The aim of the research is to turn the spotlight on the GRAB, an annular infrastructure that develops for 44 km and that can be the triggering element of a process of profound transformation of Rome. This big ring for bicycles traverses a territory full of historical and environmental richness, partially in a state of emergency and neglect.
Rome is the city in Europe with the greatest quantity of green areas per capita, the largest archaeological park and the hugest amount of archaeological sprawl, but at the same time, one of the cities that mostly suffers from an unsustainable mobility approach, luck of quality of services in peripheral areas, the overwhelming impact of tourism.
During the first half of 2020, life in the cities was put on hold. Silent streets, empty skies, deserted parks, restaurants, bars, schools and production sites, as well as cinemas and museums were closed. We all experienced a new lifestyle suddenly imposed by the Covid 19 crisis. If by chance there were any doubts, the pandemic showed, with a sudden acceleration, how much the built environment affects our health. The density of population, the quality of public space, the transportation systems, the localization of proximity services, the presence of green areas, are all aspects that have an impact on our way of life and also on our health, a condition that means, first of all, the absence of illness, but according to a much broader concept established by the World Health Organization, it should refer to a state of psycho-physical well-being.
Our research proposes to study the potentials of the GRAB, that we have re-nominated ArchaeoGRAB, intended as a complex infrastructure that can generate new cultural meanings and encourage healthy lifestyles, through small interventions aimed at re-functionalizing the entire urban system. Nature, heritage, housing, services and mobility can in fact return to build a unified whole, involving different disciplines in the intervention strategy.
The innovative premise is that soft mobility networks can play a crucial role in integrating the territory and making it more cohesive, as demonstrated by the European Program 2014-2020.
The research proposes an interdisciplinary strategy that our University is already carrying on in the DTC project - Technological District for Cultural Heritage, founded by the Lazio Region with Sapienza University as leader partner, along with various universities and Research Centres.
ArchaeoGRAB is an environmental infrastructure that has the potential to become the largest archaeological greenway in Europe. Therefore, starting from the Rome Cycling Plan, the research assumes the GRAB as a cultural and healthy corridor aimed at promoting processes of:
a. sustainable mobility
b. enhancement of the historical and landscape heritage
c. urban, environmental and social regeneration of this vast area especially in the Eastern Roman Suburbium
d. strengthening of the recreational and sporting vocation of the ring.
The strategy of theoretical and operational development of the ArchaeoGRAB includes therefore 5 key topics:
1. Archaeology and thematic cultural itineraries.
From an archaeological point of view, this large sector is perhaps the most significant of entire Roman suburb. In ancient times, prestigious residential buildings, encouraged above all by the presence of aqueducts, marked the landscape. In addition, the area is rich in Roman cemeteries and significant early Christian settlements. Many rural buildings prove the high agricultural vocation. The modern extensive and uncontrolled urbanization swallowed up the connective tissue of this important context. The ruins survive fragmented in punctual and distant areas. The result is a multidimensional landscape, which nevertheless preserves parts of the ancient road system sometimes coinciding with the current one. The ArchaeoGRAB traverses the Appia Antica Park and runs parallel the Aurelian Walls, determining the reconnection with these two other important strategic infrastructures of the city. In addition, being an effective ring for slow mobility it can become also a driving force for the development of cycling tourism, characterized by thematic cultural itineraries. A tool to connect existing roads, tracks and historical routes for the promotion of the whole territory (i.e. Plan Andaluz de la bicicleta in Spain, and Eurovelo a database of greenways that crosses Europe using ancient routes and protected areas).
2. Urban, environmental and social regeneration.
The need to rethink the city from its material and imagery resources is strategic in order to convert critical instances into potentials of new lifestyles and wellbeing. The ArchaeoGRAB as connecting infrastructure can determine new social cohesion and renovated relationships between the residential districts, to increase the spatial capital of urban services and public spaces and to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants. Through ArchaeoGRAB, the redevelopment of the suburbs can become an opportunity for the implementation of a sustainable way of living, the protection of local identities and the development of interculturality.
3. Green corridors and protection of biodiversity.
In the context of the Roman suburbs, the ArchaeoGRAB is a potential green corridor to be connected to the general environmental network of the metropolitan hinterland, enhancing the natural and productive resources for the protection of the agro-food biodiversity and the environmental ecosystems.
4. Reuse and new urbanity.
The contemporary city is the place of phenomena of decline and abandonment of buildings and infrastructures that represent a dense mosaic of regenerative opportunities within the urban structure. In this scenario ArchaeoGRAB becomes the infrastructure for the recovery and enhancement of the industrial heritage of the Roman suburbs and the network of public spaces connected to it. Several experiences in Europe have launched virtuous processes starting from the reuse of old infrastructures, such as abandoned railways and their artifacts, to create cycle paths and soft mobility routes in which the presence of the old reconverted buildings has given rise to a strategic action extended to entire territories.
5. Health, wellness and free time.
This cycle path outside the city centre is an opportunity to create a corridor dedicated to free time and health. The ArchaeoGRAB can therefore constitute the infrastructure of an urban wellness chain, encouraging on the one hand a model for healthy living in the city and on the other a thematic itinerary for free time, similarly to the Vias Verdes project promoted by the Spanish railways for the regeneration of disused tracks, offering recreational and educational leisure activities.