"Ali e Radici": A New European Bauhaus Prototype for Sustainable Architecture and Transatlantic Co-Education between Rome and Arkansas

This paper explores the <i>Ali e Radici</i> project, or <i>Wings and Roots</i> (<i>Ali e Radici</i>), a New European Bauhaus (NEB)-oriented model of an architectural and educational prototype, located in the Città Verde residential area in Cecchignola, Rome, and one of the first real-life applications of NEB concepts. The project is entirely financed and promoted by La Leva s.r.l., an internationally recognized leader in green construction that has developed Città Verde as a certified sustainable neighborhood achieving GBC Home® Silver certification for three buildings in the Smart District and pursuing dual GBC Home® and GBC Quartieri® certifications from Green Building Council Italia. The development has been recognized by ASviS (Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development) with the Certificate of Good Territorial Practice for a more sustainable Italy.Conceived and curated by artist Marko Guglielmi Reimmortal, the project strategically orchestrates a network of Italian and American institutions to embody the core concept of the artwork: intergenerational and international dialogue. The curatorial vision deliberately connects Italian primary schools, secondary art schools (liceo artistico), and universities with their American counterparts, creating a generational arc from childhood through higher education. The transatlantic dimension is uniquely mediated through the University of Arkansas Rome Center, where American students from Arkansas study within Italian culture, creating a bridge between two continents that is physically anchored in Rome itself.The project combines art-based approaches, sustainable building design, circular material cycles, and intergenerational pedagogy in this transatlantic co-educational framework. The analysis will aim to clarify the ways in which this cross-institutional partnership—carefully assembled by the artist to manifest the "wings and roots" metaphor—underlies the participatory and regenerative paradigms of sustainability in architectural education practices in peripheral urban contexts.This study uses a hybrid research design, which is a combination of qualitative case-study research strategies, such as document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and direct observation of co-design workshops, and experimental design-build research, which incorporates material experimentation, spatial prototyping, and preliminary environmental performance analysis.Participants in Rome—including primary school children, secondary arts students, and American university students from the University of Arkansas Rome Center—worked collaboratively to create spatial artefacts (ground mosaics, throne-sculptures, and threshold sculpture), using recycled ceramic and low-carbon concrete to realize NEB principles of sustainability, aesthetic quality, and social inclusiveness. The project is coordinated transnationally by the artist from Miami through online workshops and periodic site visits to Rome.The empirical results suggest that an <i>Ali e Radici</i> project creates an ecosystem of learning on multiscale, which strengthens the attachment to place, promotes cultural and environmental literacy, and facilitates context-responsive design intelligence, besides leading to the decrease in embodied carbon at the artefact level.A conceptual framework offered by the authors is replicable and it is organized around a metaphor, namely, the wings, and the roots, which balances the local cultural identity and the transnational academic mobility.This study contributes to the research on sustainable cities, architectural pedagogy, and NEB-influenced urban transformation by locating architectural education in the framework of a living laboratory.