Romanina school campus

location: Romanina district - Roma, Italy

program: school campus including elementary and middle school

dates: project 2004

data: total built area 4.500 m2

architect: waltritsch a+u, Arch. Dimitri Waltritsch Trieste, Italy
in partnership with Frits van Dongen / de Architecten Cie., Michael van Gessel, Pietro Celli

team: Dimitri Waltritsch with Marco Medizza, Ileana Toscano

The Municipality of Rome aims to redevelop its periphery through the design of public buildings and high quality communal space. This new school campus set in the Romanina neighbourhood will host one elementary school with fourteen classrooms, and a middle school with twelve classrooms and two special units. Both schools will share communal facilities like laboratories, offices, a main top-litted meeting hall in the center, a small hortus botanicus, and a gym, also accessible directly from the outside for evening use. The whole complex is organized in an X shaped, two stories building. The two longer wings looking at the park hosts each one school. The other two wings facing the square include the gym and offices and other small facilities for the neighbourhood life. Circulation and public life happens inwards, while the classrooms have the possibility to expand outdoors in dedicated gardens. The building is marvellously set into a park area which includes an athletics track and other sport facilities for the schools in the middle, while the rectangular border of the park is defined by stepped terraces and tall trees.

Images and text © D. Waltritsch. Use only by permission.