Between 12 and 15 architecture students will be flying to Rome today to study and suggest designs to help with the restoration of the Basilica of Constantine. The students will be returning to Muncie June 16.
This will be the ninth time that Ball State architecture students will have gone to Rome since 1990 through a program known as ArkItalia.
The main idea behind the credit-earning trip is to work together to create a museum under the structure that was built around A.D. 303, said Michele Chiuini, architecture professor and founder of ArkItalia.
The Basilica of Constantine was once one of the largest buildings in the Roman forum. It remains the tallest building, even after being left in a ruined state from an earthquake, Mike Goeringer, a recently graduated architecture student who attended the trip last year, said.
Chiuini stressed the importance of architecture students to have international experiences that will encourage them to be well rounded in their professional careers. Chiuini said the top architecture schools in the country, including Notre Dame, usually have permanently extended bases in Italy.
"We are going back to the roots of architectural design that will help students gain a new perspective," Chiuini said.
The students will be spending most of their time in studio, the environment where designs are cultivated and put together. In the studio they will be working on preliminary studies and understanding the significance of dealing with historical ruins, Chiuini said.
"This is an issue of responding to their unique culture and all of its differences from ours," senior Daniel Overbey said, who will be traveling with the group to Rome.
Overbey said understanding the culture will help later in his architectural career.
"You have to know how people live to be a more a sensible designer," Overbey said.
Designing constraints are expected as students try to design a museum, where visitors can capture the historical aspect of the basilica, without making any alterations to the structure.
"You don't have a clean sheet," Chiuini said. "Students will have to be very creative."
In addition to physical obstacles, students may face cultural ones as well.
"The challenge and fun part in designing the restoration of the Basilica of Constantine was putting away my 'American-ness' and pretending to think like a European," Goeringer said.
Goeringer said he was surprised by how dependent the economy was on the tourism brought in by the Basilica of Constantine.
"As an architecture student it is easy to get wrapped up in the realization that you have no clue about the real needs of the project or the true desires of the larger surrounding community," Goeringer said.
Although the project is set up as a hypothetical situation for the students, it will give them the opportunity to gain experience when they might be in a similar situation in their career.
"This trip has helped me grow in my confidence to enter a situation that is foreign or unusual and find my way through it," Goeringer said.
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