| Rome is a city of WATERMARKS and has always existed on FLUID FOUNDATIONS. The volcanic pyroclastic flows and the erosion and sedimentation of the Tiber River generated the topographical conditions for Rome's foundation, always re-founding itself through fluidity. The comfort that Romans had with fluidity is evident in Giovanni Piranesi's Vedute di Roma, which depict their engaging and fluid inhabitations of ancient ruins during Medieval Rome. Piranesi also depicts the activity and engagement between the city and the Tiber taking place along the river's edge, at ports such as the port of Rome in Testaccio, Porto di Ripetta and Ripa Grande. This fluidity is disengaged with Rome's ascension to the capital of United Italy in 1861 and the fossilization that followed through the embankment of the Tiber and obsession with classicism and its preservation. Due to climate change and more extreme weather events, the fluidity and interaction between the city and the river will be re-engaged as seasonal flooding will once again regenerate and re-found Rome. This thesis project will transform Campo Boario into a place of open engagement with the flood waters and the community, through architectural sedimentation and erosion that will allow it to respond to the water's current and flow in a resilient rather than resistant manner. |
