Progettare con l'energia. Il Mediterraneo fra tradizione e innovazione

Starting from the premise that the contemporary transformations in the Mediterranean landscape have produced non places and architectures that are not recognisable by the collectivity, the research considers the environmental issue as the key to critically review the architectural solutions accrued during the man’s history in which the technique, becoming a prerequisite for progress, has taken over the nature. The sustainability, as it has been investigated in this thesis, is not only a value in time and space, but it is the way for the reform of the project of Mediterranean architecture that is ecologically sound and culturally recognisable. The key used in order to investigate the sense of Mediterranean architecture and to understand its evolution and the possible future developments in respect of sustainability is the tradition. The concept of tradition is understood as selection of the repertoire of knowledge inherited from the past through which the material culture is actualised in compliance with the invariants that constitute its identity in respect with the continuity with the present. The goal is the definition of the principles that allow to an architecture to act sustainably to the habitat, that changes the environment respecting its balance and its resources and the needs of man. In this sense in this thesis is marked the importance of the minor architectures, that result from a spontaneous process of adaptation, repetition and assimilation of models in which are tested the principles of natural ventilation, the selection of sunlight, the use of water in order to optimise the environmental comfort. The intent is to build a reflection about the architecture of today, linking it with terms such as "sustainability", "tradition" and "climate" and inserting these arguments within a geographical and cultural context, at the same time relevant but also complex, that is the Mediterranean area. It is described not only as an expression of a condition of geographical location, but also through the translation of this condition in an architectural language, which consciously prefers some principles in respect to others. Idea of architecture, with precise formal features and space, recognisable only if fully associated to its own context and cultural climate. Through the description of several design experiences located in the Mediterranean basin the thesis highlights some cases in which the project, the climate and the tradition closely coexist. The projects presented describes the compositional and formal quality, simplicity and rigour, the research for a balance between tradition and innovation. This research, in fact, while dealing with the bioclimatic architecture, explores one of the unresolved issues of the sustainable architecture, which is the difficult conciliation of the eco-compatibility requirements with the needs of the architectural composition and with the construction of the form. On the one hand the scientific horizon, on the other the figurative one, are trying to find a balance through the definition of their components: climate, architecture and man.