As migration caused by climate change became an increasingly urgent issue, the diplomatic relations between countries needed to quickly evolve - particularly between the global south and the west.
For this year, our site was in Rome, headquarters for three United Nations missions (WFP - World Food Program, FAO - Food and Agriculture Organisation, IFAD - International Fund for Agricultural Development, and an office of the UNHCR - United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), a city of world heritage, the center of the ancient and Renaissance world with a turbulent 20th-century history, and a palimpsest urban fabric of the deepest significance for architects and urbanists. Italy was also one of the centers of the migration crisis, with approximately 150,000 refugees received by the country each year.
We made proposals for how a new embassy and mission for a country from the global south might be established in Rome and how it might embody and project new values and ideals while at the same time integrating within the beloved continuity of the city. The opportunity to propose a building within the fabric of the center of Rome was a prestigious one for an architect, perhaps doubly so for the mission of a guest nation looking to further diplomatic ties.
The brief required research into the benefits of cultural cooperation and migration in the face of the socio-economic threats of climate change and questioned what program a contemporary national mission might need within the context of the complex history of Rome. Typically, embassies and diplomatic missions from western democracies were housed in protected compounds or secure detached palaces. We investigated the contradictory demands of security with the requirement for projecting a positive future of shared values and cooperation. We looked at previous attempts to reinvent the urban context of Rome and considered a range of architectural responses to the challenge of designing a new embassy.