Projects exploring ground, being grounded, and landing on Earth in a city of uncertain grounds.

Grounding Naples explores Naples as a seismic terrain, shaped by the volcanic landscapes of the Phlegraean Fields and Mount Vesuvius and their associated material outpourings. By tracing the reciprocities between the city and its extended landscape, the studio explores what constitutes the ground of Naples, the substrate and support for building. Local tuff stone, formed of compressed volcanic ash, becomes an indicator of environmental co-existences; ultramarine blue used to decorate Baroque domes is reframed through the exploitation of lapis lazuli in Afghanistan; intertwining local histories of acoustics and seismology prompt awareness of urban acoustic ecologies. Ground is put into question. The city is framed as precarious, uncertain, and architecture as contingent, vulnerable, and simultaneously defiant.