terra
memory and healing in the eternal cityRome, Italy
UW in Rome, Fall Exploration Studio II, 2021
*Selected for UW Student Archives*
Questioning permanence. Tucked into
the north slope of the Celio Hill, the Terra Wellness Center creates a space of
refuge in the historic urban center of Rome while delivering critical
community health resources to the city. In a time when the psychosocial
consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are high, Terra provides important
services supportive of holistic wellbeing and a prominent public presence for
mental health advocacy.
As a “space of healing”, the Terra Wellness Center focuses on a holistic response to mental health. It features an exhibition space, a gathering hall for movement-based activities, a health clinic with spa facilities, and a flexible art therapy hall. As an architectural intervention, the structures are embedded into the hillside, expressing a sense of rootedness, and exploring the principle of excavation as a tactile metaphor for the importance of memory and self-expression along the journey of psychological healing.
As a “space of healing”, the Terra Wellness Center focuses on a holistic response to mental health. It features an exhibition space, a gathering hall for movement-based activities, a health clinic with spa facilities, and a flexible art therapy hall. As an architectural intervention, the structures are embedded into the hillside, expressing a sense of rootedness, and exploring the principle of excavation as a tactile metaphor for the importance of memory and self-expression along the journey of psychological healing.
Spaces exist between
shifting planes, crafting a sense of gradual change across the landscape and
responding to one’s temporal relationship to the rich and layered history of
the site. Furthermore, utilizing the heavy materiality of raw earth and stone
creates a multisensory experience, cradling spaces of security and refuge
amidst the chaos of central Rome.
Embracing holistic health at a community level and throughout a lifetime necessarily exists along a transient spectrum. It underscores an understanding that rootedness, acceptance, and belonging must arise despite the persistently transitory nature of the surrounding environment — people, space, and circumstance. Terra must contend with this reality within a similar question at large, as the intervention utilizes traditional building materials in contemporary forms to question the conception of permanence in a city where permanence is best understood as paradoxical.
Embracing holistic health at a community level and throughout a lifetime necessarily exists along a transient spectrum. It underscores an understanding that rootedness, acceptance, and belonging must arise despite the persistently transitory nature of the surrounding environment — people, space, and circumstance. Terra must contend with this reality within a similar question at large, as the intervention utilizes traditional building materials in contemporary forms to question the conception of permanence in a city where permanence is best understood as paradoxical.