WOP – workshop ostia ponente [19 - 21 settembre 2008].

WOP – Workshop Ostia Ponente (19-21 settembre 2008) / Coordinamento:  Studio Waterdesign [Arch. Paolo Anella, Arch. Alessia Cerqua, Arch. Federica Giuliani] in collaborazione con la Texas A&M University – Dept of Architecture (Arch. Peter T. Lang). Hanno collaborato: Lorenzo Romito (STALKER), libreria Almayer, Affabulazione, LIPU- Centro Habitat Mediterraneo – sezione di Ostia.

PROJECT SUMMARY:
DAY ONE: Students arrived to Ostia Lido on Friday September 19 and checked into their Bungalows at the International Camping on the Lido at 13:00 pm. A lunch was arranged at the Camping Restaurant. Following lunch, the TAMU Ends 301 class boarded a public bus and made one stop at the train station to pick up Paolo Anella, of Waterdesign and director of the Ostia Project and continued on to the Roma Marina at the mouth of the Tiber River. Despite a driving rain, the group found its way to the LIPO pavilion, organizational headquarters for the day’s workshop. At the workshop the group was joined by Federica Giuliani, architect and Alessia Cerqua faculty of landscape ecology at “La Sapienza University”, Rome.
The workshop that day consisted of a presentation by Luca Martini from the LIPU (National organization for the Preservation of bird wildlife) to learn about the specific qualities of the site under survey, its rich fauna and diverse eco-environments. The Workshop ended with a short walk to the newly inaugurated nature preserve, with its two wetlands created on a previous brownfield area.
DAY TWO: Morning tour of Ostia Antica, ancient Roman sea port city on the banks of the Tiber River located inland and originally buried under 2000 years of shifting river silt. Here we were joined for the day by Andy Stern (co-Curator American Pavilion Venice Architecture Biennale 2008, PARC) and 8 Landscape graduate students from Cal Poly, Santa Chiara Program). At 13:00 the workshop group boarded the River Boat at the Ostia Antica port on the Tiber for a tour of the river up to the ancient Trajan Port and then back down the river Tiber to the delta mouth on the Mediterranean, pulling into dock at the Rome Marina. We were joined for this leg of the workshop by Lorenzo Romito, co-founder of the Rome based urban art and architecture research group Stalker/Nomad Observatory. Lunch on-board was provided by Ada, the community leader for the Ostia Lido district and sponsor for the day’s boat tour and lunch.
16:00: Meeting at the Round-about in preparation for the afternoon site walk workshop. Undergraduate TAMU ENDS students were mixed with Graduate Cal Poly landscape students to form the groups, Caltex, 110, OPIG, TGB.

Lorenzo Romito presented the workshop goals for the day, discussing how to go about creating alternative maps on spatial and social evidences to be discovered over the course of the group walks. Each group was provided with a set of colored balloons (hence team names were after their assigned balloon color) and a set of die. Following ancient Roman custom, each group was instructed to use the die to determine their random pathways through the 25 hectare site. Each team was to invent a procedure with which to toss and read the die, and each team was requested to mark specific sites along their walk with their team’s colored balloon. The workshop was to conclude back at the Round-about at 18:30.

Fotografie: Samuel Gratacap, Alessia Cerqua.

Link alle foto del workshop