An international team led by OMA and IT’S has won the “Vision for Rome” competition, promoted by the Roma REgeneration Foundation to imagine a renewed future for the Italian capital. The winning proposal, Roma Continua, outlines a long-term urban strategy that reframes Rome not as a static historical artifact, but as a living ecosystem capable of adaptation and transformation over time.
Roma Continua. © IT’S, OMA, OKRA, NET Engineering, and LGSMA
Developed together with OKRA, NET Engineering and a wider interdisciplinary team, the proposal is structured around four principles — well-being, beauty, knowledge, and “reform and extension.” Rather than pursuing expansion-driven growth, Roma Continua proposes a process of recalibration that builds on Rome’s existing qualities while introducing new forms of environmental, social, and economic sustainability.
Roma Continua. © IT’S, OMA, OKRA, NET Engineering, and LGSMA
“Our visionary plan fundamentally questions what growth means for a contemporary city profoundly shaped by history, culture, and power,” said David Gianotten, Partner at OMA.“We are incredibly honoured to have collaborated with a global, interdisciplinary team to translate diverse expertise into a unified vision—one that offers a blueprint for adding new layers that promote social, environmental, and economic sustainability, while preserving identity, enabling transformation, and fostering innovation. By realigning infrastructure, nature, and reuse, we aim to establish the conditions through which Rome can continue to evolve on its own terms over the next 25 years.”
Roma Continua Mobility. © IT’S, OMA, OKRA, NET Engineering, and LGSMA
At the centre of the proposal is a network of five green corridors anchored by the Tiber River and its tributaries. Conceived as ecological and social infrastructure, these corridors integrate landscape, mobility, and public space into a continuous urban framework. Along them, five multimodal mobility hubs — described as “forums of innovation” — connect housing, transport, services, hospitality, and cultural programmes through public transit and soft mobility systems.
The strategy also addresses the pressure generated by mass tourism in Rome’s historic centre. By strengthening rail connections between the new hubs and lesser-known destinations across the city and region, the proposal seeks to redistribute cultural activity and open up alternative urban itineraries.
Roma Continua Knowledge. © IT’S, OMA, OKRA, NET Engineering, and LGSMA
Knowledge production forms another key component of the plan. Around each “forum of innovation,” Roma Continua introduces specialised knowledge clusters linked to existing local industries and district identities. Shared facilities and climate-resilient public spaces are designed to bring together universities, startups, and established companies, encouraging new forms of collaboration and research.
The proposal’s principle of “reform and extension” focuses on the adaptive reuse of underused sites, transforming them into urban activators connected to the wider mobility network. Residential, educational, cultural, and research programmes are integrated into these interventions, combining new construction with the recovery and reactivation of existing structures.
Designed to unfold progressively — from targeted interventions to larger-scale infrastructural and landscape transformations — Roma Continua positions itself as both an immediate and long-term framework for Rome’s future development.
Roma Continua principles. © IT’S, OMA, OKRA, NET Engineering, and LGSMA
“Bringing together a range of skills, including international expertise, we developed a highly specific vision rooted in the particularities of Rome—one that is open over time, adaptable and progressive, both visionary and pragmatic, and achievable starting tomorrow,” said Alessandro Cambi, founder of IT'S. “Roma Continua should be understood as a project that envisions Rome as a constellation of places, revealed and interconnected: a palimpsest that continues to be written from what already exists in the city. It welcomes beauty and the spaces of future living through a systemic and widespread vision of recovery and reactivation.”
The winning team includes IT’S, OMA, OKRA, NET Engineering, LGSMA, Open Impact, Artelia, Atribune, Elena Granata, Fiamma Montezemolo, Costanza Profumo, and Davide Marino. OMA’s team was led by David Gianotten together with Project Architect Aleksandar Joksimovic. The proposal was selected from six finalist entries submitted by Italian and international teams.
Roma Continua Green Corridor. © IT’S, OMA, OKRA, NET Engineering, and LGSMA
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Cover image: © IT’S, OMA, OKRA, NET Engineering, and LGSMA
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