‘Vita delle forme’. Elementi rigenerativi dell’Architettura urbana per il quartiere storico Castello a Cagliari = The 'Life of Forms'. Regenerative elements of urban architecture in Cagliari's historic Castello district

The apparent immutability of the historic Castello neighbourhood becomes an occasion for promoting a critical analysis of its physical transformations: a search for the formal identity of places that refer to the continuity of time without excluding changes to all that this identity has contributed to defining. The goal is to construct a system of spatial knowledge that promotes an understanding of how to control transformation, providing it with a culturally and socially positive meaning and combining conservation with development to advance possible future scenarios – through the present – starting from the past. Our analysis/project thus interprets the Castello district not as an unalterable fait accompli, but rather as a tool for questioning the present. This study of history is used to reconstruct an urban biography and to search for instruments with which to identify a possible paradigm of scales and periods of time appropriate to governing the relationship between the “spaces of contact” and “spaces of connection” defined by Françoise Choay in Espacements. This apparatus of information contributes to the definition of the values of the existing between history and design; it promotes the recognition of macro-physical systems comprised of elements with no reason to exist on their own as individual monuments, but whose meaning and value are expressed precisely by their belonging to a vaster structure. In some cases these macro-systems are presented as formal units with their own specific figure; in other cases they are discrete elements that, nevertheless, are of specific cultural interest to previous macro-systems that must be preserved and enhanced through urban design. This analytical approach proceeds through the construction of diachronic and synchronic maps in both plan and elevation. Other readings look at the organisation and spatial connections between these macro-systems and neighbouring districts, from recent – and planned – events that have affected important “urban factories.” The system of potential relationships between the upper and lower towns focuses on drawing new spatial geographies that may serve as foundations for projects to improve urban accessibility. The intention is to strengthen the significance of built and open space in relation to the specific morphological and typological qualities of the area and the possibility to introduce functions complementary to those found elsewhere in the city.