Project № 06 · Urban · Master thesis

Re-synchronization
of Rome

Treating the urban fabric as a system that has fallen out of sync with the city it serves, and proposing tools to bring it back.

Location: Rome, Italy
Year: 2021
Type: Master's thesis (Honours)
Title: "Urban resynchronization: case of Rome"
Institution: Sapienza Università di Roma

Aerial axonometric showing proposed loops weaving through central Rome — fig. 01: Aerial axonometric of the central study area. Proposed pedestrian loops in blue weave around existing nodes.

Cities grow; their populations move; their economies shift. The urban fabric, however, is largely static. The thesis starts from this asymmetry, the world keeps developing, but the city plan tries to hold still, and asks whether design can act as a kind of synchronisation device.

Rome was a useful test bed. The pandemic had exposed how dependent the historic centre was on a single category of user (tourists), and how badly it served residents. Whole quarters had functions on paper but not in practice. The thesis maps these mismatches and proposes a strategy of small, targeted interventions that can re-tune the rhythm of a neighbourhood.

Thinking process diagram showing three phases: knowledge, patterns, design — fig. 02: Three-phase thinking process. Knowledge (analysis of de-synchronization) → Patterns (urban regeneration types) → Design (alternative financing & planning paths).

A "synchronized city" isn't a plan; it's a state of equilibrium between fabric, community, environment and economy, easy to lose, hard to design.

Phase 1: Knowledge

Detailed mapping of land uses, structures, and functions across the study area — fig. 03: General mapping of the area. Colour distinguishes use: green / residential / hotel / Airbnb / shops / offices / institutions / cultural / religious / health. The heterogeneity is visible at a glance, and so is the under-utilisation.

Phase 2: Parameters

Diagram of supply, connectors, and outcome indicators — fig. 04: Parameter framework. Three supplies (interventions) act through four connectors (urban fabric, community, eco-friendly environment, economy) toward three outcomes, increase in attraction, residential economic increase, commercial economic increase.

Phase 3: Design

Aerial view of proposed loops and pink/green/blue zones — fig. 05: Loops. Three programme colours (pink for civic, green for environmental, blue for economic) define overlapping circuits that re-link under-used plots to the active fabric.

Street-level render of a re-activated piazza with tram and outdoor café — fig. 06: Re-activated piazza. New tram stop, market kiosks, and tree planting; the existing church dome anchors the space.

Render of redesigned roundabout with pedestrian priority — fig. 07: A redesigned roundabout. Cars at the perimeter, pedestrian zone in the middle, café terrace on the south edge.

The thesis argues that urban regeneration in dense historic cities cannot rely on demolition or large-scale insertions. The interventions have to be minor, distributed, and additive, what one of my readers called "acupuncture, not surgery."

The methodology developed here, three phases, four connectors, alternative financing through public-private mixes, became the operational frame for my later work in Turin's municipality and, eventually, for the post-carbon cities PhD.