J-term Abroad: Roman Structures, Engineering & Society

Ciao everyone!

Our adventure is finally about to begin, and who isn’t excited to be traveling to Italy?? After countless hours of preparation throughout the summer and fall, the St. Thomas engineering students are eager to dive into an unforgettable experience abroad. Even before we take off, we’ve gained valuable insight into the ancient engineering practices through readings, curiosity projects, and group research. Still, there is nothing quite like standing in front of real-world structures and seeing firsthand how engineering principles have shaped the world.

Our first stop is Rome, where we will encounter landmarks such as the Pantheon, Colosseum, and Vatican. These sights offer powerful lessons in structural design, materials, and the historical context that led to their construction while also showing how engineering continues to influence society today. Later in Florence, we will shift our focus to more modern engineering through visits to Milan, studies of skyscrapers, and even tours of the Ducati and Pagani Supercar factory. Experiencing both ancient and modern systems will help us better understand the engineering principles we’ve learned about in the classroom. 

Beyond the technical learning, this journey is also about shared experiences. Students from all backgrounds will explore Italian culture through food, traditions, architecture, and everyday life! Even in our pre-departure conversations, it is clear that everyone brings something unique to the group. Some are excited to study historical structures while others are eager to experience a new country for the first time. 

As we get ready to depart, we are filled with curiosity, excitement, and anticipation for everything we are about to learn. Italy here we come!

– Avery and Aveline 

1/26/23

Today marks the last day of our stay in Italy. It started with class, this time being a little different than it usually was throughout the 20 days we were here. At the end of class yesterday, we were told to prepare 1-minute elevator speeches about our trip, including how it impacted us and what we got from it. Everybody gave their speech to the class, and then we had the rest of the day to explore Florence on our last day.

A group of us went to the piazza by Il Duomo and looked at shops around the area. At 7:30 we reconvened for dinner at a restaurant by our hotel as a class. Claudio picked a meal for this dinner, including fried bread, pasta, pork with potatoes, and Tiramisu. Everyone had a great time, and we enjoyed the live music and painting in the restaurant. Happy to be having a meal together but sad to leave, we toasted the trip and planned to reconvene at 4am tomorrow morning to get on the bus to the airport.

Ciao,

Today the engineers started the day with a lesson on sustainability and comparative systems. They learned about the ways that Italy stays sustainable. Some examples were the card activated lights, where they need to put their room key into a slot to activate the lights in the room. Additionally, many of Italy’s buildings including the Bosco Verticale have live vegetation creating a carbon zero environment. From there, the engineers compared the sustainability of Italy to that in the United States.

After class, the engineers had the day to explore the city and take part in various activities. Many of them went to Museo Pietre in Florence, purchased last minute souvenirs in the main city, and some even several individuals even went to a Toscano Vineyard for a wine tasting. Overall, the engineers are taking these last few days in Italy to enjoy the city and prepare for the journey back to the states.

Several of us went to a vineyard on a wine tour at Fattoria Lavacchil which is in the region of Tuscany made with chianti grapes. The views from this vineyard were beautiful as seen in the picture with the St. Thomas flag. The tour consisted of the long process of growing the grapes tending to them and fermentation as well as the aging process. One of the coolest things about this vineyard is that they don’t use any pesticides on their grapes and there are no spices, sugars, or sulfides added to the wine, so the taste comes solely from the process from the grape to the bottle. We learned about the proper way to taste wine and how to tell the differences between colors flavors and alcohol content. It was an informal tour, and we felt quite welcome.

To wind the night down we all watched a movie in the hotel lounge enjoying one of our last nights in Italy.

Blog post Wednesday, January 24

Traveling by high-speed train

Today the class woke up early to board the high-speed train at 7:30 traveling from Florence to Milan. The train traveled at an astonishing 230 km/hour! The rail consists of 50 miles of underground tunnels. Deb and the civil engineering students were amazed at this infrastructure. The United States simply doesn’t have anything like that. One notable station that the train went through was Mediopadana Station, a futuristic building that is made to look like a sail waving in the wind. The most famous train station in Italy is the station in Milan. The train enters the station and the first thing the passenger sees is the gigantic steel arches spanning the entire track. The passenger gets off and enters a beautiful 20th-century entrance of the station. Made of marble and with sky-high ceilings, we got an immediate taste of what Milan is like.

