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A long new concrete retaining wall beside a dug-up construction strip of earth and orange mesh, with apartment blocks beyond.

Monti di Pietralata Before the Stadium

  • Rome Workshop (Cornell in Rome)
  • Rome, Italy
  • Spring 2026

Collaborators: Leo Chen, Roma Patel, Lauren Quellos

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Monti di Pietralata is a neighborhood in Rome’s eastern periphery that has been shaped by nearly a century of top-down planning. Today, it is facing a €1 billion AS Roma stadium development, which is currently advancing through its approval process. Each successive master plan in the neighborhood’s history has promised transformation, but has instead left behind large tracts of undeveloped public land. This development cycle has prompted us to determine what exactly has drawn developers to build in the Monti di Pietralata area, and the repercussions it has for the local community in terms of public space accessibility. We also investigate the nature of local civic groups as a way to inform, educate, and activate residents on the projects that are on the horizon.

This report takes a multi-method approach to understanding Monti di Pietralata, synthesizing quantitative spatial analysis with qualitative fieldwork including resident and stakeholder interviews, site visits, and historical research. We present findings on the neighborhood’s history, demographics, built environment, transportation networks, non-built areas, real estate market, community groups, and the projected impacts of the stadium and surrounding developments.

Research Questions

  1. How has Monti di Pietralata become a target neighborhood within Rome for master planning and capital projects?
  2. What impact will these project have on existing public space and new public space?
  3. To what extent do civic groups effectively provide the neighborhood with information or advocacy opportunities in response to these developments?

Inside the Full Report

On this pageIn the full report only

  1. 1Introduction

    • Meet the Team
    • Project Context
    • Research Methodology & Limitations
    • List of Operations

  2. 2Understanding Monti di Pietralata

    • Demographics
    • Initial Impressions
    • Major Landmarks
    • Neighborhood History
    • Past Master Plans
    • AS Roma Stadium
    • Other Developments

  3. 3Football Stadium Projects in Italy

    • Literature Mapping & Overview
    • Flaminio Stadium
    • Allianz Stadium
    • San Siro Stadium

  4. 4Mobility and Public Spaces

    • Transit Options & Cycling Access
    • Road Network
    • Places of Solidarity
    • Open Space & Non-Built Areas

  5. 5Building Landscape & Real Estate

    • Building Typologies
    • Land Use & Building Conditions
    • Housing Market & Property Values
    • Commercial Rent Prices

  6. 6Community Engagement

    • Engagement Methodology
    • Intercept Interviews
    • Stakeholder Interviews
    • Cognitive Maps

  7. 7Conclusion

    • SWOT Analysis
    • Findings
    • Closing Remarks
    • Community Pamphlet and Exhibition Posters

Neighborhood Context

Over four months we developed an intimate understanding of the Monti di Pietralata neighborhood, which is bounded by Via dei Monti Tiburtini to the north, Via dei Durantini to the east, Via Tiburtina to the south, and the Tiburtina Station tracks to the West. This section encompasses dense Intensivi blocks, shops, parks, a community church and square, informal settlements, and a largely undeveloped area that includes the projected stadium development site.

The study area sits within the larger known Pietralata area (formally designated as Quartiere XXI Pietralata), which includes Tiburtina Station and the historic Pietralata neighborhood along the Aniene River. This distinction that matters because many residents view themselves as separate from these adjacent areas despite frequent conflation from outsiders.

Context map: the Monti di Pietralata study area sits inside Quartiere XXI Pietralata, at the western edge of Municipio IV in Rome. 7,217 residents, 123 hectares, 34 census tracts.

Methodology

Community engagement was the most central piece of our methodology. We conducted semi-structured interviews and cognitive mapping exercises with residents, business owners, religious leaders, and institutional stakeholders, involving a range of ages, tenures, and relationships to the area. These conversations shaped our understanding of how residents perceive their neighborhood boundaries, what community assets they value, and how they feel about incoming development.

Methodology roadmap: a timeline of the semester with public-facing activities (site visits, two rounds of cognitive mapping, intercept and stakeholder interviews), internal work (data collection, historical imagery, literature research) and deadlines, from initial impressions to the final review and public exhibition.

The AS Roma Stadium

The new AS Roma stadium is the most prominent major development in Monti di Pietralata. It aims to be completed in 2030 in order to serve as one of the stadiums for the UEFA Euro 2032 (being hosted in Italy and Turkey). This is an initiative to build new grounds for the beloved Roman soccer team that currently shares the Stadio Olimpico with Lazio.

