PINQuA Tor Bella Monaca

Rome - Italy

Type

  • Housing 

Location

  • Rome

Year

  • 2023 - ongoing

Client

  • Municipality of Rome

Activities

  • Final and executive design

Costs

  • 35 M euro

Area

    • Premises converted into services: 770 sqm
    • Renovation of apartments: 3,200 sqm
    • Energy efficiency upgrades: 28,500 sqm
    • Residential tower: 2,800 sqm
    • Sports hall: 400 sqm
    • Renovation of Community of Sant'Egidio premises: 750 sqm
    • Redevelopment of external landscaping: 16,500 sqm

The urban and building regeneration project, funded through PNRR resources and included in the Innovative Programme for Housing Quality (PINQuA), focuses on the central building of the R5 block on Via dell’Archeologia in Rome, part of a system comprising three large courtyard buildings.

Designed by architect Pietro Barucci in the early 1980s as part of the Tor Bella Monaca Piano di Zona (Zoning Plan), the building belongs to the extensive public housing program promoted during those years to meet the high demand for housing. It shares numerous distinctive features with other contemporary projects—including Mario Fiorentino’s Nuovo Corviale and the Laurentino district by Barucci himself—such as the unified and 'monumental' scale of the layout, the extensive use of prefabricated concrete systems, and the standardization of modules and housing typologies. Like many similar developments, the complex has gradually experienced a process of isolation and decay, eventually becoming, in recent decades, a vulnerable environment marked by social marginalization and illegal activities.

In line with the strategic objectives of the PINQuA program, the regeneration project is not limited to addressing what could be defined as 'technological' decay—resolvable through building restoration and energy efficiency measures—but aims to have a lasting impact on the inhabitants' quality of life. This is achieved through the reorganization of walkways, public spaces, housing units, and the vast area designated as greenery.

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The intervention is structured into four macro-operational areas: the regeneration of the existing structure, energy efficiency improvements, new constructions, and the redevelopment of the internal courtyard. Regarding the regeneration of the existing building, a pivotal element of the project is the diversification of the complex's original functions: the ground-floor apartments facing via dell’Archeologia are converted into service spaces and association headquarters. This introduces a non-residential component into a building originally designed solely for housing, bringing in activities capable of contributing to the revitalization of the entire sector. However, not all ground-floor housing modules are converted; some are transformed into 'voids,' granting the base a degree of porosity that turns it into a 'permeable membrane.' This allows for a physical, visual, and relational continuity between the street, the neighborhood, and the internal courtyard, which is itself animated by new functions. The first floor of the existing building maintains its residential use, though it features a remodeling of the housing typologies aimed at meeting current needs, which have evolved since the 1980s.

The upper levels of the existing building are subject to energy efficiency measures involving the full replacement of window fixtures and the installation of a new external thermal insulation system (EIFS/ETICS). This operation provides the opportunity for a comprehensive rethinking of the facades' architectural design: the rigid and almost obsessive repetition of the original module is replaced by a composition organized in vertical bands of varying sizes, colors, and depths. This breaks the monotony of the elevation and grants the building an unprecedented recognizability within the R5 sector.

The internal courtyard—defined on three sides by the existing building and open toward the Agro Romano landscape to the east—hosts two new constructions: a ten-story residential tower providing thirty-two new housing units, and a lower-rise volume at the base of the tower intended for use as a gym. Both buildings, designed according to the highest standards of sustainability and energy performance, echo the colors and material language of Barucci’s renovated facades, ensuring compositional coherence and continuity throughout the intervention.

The courtyard also contains two buildings used by the Community of Sant’Egidio, which will undergo extraordinary maintenance to enhance the activities hosted there, as these are considered a decisive factor for the overall success of the regeneration process. Eventually, the project includes the redevelopment of open spaces, an intervention aimed not only at increasing soil permeability and mitigating the urban heat island effect, but also at redefining the hierarchy of vehicular and pedestrian paths, linking existing buildings, new constructions, and public spaces into a unified and recognizable system.