ROMAN INFRASTRUCTURE

UNCC Graduate Studio
Spring, 2018
Location: Rome, Italy
Prof. Jeffery Balmer

This project completed while studying in Rome focuses on the relationship between today's urban citizens and yesterday's ancient artifacts. Within present day Rome is the ancient Arelian Wall. The prior designation of the walled city. Today this historical site acts as a real and present actor. Dividing the city into uneven and unequal portions. At our site communities needing to cross the wall travel extremely long way around to take advantage of the resources, shops, jobs, and public space steps from their homes. My proposal involves excavating the even more ancient aqueduct from the interior of this wall. The duct, a series of large structural archways, was filled in to build the wall centuries later. In doing this the building acts as a pass through between the sides of the wall while embracing the ancient artifact within the problematic one. The community center continues to interact with the wall and green space on the other side through the library's private reading spaces and a public bath. A new piece of Roman cityscape conflating Artifact & Infrastructure in an effort to bring about social change.

Following Graduation this project was selected to represent the work of UNCC Arch. for 1 year on display in the school.

ROMAN INFRASTRUCTURE

Morgan Jacobs