Building collective individuality. windows on the river, Formello (RM)

Abstract

The constellation of houses designed and built by MPA (Malfona Petrini Architettura)
in the Roman countryside is the result of a dutiful reflection that reveals the architectural
project and associates its scale to the crisis of the city shape. The choice
to live near the capital, in one of the endless Italian countryside, is a symptom that
characterizes and frames a historical moment when the city no longer responds
to its inhabitants’ specific needs. The causes of this symptom can be various and
all complementary to each other: political, economic, ideological, operational, planning.
To design and build “peripheral architectures”, a collection of single-family
houses in the Roman countryside, also represents a social experimentation with
the aim in time to define a new multiform community. The three villas project called
Windows on the river gives formal identity to this unprecedented dynamic, shaping
a new landscape that stands in continuous dialogue with its past, recomposing domestic
devices, typical of our culture, but with a contemporary acceptation.