Echoes of Form
In 2025, the twentieth anniversary of Giancarlo De Carlo’s death offers a timely opportunity to reflect on his lasting impact in Urbino—where his modernist Collegi reinterpret and respond to the city’s historic fabric. Though physically separated, the Collegi and Urbino’s medieval core engage in a layered exchange grounded in participatory engagement and the cultivated landscape of the city—an evolving dialogue of form, space, and order shaped by centuries of social and architectural practice. Students revealed and reimagined that relationship through speculative, site-specific interventions.
Using AR and VR technologies, students developed virtual insertions that explore the connections between the Collegi and the historic center. Drawing inspiration from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, and the shared spirit of imagination between Calvino and De Carlo, teams crafted layered, metaphorical responses unconstrained by material or gravity—transforming public space into a field of collisions, memories, and narrative architecture.
Architecture students, from the University of Texas at San Antonio, present 7 unique architectural experiences facilitated with augmented reality technology, at locations in Urbino’s historic center.
