City and territory: the European network of Mediterranean ancient villages

This paper aims to disseminate a local sustainable development model intended to the preservation, renewal and enhancement of cultural and environmental heritage, monuments and memories which would otherwise be wasted: that of the ancient villages of Mediterranean, at risk or destined for shrinkage and abandonment. The investigation was conducted following up an Agreement, between the Polytechnic University of Bari and the Club of the Most Beautiful Villages of Italy, for the drafting of a redevelopment urban program of ten small Apulian villages, belonging to the European Network “Borghi Vivi ®”. This last one collects and connects, in a quality tourist circuit, the small towns of the Mediterranean accredited by awarding the label. In particular, the proposed research studies in deep the relationship between urban and architectural morphology, physical geography, more as a possible design tool rather than of analysis. The starting point is the assumption considering the territory, substantially, as architecture. It cannot impose a will to form a priori for it, because it is the uniqueness of the sites to determine the architectural order, and not vice versa, even when there is a formal reference previously established. The city and the architecture describe the place they inhabit: urban, architectural and territorial facts correspond with each other, in a scale process. The study shows how the contemporary urban and architectural planning cannot be separated from the understanding of the geographical and topographical characteristics of the context: not only in new buildings, but even in regeneration and recovery actions of the existing. The close link between territory shape, tracks and settlement principles is shown, through a scalar detailed analysis, starting from the territory and gradually considering the city, the ancient nucleus, the urban block and the spatial units.