The Bosco Verticale

The first place we visited in Milan was the Bosco Verticale. It is two structures designed to be “vertical gardens.” They are great examples of combining sustainability and architecture. The buildings have staggered balconies, each containing a small tree. The building owners manage these trees, and as they grow they appear to take over more and more of the building. The structure is LEAD-certified but does not align with any local European Standards. It is not just the structure though that is built sustainably. There is an entire complex underneath, almost like a miniature city. There are grocery stores, shops, parking garages, and other amenities below the structures’ first visible level. This system promotes less motor vehicle traffic because of the fewer commuters and encourages people to stay around in and invest in their home area.

The Milan Cathedral

The Second Place We visited was the Milan Cathedral. This was one of the most impressive structures were have seen on the trip. The exterior was completely covered in human sculptures of different religious figures. It is a Gothic style with pinnacles at the top. Candoglia marble from Lake Maggiore quarry primarily makes up the outside of the off-white building. Inside, black, white, and red marble decorated the floors in beautiful designs. The interior also has tall stained-glass windows that let in beautiful colored lights. At the back of the cathedral, there is a sundial that is included in the floor. A gold line traces the sun pattern throughout the day and at certain times, the light perfectly shines through a hole in the ceiling and nightlights a plaque on the floor. This is a great example of engineering integrated into architecture!

It was really interesting to see Milan after exploring Rome, Naples, and Florence among other places. While still containing notes of historical architecture, after most of the city was flattened by bombs in WWII it was given a chance to rebuild and modernize. Out of all the Cities in Italy, this one seemed the most similar to the United States. It was a cool experience, and also the last major location of our trip. We are all looking forward to a couple of lighter days in Florence before packing up and heading home on Saturday morning.

Malaki-Milton:

Today after our class session on intercultural learning goals and engineering, the engineers set off to go on their own adventures for the day. A group of ‘warriors’ went on a hike with Dr. Deb Besser to Piazzale Michealangelo to get a dope view of the city of Florence. We saw a second statue of David by Michealangelo overlooking the city as well. After taking a few photos, we headed over to Cimitero delle Porta Sante where there were cypress trees planted with the names of fallen heroes who laid their lives during WWI and WWII. Once we finished our short exploration, the warriors headed back into the Florence streets to find good leather for Dr. Besser and eat some good food at Mesopotamia Kebab.

Cecelia:

Today I embarked on more adventures as my roommate, and I went shopping for the 4th time this week! We went shopping near the Duomo and found some great souvenirs for our family, and maybe a few for ourselves. While on this “adventure” we surprisingly learned about Italian culture. For instance, the love of leather and how to tell if it’s faux (hold a lighter on it and faux leather burns). To end the day, I went to a rooftop bar with a stunning view of the Duomo. Aside from the much-needed shopping I had a great time in class learning about the connection between American and Italian engineering. It’s amazing thinking about what can be learned by both countries to improve engineering.

Paige:

Some of todays adventures included some of the girls venturing into the city. In Florence we shopped for thoughtful souvenirs for our loved ones at home. We also browsed in the high end designer stores such as Prada and Micheal Kors to window shop. We also got our daily gelato of course. During our exploring we also happened upon a rooftop bar with the view of the Duomo. There was a bunch of birds the flew over us and it sparked the thought about how birds don’t land on the buildings near us. This is because the rooftops on certain buildings have small thin spikes that keep the birds from landing on them. This is a form of engineering that makes for a more comfortable environment for people.

Joel R:

As today was a less structured day with no set plans after class in the morning, there was some opportunity to look around Florence and do things that we wouldn’t have a chance to do otherwise. For example, I (Joel) took the opportunity to do some shopping and sightseeing, taking time to go to the Santa Croce neighborhood and seeing the Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze (pictured). Around here, I did some shopping at local leather stores recommended by our guide Claudio (Piero Tucci, Leonardo Gold and Leather, and Peruzzi), and got a sandwich from All’Antico Vinaio, which is a famous and beloved sandwich shop that has locations in both Rome and Florence.

Today, we all got on a bus first thing in the morning and headed to Bologna, which is just an hour and a half north of Florence. Our first destination was the Ducati factory. Ducati is an Italian motorcycle manufacturing company headquartered in Bologna. We got to go on a tour through the factory, which was an awesome experience. It was really cool getting an inside look on how such a complex process is carried out efficiently. Next, we all got back on the bus and headed to lunch at the Bull Bar, which was just across from the Lamborghini factory and museum. At the bar, they had two Lamborghinis that you could pay to drive for 10 minutes and Tom and Tommy both did it. They both had a blast driving them and we all had fun watching, living vicariously through them!

