As they have done every year from 2011 to 2018, Rome’s YAP MAXXI organised a competition for the construction of an installation that occupied the MAXXI museum’s yard during the summer months.

YAP MAXXI is a programme promoting and supporting young architecture organized by MAXXI in collaboration with MoMA/MoMA PS1 of New York, Constructo of Santiago de Chile, Istanbul Modern (Turkey) and MMCA Seoul (Korea).

Other New Generations network’s offices such as Orizzontale (2014) and Parasite 2.0 (2016) were selected to develop their proposals.

In order to reduce pollution, improve the microclimate and foster the local biodiversity, STUDIOD3R proposed the Green Gallery project and won the 2018 edition.

The greater green areas in the surrounding are linked through multiple green stepping stones between them allowing for flora and fauna to move from one to the other.

STUDIOD3R’s project proposed to introduce an additional green stepping stone at the square providing shade during summer and an urban biodiversity corridor for both flora and fauna.

The museum’s yard, Piazza Alighiero Boetti, is an open space that hosts events and other activities, a vivid spot within Quartiere Flaminio.

The installation represents an architectural landscape capable of questioning the Anthropocene moment in time and the relationship between the man-made and the natural environment.

The installation’s lightness and minimal materiality contrasts with MAXXI’s massive volumes made out of concrete and gravity tectonics, designed by Zaha Hadid.

The architectural accuracy of the minimal structure creates a dense dialectic with the wild and diverse grown plants and allows an ambiguous reading of the gallery.

The Green Gallery works as a climate filter. Temperatures in Rome can rise upto 35ºC or more during the summer months.

The project, developed together with Marcello Fantuz, allowed citizens to value urban biodiversity and relax in the small, wild oasis, under the pleasant shade of the leaves.