Piccola Libreria

Piazza dei Quiriti in Rome, with benches, a fountain, and a park trash can

Project Brief

The Goal for this project was to design an outdoor urban design intervention in one of the historic neighborhoods of Rome. For my project I was assigned to work within the neighborhood of Prati, with a focus on the Piazza Dei Quiriti.

Research

Field Research

A man sitting alone on a park bench in Piazza dei Quiriti

The first step of my research was to go to the area and understand how people spent time in the area. I visited the site on 3 different occasions to understand user behavior across the following conditions: Morning, Afternoon, Night

“People are mainly drawn to the benches, both when alone and in groups”

To better understand the scale of the design intervention a plan of the area was found from the city of Rome.

Official city plan of Piazza dei Quiriti from the city of Rome

User Journey

Park experience journey map for a single visitor to Piazza dei Quiriti

To better understand the problem that was presented by the benches I created a user journey map showing where a potential pain point can be found

Design

References

AI-generated concept of a book-sharing trash can structure in a park setting

AI-generated concept of a round book-sharing structure in the piazza

Close-up AI-generated concept of the book-sharing trash can structure

Inspiration for this came primarily from public park trash cans that are found in Rome. Alongside the original design reference, AI was used to supplement the initial ideation phase.

Design Concept

To the right is a sketch book page studying what form language I thought would be best to move forward with.

Early concept sketch of a pavilion-like structure

Concept sketch exploring a hinged opening mechanism

As the form started to take shape, I continued exploring how to increase the intervention's visual interest and how users would interact with it.

Final concept sketch of the tiered book-sharing structure

Above is a sketch that would go on to become the final design intervention.

Photogrammetry scan of the park corner, angle 1

Photogrammetry scan of the park corner, angle 2

Photogrammetry scan of the park corner, angle 3

To better understand the scale of the design intervention in relation to other elements of the park, a 3d model was created through photogrammetry. The model was focused solely on the corner section of the park with bench

Outcome

Final rendered design of the book-sharing structure placed in context in the piazza

The final design was presented to small group of potential users with mixed results. Users reported that they were interested in the idea, however felt that the form of the design intervention could be further refined to better communicated the objects function.

Brush Buddy - Good Pistachios - Heritage Furniture - Knows Eyewear

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Piccola Libreria by Sebastian Alessio Peyton (2026)