Borgo Schìsina, Messina

The paper refers to the current state of a rural hamlet built in 1938 in the Municipality of Candiana, under the political context of the time of improving living conditions in the countryside. Located in the low Padua region, the Littorio hamlet comprised of twenty-seven buildings in which lived fifty-one families. The buildings, equal in size but different in the lay-outs of their façades, were built on the sides of a specially-designed road, 630 metres long and 7 wide. The houses, with a rectangular layout, looked out at one another on both sides of the new road, hosting two families each one behind the symmetrical facades. The building complex can still be visited today, but little remains of its original appearance that may be gleaned from photographic evidence of the time. Many of the houses, having each been developed consistently, are now unrecognizable, and at least one has been demolished and been replaced by a featureless villa. The main issue addressed here is how the systematic tampering of these houses can be stopped, and how to promote compensatory operations that might take into account their original general order and particular form.

Almatourism-Journal of Tourism, Culture and Territorial …, 2012

Papers of the British School at Rome, 2013

Etruscan Studies 9, 2002

Book of the Congress on Industrial and Agricultural Canals, Lleida, september 2-5, 2014

The territory of Maremma, which has for centuries been the marshland part of Tuscany, has been marked by continuous work of regulation of waters, to avoid stagnation and then the waterlogging. This process began at the end of the sixteenth century by the Medici, but only in the first half of the eighteenth century, with the Lorraine family, began the structural interventions of land reclamation, which continued until the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. A series of works were realized to the north of the Ombrone River, such as canals and embankments, and two-canals diversions, which enabled to implement the "landfill method – metodo della colmata". In the twentieth century the "integral" reclamation took place, implemented by the Consortium of Land Reclamation during the fascist period, where next to the landfill method, the natural drainage method and the mechanical one were experimented. In the entire territory of Maremma, after the reclamation works, in relatively recent years (1951) has been implemented the so-called "Agrarian Reform", by the Entity for the Colonization of Maremma in Tuscany and Lazio (Ente Maremma), with which the land was redistributed to renters and farm laborers. Both the large reclamation as the agrarian reforms had, as a building corollary, the construction of numerous farmhouses, farms and rural buildings specially designed, where the new settlers, the technical and the administrators, involved for various reasons, could live and work. The old farmhouses that, based on a centuries-old tradition of rural architecture are marked by a strict rationalism ahead of its time, found in the encyclopedic and polytechnic spirit of the Enlightenment a further opportunity to fix the functional typologies and the stylistic features that have been the leitmotif of the agricultural landscape of Tuscany, made of stereometric volumes pierced by few, symmetrical openings of doors, windows and arches of the loggias and balconies, it all devoiding any decorative element and characterized by the hegemony of the walls covered with white plaster. (Z. Ciuffoletti e G.L Corradi, 2005) These characteristics can be found today even in the most recent building typologies related to the Agrarian Reform, following which, they were built for the new smallholders, such as homes and small service centers. This built heritage has deeply marked the landscape of Maremma in the Grosseto province, both in the typical morphological asset of "land division into cores", as in the typological aspects of each building. The importance of these elements, and their close relationship with the landscape of reclamation in the Grosseto plain, is now a central element in the preservation of both the ecosystem and the built environment, but also in the new planning and construction in the area. The purpose of this study is the analysis of the rural built environment of the area of the plain of Grosseto, with a case study on the Plain of Uccellina, area of alluvial lowland, included between the eastern slopes of Mounts of Uccellina and western hilly amphitheater of Montebottigli, the course of the Ombrone River in the north and of the Osa River in the south. In this area, the presence of two predominant typologies known as "Viverelli-Colonna" and "Ente Maremma", related to those who planned and built respectively, emphasizes the close relationship between the building/construction type and reclamation activities that found alternation in the territory.

2019

The paper provides a detailed study of the rural houses in the surroundings of Torviscosa, company-town of the XX century, a tool for possible processes of enhancement, restoration and retrofitting. | L'articolo fornisce uno studio dettagliato delle case agricolenei dintorni di Torviscosa, citt\\ue0-societ\\ue0 del XX secolo, strumento per possibili processi di valorizzazione, restauro e riqualificazione

2023

Complex Buildings can be defined as such from their spatial syntax, characterised by a promiscuity of antithetical spaces – indoor/outdoor, public/private – which involves both architectural and urban dimensions. They can thus be understood as counter-spaces, where the physical dematerialisation of pre-established architectural boundaries generates actual heterotopias. The subject has recently been taken up by scholars, with particular attention to the typological aspects of Complex Buildings. In line with this approach, the present text examines the new building types implemented in the context of rural modernisation of the Pontine Plain.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE on CHANGING CITIES V, Corfu Island, Greece, 2022

Meolo is a small town in the Metropolitan City of Venice, crossed by the river of the same name. Its flat territory is located between the courses of the Piave and Sile rivers. The work we propose concerns the redevelopment of the central part of this town. The analysis carried out led to the finding that the space in front of the Town Hall was, and still is, inadequate in relation to the need for a centrality felt by the community. This space is insufficient to host the main recreational and meeting public functions. The purpose of this study is the formulation of hypotheses for a new definition of the central space close to the historic building that now houses the Town Hall. The historic square of Meolo was once the churchyard of St John the Baptist, a consecrated place that also housed burial sites far from the location of the current Town Hall. Throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, it has been a place of collective events and activities, including those of a non-sacred nature. Over the centuries, the churchyard has been built and the memory of this central space has been lost. Afterwards, the place of reference of the community was the open space not well defined at the foot of the Ponte dei Carri. The area was overlooked by the main historic buildings, seats of administrative and commercial activities, including Villa Folco (also known as Villa Dreina). In 1953, the Ponte dei Carri was demolished, and a section of the river buried. Arranged during the reconstruction phase following World War I, the area in front of the Town Hall remained a secondary square. Being originally part of a private villa, is not a real square in the perception of its inhabitants. It, however, constitutes today a valuable opportunity to redesign the lost unity of this historic town. The paper includes the results of students’ workshops developed in the framework of the courses on “Architectural and Urban Composition 2” taught on the master’s degree in Architectural Engineering at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering of the University of Padua. The working method is based on the belief that the study of urban morphology and the history of the city are basic to face a design theme. The history is considered as an indispensable tool to know the deep reasons of the urban structure which is the memory and the image of the community. The methodology contemplates the urban form as a result of its spatial structure. Progressing from the study of how the area has evolved through time, students defined new proposals for the area that involved testing new building types.

2017

The study on via Giostra Vecchia in the old town of Cosenza constitutes an occasion for the analysis of the city, considering both the single buildings (with their technical-constructive, formal geometrical, deterioration properties) as well as the urban space intended as the “material” of the city, able to contribute to determining its value. The restitutions of survey we propose have the objective of presenting with evidence both the architectural features of the buildings as well as the relationship between buildings and the urban space. They are complex restitutions of survey, realized with the combination of more drawings, necessary to out together for analysis and knowledge, homogeneous data on the issues mentioned above.