10.

The art of communication is the language of leadership. | James Humes

It's springtime here in Rome and as beautiful as it looks... I'm not very happy with how my allergies are adjusting.

ARCHITETTURA ISTRUZIONE.

This past week I had the amazing opportunity to participate in an International Design Workshop. Working in groups with students from Roma Tre University, we were given the prompt to create a sense of living archaeology in Rome and specifically focus on a site near the Colosseum, the Ludus Magnus area. The Ludus Magnus area used to be the gym and 'prep' area for gladiators before they went into the Colosseum for battle. Currently it is a recognized archaeology site that unfortunately goes pretty unnoticed.

We switched on and off all week as to where we would get our work done. Some days we were at the Roma Tre University and others we stayed to work in the CUA Rome studio. It was really interesting to see another architecture studio... Roma Tre's Architecture studio buildings used to be a slaughter house... Anyways, most groups were comprised of two CUA students and two Roma Tre students. Due to how the numbers worked out, I was put in a group with no colleague from CUA and instead, two great students from Roma Tre. We were nervous from the start - we lacked the amount of man power compared to the rest of the groups and we had to concentrate a lot on how we communicated ideas to each other. Luckily, architects use mainly non-verbal languages like drawings, sketches and diagrams.

We worked hard from Monday until Thursday solidifying our idea of connecting the Colosseum and Ludus Magnus via an underground educational exhibit. We had long work days of sketching and sitting in on lectures by some of the most prestigious professors at Roma Tre. We were even given another tour of the Colosseum and this time we focused on checking out the beautiful exhibit that was curated by one of the Roma Tre professors who critiqued our work.

In the end, my partners and I were all able to pull our strengths together to produce a very interesting project in less than a week. We produced wonderful hand sketched renderings, detailed sections that explained the path that a visitor would take and interesting presentation graphics. Despite the language barrier and communicating ideas late at night via email, we pulled it off! We were even honored to receive an honorable mention in recognition of our design excellence. Overall, it was a worthwhile experience that I am so glad that I was able to participate in.

To fully wrap up our projects and make any minor adjustments, we will have the opportunity to meet up with our Roma Tre friends later on in the semester! 

LA CUCINA. 

I'm just simply going to let you know that gnocchi is my favorite Italian dish. I got this delightful and filling gnocchi dish mixed with spinach, seafood and tomatoes from Cajo & Gajo, a restaurant in the heart of Trastevere, which is not too far from our school. They roped our group in there by giving us free champagne.

Looking for a health kick in Rome? I have frequented this organic food and juice bar a lot over the past month or so for their beautiful and delicious acai bowls, smoothies and daily lunch specials. Some of these specials include pumpkin risotto, which is also pictured below!