The plan covers 27 hectares and includes the 60,605-seat stadium, two large public parks (a 6.9-hectare Parco Centrale and a 6.7-hectare stadium park), the former Via Sublata as a public plaza, a club museum, fan store, 30 retail points, extensive hospitality and conference space, and over 91,000 m² of parking across interred, multi-story, and surface-level structures.

Plan of the proposed AS Roma stadium district: the stadium park and esplanades around the stadium, and the Parco Centrale with an amphitheater, sports fields and outdoor event space, between Via dei Monti Tiburtini and the rail lines.
Proposed AS Roma stadium plan
Projected Cost
€1+ Billion
€696M for stadium itself
Current Stage
Awaiting Final Approval
Funding Source
Private
Friedkin Group (club owner)
Total Area Impact
27 Hectares
Incl. 6.9 ha park
Rendering of the proposed AS Roma stadium at dusk, its ribbed facade rising above new parkland, paths, and a road and pedestrian bridge.
Stadium rendering, obtained from Roma Si Trasforma
Developments map of past, ongoing and planned projects: the AS Roma stadium district, Sapienza research laboratories and residences, the Rome Technopole headquarters, Family House in Pietralata, Rambla garden and plaza, Penny discount store, the Center of Excellence for the disabled, Piazza Smart and Tiburtina Station, with planned roads.
Past, ongoing, and planned developments

Public Space Impact

The stadium development’s promise of over 15 hectares of public space must be evaluated against both the history of the site and the precedents set by comparable Italian stadium projects. The land on which the stadium will be built was originally expropriated by the public in the 1990s at a cost of roughly €21 million, with the intention of creating a large public park for a neighborhood that has long lacked usable green space. While the plan designates 11.6 hectares as green space, the Comitato Popolare Monti di Pietralata contends that the truly usable daily park space is closer to 6.9 hectares, once security buffer zones and landscaping strips are excluded. This is a significant reduction from the 14 hectares originally envisioned under the SDO park plan.

Meanwhile, the smaller developments surrounding the stadium (the Technopole, Sapienza campus, Family House, Center for Excellence) each promise their own green components, but as landscape architect Silvia Cioli emphasized, these projects operate in complete isolation from one another with no unified public space strategy.

Fieldwork Survey

Non-Built Areas

In addition to the buildings, the unbuilt areas of the neighborhood were also surveyed. Each unbuilt area identified within the neighborhood was numbered from 1-36 and a spreadsheet containing different categories to be evaluated for each area was created. The categories included the area name and usage (undeveloped, construction, parking, park or square, or sports court or field), the level of maintenance (ranked from 1-4), level of greenery (ranked from 0-4), its level of usage (ranked 1-4), whether the space is publicly accessible, and general notes regarding the space and its greenery.

Map of non-built areas by type: large undeveloped tracts in the north of the study area, construction sites, parking, small parks and squares, and sports fields.
Non-built areas by maintenance level, from severe neglect to well-maintained. Non-built areas by activity level, from no activity to high activity; most of the large northern tracts see little or none. Non-built areas by public access: almost all of the large northern tracts are closed to the public. Non-built areas by surface type: hardscape, natural softscape, or a mix.

From Open Space to Usable Public Space

Largo Beltramelli: a paved plaza under bare trees, with people gathered outside a pharmacy and apartment blocks behind.
Largo Beltramelli
Waterfall chart: of 292,000 m² of open space, 206,000 is undeveloped land, 28,000 construction areas, 24,000 parking lots and 10,000 private courts and fields, leaving 24,000 m² of usable public space, 8% of the total.

Mobility

There are 15 total ATAC bus routes with stops either within or along our study area boundary. The four most accessible routes (routes which have the most amount of stops in our area) are the 111, 441, 544, and 548. Seven more additional lines stop along Via Tiburtina, which is within a 5-minute walk for a significant portion of the residents in Monti di Pietralata. The other four lines run along Via dei Monti Tiburtini.

The 111 and 441 in particular cut across the neighborhood and are assumed to be the most used lines. The 441 specifically stops at Quintiliani, and both stop at Tiburtina.

Internally, the street network is sparse and low-capacity, dominated by Level 1 and Level 2 roads with limited through-connectivity, numerous dead ends, and inconsistent sidewalk coverage. Via delle Cave di Pietralata functions as the sole meaningful collector linking neighborhood traffic to the bounding arterials, creating a bottleneck vulnerability. Although volume is too low for us to perceive any capacity issues onsite, the limited road capacity is a critical concern given the proposed AS Roma stadium and Sapienza developments to the North. Adjacent to these development sites, Via dei Monti Tiburtini is being renovated in order to reduce vehicular traffic for game days and allow ambulances to pass.

