Roma Continua: Gazometri Rehuse

The proposal explores the adaptive reuse of the Gazometri in Ostiense, transforming one of Rome’s most recognizable industrial structures into a new piece of urban infrastructure.

Rather than treating the existing industrial frame as an obsolete artifact, the project understands it as a carrier of memory, identity, and collective recognition. The intervention preserves the monumental presence of the Gazometri while introducing new programs and public spaces capable of reconnecting the structure with the surrounding neighborhood.

The existing frame becomes the starting point for transformation: new architecture inhabits, crosses, and activates the industrial structure without erasing its original character. The project establishes a dialogue between industrial heritage and contemporary urban life, allowing an infrastructure created for a previous era to acquire a new civic purpose.

Roma Continua proposes the transformation of Ostiense’s industrial heritage into a catalyst for a new form of collective urban life.

Rather than preserving the Gazometri as isolated industrial sculptures, the project uses these monumental structures as the starting point for a new mixed-use urban complex, surrounding and reintegrating them into the everyday life of the neighborhood.

The proposal brings together housing, commerce, public space, workshops, cultural activities, and productive spaces within a largely self-sustaining urban system. Different generations, activities, and socioeconomic groups coexist, creating a community in which diversity becomes an essential part of urban life.

A fundamental component of the project is social reintegration through opportunity. Housing and dedicated workshop spaces provide immigrants and people experiencing homelessness with places to live, work, learn, and develop artisanal skills—creating pathways toward economic independence and renewed participation in the city.

The Gazometri therefore cease to exist only as monuments to an industrial past. They become the center of a new productive and social community.

The project does not preserve industry as an image; it transforms its memory into infrastructure for a new collective life.

The whole master plan was developed as team work and the architectural projects (each building) developed individually. 

The project understands sustainability beyond environmental performance. Existing structures are reused, resources are shared, productive activities support community life, and spaces for living, working, learning, and exchange coexist within the same urban system.

The Gazometri become the center of a circular social and productive ecosystem, where diversity of income, origin, knowledge, and occupation is understood as a source of collective strength. Workshops create opportunities for learning and production, housing provides stability, and public spaces allow different communities to encounter one another as equal participants in the city.

Sustainability is not only about preserving resources—it is about creating the conditions for people, buildings, and communities to evolve together.

I think this gives Roma Continua another layer. The project then has four clear dimensions: industrial heritage → adaptive reuse; mixed-use → urban vitality; self-sufficiency → environmental/economic sustainability; social integration → human sustainability.