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The Church of Santa Maria della Presentazione (also known today as the Church of Santa Faustina) was born as a boundary architecture capable of transforming a peripheral condition into a design opportunity.
Located in Rome’s Quartaccio district, the work interprets the contemporary role of religious architecture as a civic and social infrastructure: not just a liturgical place but an open urban device, a collective space and a symbol of territorial regeneration.
Built as part of the “50 Chiese per Roma 2000” program, the structure redefines the relationship between built and landscape, translating spirituality, community and public space into a single architectural organism.
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Awards & Recognitions
Context and urban vision
The project came about through the awarding of a design competition, and thus the plan promoted by the Vicariate to equip the Roman suburbs with new places of worship and gathering.
Inserted in a fragile urban setting lacking civic and cultural polarities, the architecture takes on the role of a social catalyst, building a spatial identity capable of connecting the popular residential dimension with the surrounding rural landscape. The building becomes a physical and symbolic threshold between city and countryside, between urban density and territorial openness.
Compositional structure and through-space
The complex is divided into distinct volumes gathered under a large unified roof that integrates a covered public plaza. This system generates a balance between solids and voids, presence and absence, transforming the whole into a porous and permeable organism. The spatial sequence is not linear but experiential: the visitor crosses thresholds, courts and passages that build an almost labyrinthine dimension designed to encourage introspection, orientation and discovery.
Form, light and experience
The thin roof supported by a forest of pillars creates a visually suspended effect that lightens the built mass. In contrast, concrete volumes define more introverted and collected cores, while transparent and perforated surfaces filter light and landscape, establishing a continuous dialogue between interior and exterior. Light becomes a design material capable of building atmosphere, rhythm and perceptual depth.
Cultural recognition
The iconic and narrative quality of the space has made the architecture a cinematic setting: some scenes of director Gianfranco Rosi’s Sacro GRA, winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, were filmed here, confirming the evocative and symbolic value of the project in the international cultural scene as well.
