City-Countryside. Principles, invariants and project

This research is part of active and long studies of the DICAAR of Cagliari, about the relationship between architectural and landscape design in historical, urban and rural contexts. The city and the field are the result of centuries-old stratifications whose forms-structures are based on long modifying processes and which offer the architect and planner a complex field of action. Understanding the rules of both is a necessity for conscious intervention and in which the construction of knowledge can support choices in action. Urban analysis, type-morphological studies, the relationship of historical textures and settlement fabrics represent the essential tools of reflection in which the place acquires a key role in the ability of the project to be located. Two research projects are proposed here: the support for the Detailed Plan for the historic center of the city of Cagliari and research for the rural landscapes of Sardinia, guidelines for the sustainable design of inland areas. These show different aspects of an operational model on the city and on the countryside that uses the project as a tool for continuous testing on the territory. The general approach is to intervene in a systemic and inter-scalar way, through a concrete implementation and acupuncture in the actions. The research aims to define an operational strategy that reconsiders the role of private individuals within the city and landscape project, triggering new conditions and ways of using spaces, in favour of hybrid forms of habitat and production. In the first case, the project proceeds through guiding projects that allow to activate new dynamics of interaction between the historical itineraries of the consolidated city and the voids caused by the bombings of 1943. In the second case, instead, the aim is to define an operational strategy for the project in the rural landscape by rethinking the role of companies and their relationships with historical infrastructures and rural routes. The construction of a renewed form of partnership in the landscape and in the historic city produces complex and multifunctional services and spaces for the construction of dynamic places able to reactivate and strengthen an awareness of the territorial context.