Local transit and mobility map: bus lines 111, 441, 544 and 548 and other routes through the study area, with 5-minute bus and 10-minute metro walksheds around Tiburtina and Quintiliani Metro B stations.
Local transit & mobility

Via Tiburtina (Facing East)

Street section of Via Tiburtina: shops and housing on both sides, sidewalks, parking lanes, bus lanes and two lanes of traffic each way.

Via delle Cave di Pietralata (Facing North)

Street section of Via delle Cave di Pietralata where it meets Via Vincenzo Morello: a planted median between the two roadways, bus stops, parking and sidewalks.

Engagement through Cognitive Mapping

What defines a neighborhood if not people? What is Monti di Pietralata without the people who live inside its boundaries? It is this baseline understanding of the value of the individual perspective that makes this community engagement section vital. This community engagement section is split into 3 distinct categories: stakeholder interviews, intercept interviews, and cognitive (Lynch) mapping.

Intercept Interviews

Intercept interview word cloud. Largest words: Cost, Connectivity, Stadium, Rent, Displacement and Mobility.

Stakeholder Interviews

Stakeholder interview word cloud. Largest words: Fragmentation, Public vs. Private, Infrastructure, Stadium, Displacement, Expansion and Disjointed.

Core TensionsPositive PerceptionsNegative PerceptionsNeutral Ideas

Cognitive mapping, often referred to as Lynch mapping after urban planner Kevin Lynch, is a technique used to understand how individuals mentally perceive the spaces they inhabit. Interviewees were given a blank sheet of paper and asked to draw a map of their neighborhood from memory, highlighting the places and landmarks they recall most. The maps are not intended to be geographically accurate but rather serve to reveal which elements of the neighborhood hold the most significance to each person.

Sara drawing her map of the neighborhood on a sheet of paper, sitting on stone steps.
Sara sketching a cognitive map in Largo Beltramelli
Sara's map: Via Tiburtina across the middle, with shopping on both sides and the BNL bank, Largo Beltramelli, the church and Luna Park branching off it.
Sara The map is centered around Via Tiburtina placing major landmarks as branches off of the main road.
Don Julio's map: the San Romano church and its social services in a circle above the triangle of Largo Beltramelli, with bars, restaurants and other community buildings around them.
Don Julio The design of the map is a lot less focused on roads, and more geared around important buildings that make up the fabric of the city.
Flavio Fianco's map: the river and green space above Via dei Monti Tiburtini, the hospital, a public park, and a hoped-for public park between Monti Tiburtini and Via Tiburtina.
Flavio Fianco The public and green spaces are directly mentioned and labeled, seeming to be the baseline of his understanding of Monti di Pietralata.
Leonardo's map: an almost orthogonal street grid around Largo Beltramelli and the church, with a park, the school, a pub and a pizza shop.
Leonardo The church is used as an anchoring point, off of which other streets and locational indicators are placed.
Federico Proietti's map: Tiburtina Station, the projected stadium, the schools and Piazza Rambla, with streets and hatched blocks drawn close to the real layout.
Federico Proietti This map is very planning forward, with a striking similarity to the actual layout of Monti di Pietralata, alluding to Proietti planning background.

Federico Proietti indicated the location of the projected AS Roma stadium, likely due his clear relationship to the project through his work. This leads to 3 conclusions: (1) community members are not aware of the stadium development (2) community members do not believe the stadium will be built (3) the stadium is not of importance to community members. This framework may be deceptively narrow, but sets a basis for understanding the stadium and other developments’ perceived impact.

Neighborhood SWOT

Strengths

  • Well Established Public Transit and Mobility
  • Community Organizations and Activity
  • Strong Development Potential

Weaknesses

  • Lack of Coordination and Awareness
  • Environmental Deterioration and Physical Limitations
  • Inadequate Access to Green Spaces

Opportunities

  • Economic Benefits of Stadium
  • Creation of a Unified Culture
  • Investment into Surrounding Area

Threats

  • Accessibility and Follow-Through of Development
  • Lack of Unified Vision
  • Overloading the Structural System

Community Pamphlet

We do not claim a complete understanding of Monti di Pietralata. However, utilizing the information we were able to gather, we have produced a SWOT analysis, answered our research questions, and created a tri-fold community pamphlet so that residents and stakeholders can easily learn about the development landscape and find resources to engage with actors. We hope these tools contribute to a more informed and inclusive conversation about the neighborhood’s future.

Outside of the tri-fold pamphlet, in Italian: Progetti Urbani nel Tiburtino, the AS Roma stadium project with its cost, timeline, funding and area, and resources for residents including the Comitato Popolare and city websites. Inside of the pamphlet: a map of planned, ongoing and completed projects, and a list of developments in progress (Interventi in Corso) with photos.

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