Main Architecture and Design City of Sun: Priority to Public Spaces

City of Sun: Priority to Public Spaces

The new urban regeneration project by Labics places public space at the heart of the project. On a triangular lot of land, close to Tiburtina station, not far from the urban fabric of the established city and overlooking the Verano monumental cemetery, a building complex for a variety of uses has taken shape, arranged around public spaces that are augmented by a structure with several levels developed around a central square. City of Sun, the name of this project constructed following an invitation competition, highlights Labics’ ability to define innovative programs guided by profound knowledge of the historical city and the quality of its relationships.

In an area covering 11,000 square meters in the eastern part of Rome, the architectural firm Labics has completed City of Sun. Winner of the invitation competition launched by the Municipality of Rome in 2007 as part of the actions undertaken by the capital’s administration to enhance some of the areas used as a depot by the local public transport company, the complex designed by the architects Maria Claudia Clemente and Francesco Isidori is made up of residences, commercial spaces, offices, car parks and a succession of public spaces, on various levels. The project covers a patch of land previously occupied by the ATAC (the public bus company in Rome) depot.

City of Sun qualifies as an open project focused on sharing and interconnection with the dynamics of the neighborhood, located on the edge of the city center. Conceived on the basis of a study of the geometries, the solids/voids relationship and a meticulous reading of the local identity, starting with the neighboring Tiburtino II quarter, the project puts public space at its core, developing a complex system of relationships between spaces and heights.

“By virtue of the urban wisdom of the project,” wrote the architecture historian Claudia Conforti, “the working-class quarter and City of Sun merge into a complete urban unit, wrapping up a part of the city lost between monumental Rome, the historical outskirts and the convulsive metropolitan breath of the strips of the elevated and majestic Tiburtina station designed by ABDR.”

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