This course offers students the unique opportunity to learn from and respond to the architectural landscape of Rome, Italy. After beginning in Oslo, the course will take place primarily in Rome, where students will live and work from early September through the end of November. Taught by Bryony Roberts, the studio runs in parallel with a seminar taught by Victor Plahte Tschudi titled Architectre makes History – Rome. Together, the two courses will bring students into contact with historical architecture to develop experimental methods of analyzing and remaking history.

Through the studio and the seminar, students will engage historical structures in Rome through experiments in drawing and design. Building on previous Re-Store studios and ongoing Experimental Preservation discourse, the course invites students to expand contemporary engagement with existing architecture. Moving beyond conventions of reuse and preservation, students will consider how contemporary tools of representation and design can connect reframe historical structures for new audiences.

Picking up the themes of seminar, the studio will pursue three types of engagement: Materials, Mediations, and Annexations. In the first phase, Materials, students will engage in on-site observation and physical contact with historical structures, developing methods for recording the sensory and material properties of the sites. In the second phase, Mediations, students will analyze different techniques for drawing historical architecture, and select one method to expand through individual experimentation. Since each method of representation provides a different frame for perceiving historical buildings, students will use their drawings to begin formulating a design strategy for transformation. In the final stage, Annexations, students will build on their drawing experiments to propose a transformation to a specific historical site in Rome. Experimenting with the conventions of reuse and preservation, these design proposals can encompass a range of strategies from ephemeral performance to more permanent structures.

In terms of the course structure, the studio will begin in Oslo on August 17, and then move to Rome in early September, where the seminar will introduce a historical perspective through a combination of discussions and site visits. After this introduction, students will focus on developing their drawing experiments and final design project, which will be presented at final reviews in Oslo in December.