After Tom and Tommy finished living out their 10 minutes of luxury living, the group headed over to the Pagani manufacturing building and museum in San Cesario sul Panaro to learn about the upbringing of the company and see how they manufacture their luxury selection of super cars. Pagani was founded in 1992 by Argentinean-Italian Horacio Pagani manufacturing its well-known “hypercars” and carbon fiber components. It was amazing to witness both manufacturers in action and the pride they take in putting together their products by hand. Post tour, the group had a nice cruise back to Hotel Grifone, Firenze to wind down and reflect on the awesomeness that took place today.

~ Colin Jungwirth and Malaki-Milton Jackson

Because it is the weekend and we are encouraged to explore the country on our own during our “days off”, today’s blog is written from two different perspectives: Isaac Is writing from Cinque Terre, a costal grouping of five cities with outstanding hiking trails. Sam is writing from our home base in Florence. 

 Isaac: 

Today myself and a group of 5 other students woke up and enjoyed the view from our Air BnB, which lies in between two of the five major cities in the area and is only accessible by a 40 minute hike that increases 800 feet in elevation. All of this hiking is worth the view which is shown below.  

After playing some cards (euchre is the go-to game on this trip) on the patio we packed our bags and headed to the last of the 5 cities. After another 1600 vertical feet and 2 horizontal miles we saw the rocky beach of Monterosso. The water here was so blue we couldn’t help but jump in to cool down after our hike. The winter water was extremely brisk but the swim was well worth it, sadly because of poor planning, we only brought one towel so we had to air dry in the 40 degree weather where we got this group picture. 

We wrapped up the day by getting some pizza and taking the high speed train back home where the night ended by watching Sunday football in the hotel lounge.

Sam:

Today was a relaxing day for most of us, after getting back from Cinque Terre last night around 1am (Italy Time). I was finally able to sleep in and get some much-needed rest. There was no touring today, but we found an amazing lunch spot called La Forca. I learned that Italians love everything black truffle. I saw a black truffle pizza on the menu and decided I needed to try it.

The pizza was amazing! After lunch I decided to take a nap while others went to the hotel spa… After my nap we ventured to the hotel ristorante where there was live music, someone was playing an accordion which I have never seen anybody play live. I had an amazing scallop pasta.

The music was great along with the food. We will for sure be going back there. And then we finished our night of course watching the NFL playoffs in the hotel lounge.

On Saturday a group of 14 guys took on the Italy rail system to head to Cinque Terra Riomaggiore. It was an early morning starting at 5:00 AM to make the 7:00 AM train. As the morning went on, we stopped in Pisa and then 2 other cities to make our way to the coast. When we arrived, we started our day by taking the hiking trail along the coast for a few miles before it turned into construction and was closed. We then had to hike a few miles into the mountains to make the longer journey up and around. The hike was a little more than expected as groups of people with actual hiking gear were walking by, and we were all in jeans and sweatshirts with regular shoes on!  The terrain was rough, but the views were amazing and worth it. As we finished up, we could see Manarola, A beautiful Italian city where you’ve seen a lot of pictures online of the buildings tucked into the rock walls. 

After our long hike, we ended up at Manarola which was considered town #2. The town was very beautiful, and many of us tried their unique seafood options, such as octopus sandwiches. After this, we explored more of Manarola and found some amazing views. We then went to Monterosso, which is considered town #5, and checked out the sandy beaches of the Mediterranean! We then checked out the water drainage tunnels and saw how the water drainage system was designed very early on, but it is still ahead of its time with how efficient it is. After checking out the drainage tunnels we finally made our way home and ended up chasing down a bus that was able to bring us back to the hotel.

Tom and Calvin

Our first Friday in Florence started off with class at 9:00am. The topic of class was the Renaissance and its impact on architecture and engineering. Levi, Malaki, and Tommy had their presentation today where they spoke about the Renaissance time period and some of the various contributors of the time such as Leonardo da Vinci. They also had a very interesting activity that helped the class bring out our artistic sides. The activity pushed us all to use our creative abilities when coming up with a new invention. While making our “next greatest invention”, they asked the class to also use their non-dominant hand in order for us all to think like da Vinci! Here is a photo of us holding our drawings in our new classroom here in Florence.

We then analyzed two pieces of art: The Fortune Teller and The Pantheon. This was done in six different perspectives: historical, theoretical, analytical, contextual, stylistic, and experiential perspective. Each perspective offers a different lens into the artwork along with the significance of influential elements that were present at the time it was made. Here are the two pictures that we analyzed as a class:

After class the group split up to embark on their own adventures of the city! All of our tickets from yesterday were still valid to use today (our Brunelleschi Pass or the ticket from the dome) so we were able to visit other sites such as the Bell Tower, Baptistery, Museum, and Santa Reparata. Others also ventured to explore the leather shops and other outdoor shops in the city!

-Rabia, Olivia, & Tommy