeates the collective space, reactivates nodes of the sprawl city and structures functional relations through a wide range of devices and projects: a mobility infrastructure to inhabit the landscape where algae produce energy and purify the atmosphere; a complex of water storage systems that working as sponges capture phreatic water and
Figure 9 - “Rome Agri-Fab city” workshop – “Green Line” project A network defined by a parametric canopy, capable to produce energy and purify the atmosphere trough microalgae. On the one hand, defining new itineraries on the slow mobility network, it becomes an infrastructure for inhabiting and experiencing the landscape. On the other hand it becomes a façade device capable to define new productive nodes (vertical farms and 0-km restaurants) while reactivating and enhancing existing ones. 16
Figure 10 - “Rome Agri-Fab city” workshop – “ProdActive ” project Organic waste coming from the agricultural and the residential area is transformed in biogas and bio-fertilizer through pyrolysis plants. Integrated into parametrical architecture devices, they define a network of collective spaces in strategical areas –urban center, agricultural area, sprawl area, an unused lot- structuring dynamics of interchange of resources, capable to enhance the collective environmental consciousness and new circular economies for the territory.
Figure 11 - “Rome Agri-Fab city” workshop – “Internodal algae exchange” project A system of alges pipes using pollution from the highway to generate energy an dproducing biomass for the agricultural system. An intermodal exchange system gives access to the territory from the highway.
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Figure 12 - “Rome Agri-Fab city” workshop – “Rural Oxymoron ” project A system of digitally fabricated productive devices, capable to enhance the productive potential of the area and structure a territorial network: aerostatic volumes that harvest dew for field irrigation and capture energy generated by the car vibration for public lighting
Figure 13 - “Rome Agri-Fab city” workshop – “Second landscape” project A network of green fab labs capable to close the productive cycle between physical resources, human resources and production scraps.
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Figure 14 - “Rome Agri-Fab city” workshop – “E-sponge” project A complex of water storage systems that working as sponges capture phreatic water and transform it into hydrogen for the agricultural trucks Figure 15 - IAAC installation in the Rome 20-25 xhibition - MAXXI Rome, December 2015
transform it into hydrogen for the agricultural trucks; aerostatic balloons that harvest atmospheric dew for irrigation and transform the highway vibration in energy for public lighting; a network of green fab labs capable to close the productive cycle between physical resources, human resources and production scraps; an infrastructure serving the public space that uses pyrolysis to transform urban and agricultural organic waste in energy. This is the IaaC vision for Rome in 2025: a distributed, interconnected, productive and self-sufficient city, connecting a local economy in a global network.
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Curators: Manuel Gausa Navarro, Silvia Brandi, Marco Ingrassia “Encrypted Rome” seminar - Master in Advanced Architecture 2014/2015 Master in Advanced Architecture 2014/2015 Faculty: Pablo Ros “Rome Agri-Fab City” workshop - Master in Advanced Architecture 2014/2015 Faculty: Manuel Gausa Navarro, Silvia Brandi, Marco Ingrassia, Mathilde Marengo, Jonathan Minchin, Lina Monaco, Carmelo Zappulla. Graphic Visualization: IAAC - Federica Ciccone, Ran Shabtay Video Visualization: IAAC - Carmen Aguilar Wedge, Cristian Rizzuti, Ece Tankal 3D modelling and fabrication: Rodrigo Aguirre, Anna Popova Photography: Matteo Canestraro Metropolitan mapping: “Info.Roma.it” association “Encrypted Rome” seminar, students: (group 1) Mehmet Yilmaz Akdogan, Asya Guney, Neel Kaul, Juan Diego Ramirez Leon, (2) Jayant Khanuja, Ran Shabtay, (3) Pia Grobner, Tamara Ivanovic, Shashank Shahabadi, Maulidianti Wulansari, (4) Farah Alayeli, Prawit Kittinchanthira, Marina Lazareva, Luisa Roth, (5) Ayaan Barodawala, Luis Angello Coarite Asencio, Jinyang Han, (6) Kunaljit Chadha, Salvador Martinez, Fatimath Sujna Shakir, (7) Saad Saheen Delanthabettu Kanyana, Taiesha Edwards, Denis Li. “Rome Agri-Fab City” workshop, students: (group A) Josep Alcover Llubia, Matteo Silverio, Ji Won Jun, (B) Pia Grobner, Panagiota Sarantinoudi, Maulidianti Wulansari, (C) Sara Casciano, Francesco Maria Massetti, Alessia Vendetta, (D) Ksenia Dyusembaeva, Edgar Navarrete Sanchez, Juan Diego Ramirez Leòn (E) Mattia Benatti, Federica Ciccone, Irene Meta, (F) Denis Li, Borislav Shalev.
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IAAC BITS
IAAC
DIRECTOR:
IAAC SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:
Manuel Gausa, IaaC Co-Founder
EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Jordi Vivaldi, IaaC bits Editorial Coordinator
EDITORIAL TEAM Manuel Gausa, IaaC Co-Founder Silvia Brandi, Communication & Publication Jordi Vivaldi, IaaC bits Editorial Coordinator
ADVISORY BOARD: Areti Markopoulou, IaaC Academic Director Tomas Diez, Fab Lab Bcn Director Mathilde Marengo, Academic Coordinator Ricardo Devesa, Advanced Theory Concepts Maite Bravo, Advanced Theory Concepts
Nader Tehrani, Architect, Director MIT School Architecture, Boston Juan Herreros, Architect, Professor ETSAM, Madrid Neil Gershenfeld, Physic, Director CBA MIT, Boston Hanif Kara, Engineer, Director AKT, London Vicente Guallart, IaaC Co-Founder Willy Muller, IaaC Co-Founder Aaron Betsky, Architect & Art Critic, Director Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Hugh Whitehead, Engineer, Director Foster+ Partners technology, London Nikos A. Salingaros, Professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio Salvador Rueda, Ecologist, Director Agencia Ecologia Urbana, Barcelona Artur Serra, Anthropologist, Director I2CAT, Barcelona
DESIGN: Ramon Prat, ACTAR Editions
IAAC BIT FIELDS: 1. Theory for Advanced Knowledge 2. Advanced Cities and Territories 3. Advanced Architecture 4. Digital Design and Fabrication 5. Interactive Societies and Technologies 6. Self-Sufficient Lands
PUBLISHED BY: Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia ISSN 2339 - 8647 CONTACT COMMUNICATIONS & PUBLICATIONS OFFICE: communication@iaac.net
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