David M. Chasco Invited to Lead 2015 Volterra International Design Workshop
Participating university teams also involved the University of Detroit-Mercy led by Dean Will Wittig and Professor Wladek Fuches (president, Volterra-Detroit Foundation), Warsaw Technological University (Poland) led by Professor Jan Slyke, Ph.D., and University of Pisa representative Giulio Pucci. James Timberlake of Kiernan Timberlake Architects, an alumnus of UDM and designer of the new U.S. Embassy in London, was the workshop captain.
The workshop project, titled “Il Foro Ecological,” explored the theme of the relationship between society and technology through the creation of a new urban district on a large site inhabited by a large public parking lot, the ruins of first-century BC Roman theatre, and Roman baths and bounded by the Volterra hilltop ring road on one side and the medieval defensive wall on the other. The site was part of the old Etruscan and Roman city. Three university-integrated teams of students designed urban responses respecting and integrating the site antiquities with a redirected pedestrianized ring road, new baths, marketplace grounds and facilities, and other uses deemed appropriate. The culmination of the students’ design efforts was a final exhibition and presentation to various interested townspeople and stakeholders including Mario Buselli, mayor of Volterra. Professor David Chasco has been invited by the University of Detroit-Mercy to head the Volterra 2016 International Design Workshop as well as select a UIUC School of Architecture alumnus as the workshop captain.