MOTORINO CHECKPOINT COMPETITION
2014
Site: Termini Station - Baths of Diocletian, Rome
Program: Parking
Status: Competition
The Motorino Checkpoint proposal for a competition hosted by ArchMedium is efficiently rigorous, as well as conceptually poetic and playful. It reflects not only the demands of the program, but also how fun it really is to ride a motorino in Rome.
Situated next to Termini Station adjacent to the great imperial Baths of Diocletian and caught in between modern and ancient Rome, this small site becomes an opportunity to re-brand the contemporary program of a parking garage with the strategies and effects of antiquity. The contrasting spatial transitions present in the Roman Bath typology which creates a rhythm of different planar configurations aligned on a straight axis served as the main organization scheme for the project. This allowed the autonomous pairing of the programs with the most effective shapes for their functions and produced a sequence of highly efficient forms: the circular ramp, the parking box and the triangular pavilion.
Four strategies were part of the design. First, the choosing of the grid which is related to the Baths of Diocletian and the ancient city, with the hope to tie the project to this part of the neighborhood which was the source of strategies for the design. Secondly, the organizational scheme used references strategies found in the roman bath typology.The third strategy involved maximum efficiency, using the 45 degree parking layout due to its unsurpassed competence and because of its conceptual resemblance to the roman herringbone brick pattern used in the baths (Opus Spicatum). Lastly it was desired to imbed the project with the playfulness connected with riding a motorino and also to display them to the passing city. By producing a sweeping, if somewhat precarious, arrival spiral promenade an urban performance stage is created which capitalizes on the speed and excitement of the motorino. The wall design, which maximizes the display of the motorinos, becomes a live mosaic and showpiece of this icon of roman life.
