Sedi di Roma
Urban Design Studio

Sede di Roma, our urban design and planning studio offered an inclined site in Rome – leading from the heart of the city in Piazza Navona to the Tiber river. Little restrictions were placed within the program of mixed use space; only to keep the façade of the existing, de-sanctified church on the site.

The building re-establishes a connection between Rome and the Tiber; currently hindered by the Lungotevere, through the a gesture of the bar and fountains that trace it on ground level. This bar becomes public space identical to the life of the urban street, yet suspended in the sky. Here we find a restaurant, gallery, and music/bookstore.

Like ancient pilgrimages, the building connects Chiesa Nuova to San Filippo Neri on the ground in exterior pathways slicing through the building. In the sky, it is connected through bar, leading one toward the Tiber with views to St. Peter’s Basilica.

The bar is heavily structured and clad in translucent material to allow nighttime glow. Corten steel clads the exterior in lace-like screens. Few visible apertures exist from the exterior, emphasizing the bar and paths along it as public space. Contrasting the scale of the urban exterior, interior spaces reflect a more residential scale. Public passages and courtyards are detailed to provoke the user through light, water, and varying thresholds.