IL GIARDINO, ROME, ITALY
Spring 2025, Professors: Beatrice Bruscoli and Sam Callahan
Designed in Collaboration with Danielle Arias
This is an adaptive reuse project of the former arsenale of the papal naval fleet, dating back to the mid-17th century. Il Giardino, or The Garden, reimagines the connection from Via Portuense, the home of Rome’s famous Sunday flea market, to the banks of the Tiber River with a public park that tiers down from street level to the river. The Garden complex features intergenerational housing with 25 units, a cafe, a library and study space, a gym, a theater, a community kitchen, and a community garden incorporated into a public park. The Garden aims to provide a space for the community to thrive outside of the traditional Italian piazza. It’s mission is to create spaces for all generations to interact, engage, and learn from each other. The site currently is inhabited by informal dwellings created by homeless people in the area, so the community kitchen and garden is aimed towards assissting this community.
LAKE THUNDERBIRD BOATHOUSE, NORMAN, OK
Fall 2024, Professor: Awilda Rodriguez
The boathouse design concept is a balance of boat, site, and human needs while limiting concrete that permanently interrupts the site and has negative environmental consequences. By treating the building as an indoor/outdoor permeable space, like a pavilion, it forces our focus onto environment around us instead of the building itself. The restriction of concrete and the elevation of the masses are in an endeavor to design selflessly on the site, creating a building that lacks permanence and emphasizes the beauty of the site itself. The design shifts to accomodate views and integrate with the landscape. The human-oriented spaces “break” off from the boat storage spaces and begin responding to human needs. The boat storage and repair pieces shift towards the water. All circulation takes place on boardwalks to create an experience of being immersed in nature without damaging
