Densità e nuove centralità della Capitale: "Porta di Roma" e altri progetti.

The urban transformation process in Rome, as it was emphasized by scholars who have interpreted and reconstructed its evolution in history, represents an outstanding field of exploration of how a tool such as density, in its various dimensions, has been able to determine an incredible range of outcomes, from the most virtuous to the most perverse. Of course, the failing or successful episodes of urban planning are not exclusively depending on the density of housing, activity, or flows, nevertheless the general strategy of addressing and controlling the evolution of the whole of the city and its parts is certainly connected to the virtuous management of urban density. In this essay reflections about the leit motif of the book (the traditional and innovative dimension of density in planning) are developed taking inspiration by some recent episodes of master plans and urban projects already completed or still in progress in Rome with descriptive and critical remarks related to the direct experience of the authors involved respectively in project study (B. Monardo) and in the management of the real estate transformation cycle as the main developer (C. Santi). The projects were selected as three significant case studies for the recognition and critical evaluation of the densification policy in Roman metropolitan dominion; they are heterogeneous by size, activity, localization criteria and effects, ranging from a great “pole d’excellence” in the northern periphery (the Bufalotta "Porta di Roma” Metropolitan Centrality, according to the new Master Plan of the city (finally approved in 2008), to the restoration and recovery of a monumental building in the heart of historical centre, the “Galleria Colonna” building in front of Piazza Colonna and Palazzo Chigi, the Prime Minister venue. The third project is about a new residential and commercial block designed by the famous architect Renzo Piano to be built in the core of the most important Central Business District of the city (the so called EUR), whose location is strategically connected to the densification axes of the economic activities at a metropolitan level running from the consolidated core of Rome towards the sea. Speaking about the "dynamic density" concept, different flows (automobile, public transport, pedestrian) were evaluated according to the heterogeneous urban dominions of the three projects. For instance, it was simulated the flow impact of the great retail surfaces in “Porta di Roma” centrality (about 120.000 sq mt) improving the access and the escape road network; with different goals it was tested the management of pedestrian city-users movements inside the covered spaces of the new Galleria Colonna (called Galleria Alberto Sordi). Finally, in Piano’s project it was verified that the traffic flows generated together with the new polarity of the Congress Area (just in front of it) is supposed to be mostly distributed at different time of the day and it can be more coherent with peaks of demand for accessibility. That’s the reason why it was chosen by the City Council to allow the residential land use for the new block, tackling the global attraction and “pressure” of jobs, city-users and metropolitan businessmen commuting journeys all around the EUR core area.