Create Your First Project
Start adding your projects to your portfolio. Click on "Manage Projects" to get started
Nomadi Space 1
Project type
Art
It took 120 years to build St. Peter’s Basilica. It takes less than an hour to erect Nomadic Space 1: a series of lightweight portable prayer spaces that can be transported in the trunk of a car and erected virtually anywhere in the city to serve as an amalgamating force for Rome’s burgeoning and fractured migrant communities. In a city known for its churches, their age, precious materials and incredible dimensions, the nomadic outdoor religious gatherings of migrants require precisely the opposite: small, lightweight, inexpensive, and impermanent.
Made of interchangeable aluminum elements of equal length and covered with a translucent high-strength polyurethane fabric, the form of Nomadic Space 1 is derived from the vertical orientation of the cruciform church plan. Its movable surfaces allow for size and form adaptability according to a particular community’s needs; depending on the number of people present, the rotating arms of the structure can define the space, while additional aluminum extrusions can be added to change the overall dimensions. Digital video projection provides illumination at night and brings the image of distant structures to the spaces temporarily occupied by the different groups of people. Since 2005 several version of Nomadic Space 1 were installed in locations throughout Rome.