Planning methods and experiences in Sardinia. Alghero’s municipal urban plan

This paper addresses planning in Sardinia, with particular reference to the urban plan of the city of Alghero. In the planning discipline, paradigms referring to the environmental project, sustainability and the landscape are fundamental principles underlying the experimentation of new planning approaches that seek to render the principles of the European Landscape Convention concrete by bringing national and regional legislation and codes up to date. In this framework, it could be useful to recount some recent planning experiences in order to discuss such methodological questions as: how to interpret the interaction between the environmental system and the human and built context in the new areas of urban diffusion; how to synthesize a system of knowledge that can represent the palimpsest of legible landscapes upon which to base a sustainable project; how to face the issue of the control of urban form using the instrument of the “master plan”; how to construct a differentiated system of regulations to govern the transformation of both the consolidated city as well as rural areas in which built and productive landscapes with strong historic and cultural characteristics and identity can be recognized.