Roma Tre University Building / Mario Cucinella Architects
Roma Tre University Building / Mario Cucinella Architects
Text description provided by the architects. Three elliptical green and white steel-framed towers, a glass-faced auditorium with a street frontage, a new public piazza, and a raised “hanging garden” are the key distinguishing elements of the Rectorate of Roma Tre, a striking new development designed by Mario Cucinella Architects at the heart of Rome’s third university.
Sited adjacent to the busy Via Ostiense – the route of the ancient road from the city of Rome to the port of Ostia – the Rectorate projects a new image for Roma Tre while picking up on elements of the historic architecture and engineering of this former industrial quarter to the southwest of the city developed in the first decade of the 20th Century and transformed in recent years into a center of education and cultural activity. Founded in 1992, Roma Tre has made extensive use of abandoned industrial buildings. The university is part of a wider redevelopment of the area that will include new housing in the future.
From the new public piazza, the three towers, with concrete cores, rise through apertures cut into the mezzanine level “hanging garden”, which serves as a semi-public gathering space. The towers are faced with a trellis-work of steel columns, glazed in parts, open in others. The effect is of a permeable, shaded, and well-ventilated architecture. It is also a reference to the Ostiense quarter’s well-known 90-meter gasometer, a filigree steel structure that, dating from 1937, occupies a prominent site on the banks of the Tiber close to Roma Tre. This structure once gave new energy to Rome: the new Rectorate aims to give an equally new if different energy to the city through its animated design and its purpose as a seat of research, teaching, and learning.
The three intersecting blocks house the university’s management and administrative centers, a new language center, and the auditorium. They are elliptical in plan and section in order to present the least surface area to the East and West. As such, they curb the rising and setting sun glare while reducing heat gain in the summer months.
The gardens to the south of the towers with their deciduous trees, aromatic plants, and lawns provide additional shade and natural coloring as well as shelter throughout the seasons, as does the ground-level public piazza. Offices and meeting rooms are arranged around the perimeter of the towers to maximize natural lighting and ventilation.
