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Corviale: The Friendly Giant is a research-led design project that reimagines one of Rome’s boldest post-war housing experiments. The project reflects on the gap between Corviale’s utopian ambitions and its lived reality, drawing inspiration from Laboratorio di Città Corviale’s portrayal of the building as a ‘gentle giant’.
Corviale: The Friendly Giant introduces a series of adaptable plug-in interventions such as living space extensions, communal cores and a green spine called the Green Serpent. Paired with strategic extractions, these elements open up the building, improve spatial variety and create stronger connections to the landscape. These interventions also seek to foster a wider sense of community. Each element was conceived to integrate directly with the lives of residents, creating shared spaces that support interaction, visibility and intergenerational activity. The project offers a model for extending the life of existing housing through reuse and community engagement.
To challenge the rigidity of Corviale’s original design, I used card models to test flexible adaptations, exploring core placement, infill options, and spatial reconfigurations that reimagined relationships within the existing massing.
By carving into Corviale’s mass, the proposal creates room for shared infrastructure like community hubs and childcare. The Green Serpent removes parts of the existing structure to weave in a landscape spine, opening space for gathering and play.
Corviale’s challenges echo global post war housing struggles. This project explores how playful, adaptive interventions grounded in tactile, context aware methods can repair and renew existing buildings.
The plug-in interventions each serve unique roles, enhancing personal living spaces and adding shared facilities. They activate underutilised areas, fostering community interaction and improving the overall social life within the building.
The accumulation of these new pockets of activity could energise the entire structure and its verticality, breathing new life into the building and transforming it into a vibrant, interconnected community.