Phd in ENGINEERING-BASED ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING

email: annabruna.menghini@uniroma1.it
phone:
building: Edificio A, via Eudossiana

ANNA BRUNA MENGHINI, Architect, PhD in Architectural Design, Associate Professor (SSD CEAR-09/A – Architectural and Urban Composition) at Sapienza University of Rome. From 1997 to 2019, she carried out teaching and research activities from 1997 to 2019 at the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture Sciences of the Polytechnic University of Bari, where she has been a Researcher since 1999 and Associate Professor since 2004. Since 2019, she has been teaching and researching at the Department of Civil, Building and Environmental Engineering of Sapienza University of Rome as an Associate Professor.
She has been coordinator of the PhD "Architecture: Innovation and Heritage" of the Consortium Argonauti (PoliBa-Università Roma Tre) and member of the PhD "Knowledge and Innovation in the Project for the Heritage" of the Polytechnic University of Bari. She is currently a member of the board of the Doctorate in Architectural and Urban Planning Engineering at Sapienza University.
Her theoretical and applied research includes the redevelopment of architectural, urban and landscape heritage, the reconversion of abandoned sites in Italy and the Mediterranean area, new forms of living, the relationship between tradition and innovation in the housing and building cultures of countries in transition, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

ACADEMIC - Graduated in Architecture in 1990 from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” with a thesis in Architectural and Urban Design. Supervisor C. Aymonino. - In 1997 she obtained a PhD in Architectural Design from the University of Palermo. - From 1999 to 2004 she is University Researcher SSD ICAR/14 at the Polytechnic University of Bari. - From 2004 to 2019 she is Associate Professor SSD ICAR/14 at the DICAR Department, Politecnico di Bari. - Since 2019 she is Associate Professor SSD CEAR-09/A - Architectural and Urban Composition at DICEA Department, University of Rome “Sapienza”.

INSTITUTIONAL ROLES - 2005-2019 Member of the Teaching Board of the Doctoral Programmes of the Polytechnic University of Bari. - 2016-2019 Coordinator of the DR “Architecture: Innovation and Heritage” of the Consorzio Argonauti (Poliba and Roma Tre University), XXXI and XXXII cycle. - 2004-2014 Coordinator of Erasmus Programmes for the CdL in Architecture in Bari. - 2004-2019 Member of the University Erasmus Commission. - 2013-2019 Head of the Internationalization Sector of DICAR. - 2014-2019 Delegate of the Rector for the Internationalization of Research. - 2013-17 Member of the Board of the DICAR Department - 2015-2018 Member of the Academic Senate of the Polytechnic University of Bari. - 2017-2019 Member of the Council of the Doctoral School-ScuDo, Polytechnic University of Bari. - Since 2019 Member of the board of the Doctoral School in Architectural and Urban Planning Engineering of Sapienza. - Until 2024 Deputy coordinator of the Doctorate in Architectural and Urban Planning Engineering of Sapienza. - Since 2023 Head of the Commission on Communication of the DICEA Department. - Since 2023 Member of the Faculty of Civil and Industrial Engineering's Commissione Paritetica Docenti Studenti.

TEACHING ACTIVITY - From 1996 to 2019, she had teaching at the CdLM in Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Bari, in the courses of Theories of Contemporary Architectural Research and Analysis of Urban Morphology and Building Types, Architectural Composition, Architectural Design and Urban Design in the Laboratories of the first, third and fourth years. - Since 2019, she is the holder of the course in Architecture and Architectural Composition II with Design Laboratory at the CdL in Building Engineering-Architecture at Sapienza University. - In the ay. 2024-25 she was the holder of the teaching of Advanced Architectural Design at the Degree Course in Technological Innovation Engineering for Construction at Sapienza's Rieti campus. She has been the supervisor of numerous theses and coordinator of Graduate Laboratories at the Polytechnic University of Bari. - In the years 2011-13 she was a visiting professor at the Doctoral School in Architecture and Urbanism, Polytechnic University of Tirana. - In the years 2017-2019, she taught the Course in Analisi e progetto dei paesaggi della dismissione at the Scuola di Specializzazione in Beni Architettonici e del Paesaggio at the Polytechnic University of Bari. - She carries out teaching activities abroad under the Erasmus Programme and is invited to give lectures in foreign universities. - Since 2013, she has organized numerous international workshops and seminars under the Erasmus Programme; she has participated as a tutor in numerous national and international workshops and seminars.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ACTIVITIES From 1999 to 2018 she participated in the research programs of the DICAR Department of Bari, as a member of the research groups: ‘UFG_Urbanformgrammars’ and ‘Study of Antiquity’. In particular, she was responsible for projects on the identity and enhancement of modern Italian architecture (FRA 2003 ‘Mediterranean Modern Architecture. Founding towns of the 1930s in Apulia: type-morphological characters and recovery methodologies’, PRIN 2006 ’Restoring history. Urban models and architecture in Italian colonial cities: the eastern Mediterranean’, FRA 2016 “Apulian archaeological-industrial heritage: methods for a reconnaissance, classification, definition of intervention categories”). From 2005 to 2019, she has been engaged in research, projects and scientific-cultural collaborations for the knowledge, valorisation and recovery of Albania's heritage, with the support of Albanian institutions. The results of this activity are evidenced by selected competition projects (Island of Berat, University City of Tirana), scientific and project consultations (Kukes-Dibra regional plan, projects for the setting up and expansion of the archaeological museums of Durrës and Tirana), numerous publications, exhibitions, conferences, and meetings in Italy and Albania.
Since 2019, she has been a member of the research group LAPIS – Laboratorio sull’Abitare. Progetto Indagine Sperimentazione. Since 2020, she has been working on sustainable living and the tradition-innovation relationship in the housing and building cultures of countries in transition, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa (Athenaeum Research 2020 ‘Learning from Africa. A guide to simple buildings for health care centres in rural sub-Saharan Africa'). She is currently engaged in numerous researches on new forms of collaborative living for the elderly population. These theoretical and experimental researches are developed in different fields and with different stakeholders:
- in the framework of the resources on urban regeneration of the PNRR in collaboration with some municipalities in Lazio region;
- in an interdisciplinary research program on ‘Shared housing for intergenerational living. New models with a healthy ageing perspective' funded by Sapienza;
- in a PRIN 2022 PNRR project on ‘COntemporary MOdels of CO-living for “the three human ages”’;
- in a project carried out within the PNRR-PE8-SPOKE9 university network called ‘Age-IT’.
The objective of the research is to develop strategic and design guidelines, verified through several pilot projects, to guide projects for the reuse of existing abandoned or underused buildings in order to use them for functions dedicated to the elderly population from an intergenerational perspective (co-housing spaces, innovative day care centres).