As per the requirements of my architecture program at Penn State, I was required to study abroad for a semester at an institute in Italy. The course work included design studios, cartographical research, architectural analysis, and cultural experiences. I can safely say that this has been one of the most formative experiences in my education. To learn about a structure in the classroom and then go out the next day to see it feels incredibly rewarding. Below is a summary of the work and experiences from this semester.

Participating in the Premio Piranesi is a long-standing tradition in the academic activity of the Pantheon Institute. Each Fall, a number of students from universities from all over the world, including our Pantheon Institute students, gather in the wonderful setting of Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli to participate in a design competition concerning the Villa itself and the UNESCO Buffer Zone surrounding it.

The competition brief called for the design of a cultural center. The main program was to include a modern thermal bathhouse & spa adjacent to the ancient one.

The Pantheon Institute Design Studio project aims to reinterpret the Pomerium (the ancient urban fringe of Rome) in modern terms, introducing new landscape and/or architectural features in the available strips of land immediately adjacent the Aurelian Walls, engaging them directly with modern insertions so as to actualize their architectural image and function.

The thoroughfare surrounding the area of Porta Portese is currently plagued by piecemeal planning, fragmented pedestrian movement and suppressed development of permanent economic spaces.

Stemming from a group design project submitted to the ArtUrbain urban design competition, the Portico at Porta Portese works to establish the buffer zone in this underutilized area of the city. It works to become a retail and commerce space tucked underneath a newly raised neighborhood and park.

The new program for the complex includes a market portico with shops, a visitor center, a tabacchi, and two light rail stops. Above these is a new green space and low-rise neighborhood housing.

The course is based on the theoretical assumption that in an age in which architecture is no longer at the forefront of the contemporary cultural debate, an understanding of the heritage of architectural design is an essential tool to avoid futile formal endeavors and meaningless stylistic exercises. The architect more than any other intellectual should be sensitive to cultural tradition in order to propose solutions which may very well be radical, but never ignorant of the cultural framework in which he or she is operating. The course proposes an investigation of the universal elements of architecture manifest in this particularly exemplary urbanity of Rome.

The final project for this course is an analytique composition of important buildings in Rome, fostering a discussion regarding urbanism, the spirit of the times, and the modern language of architecture.

The course is largely based on the topography and urban development of Rome through the study of cartographic images of the city. Since only fragments survive of the Forma Urbis (the early third century map of the ancient city), most of the material used was drawn from the period covering the 15th century to the present day. Emphasis is given to changing perceptions of the city, with detailed analysis of the maps revealing the morphology of the city and efforts to alter and develop it.

Course work included the creation of hand-drawn route maps, each student personally mapping out the remnants of paths and monuments. Since a significant number of these routes still survive, at least in part, in the texture of the modern city, a selection of them were explored on guided walks during classes. Each route map is the student's personal interpretation of the path and the artifacts found scattered about it/