Ri_abitare i luoghi di margine del paesaggio del sud Salento ‘‘Risignificazione dei comuni salentini caratterizzati da marginalizzazione e declino demografico”

The research “Re_inhabiting the marginal places of the landscape of southern Salento. Re-signification of Salento municipalities affected by marginalization and demographic decline” investigates the deep relationship between landscape, architecture, and identity within the territories of Terra di Leuca, adopting the concept of the margin as both an interpretative key and a design tool. Southern Salento, a land of boundaries and crossings, is conceived as a living laboratory where the memory of place and its regenerative capacity become central elements for a renewed territorial vision. In this context, the notion of “place” acquires a symbolic and emotional value, as a custodian of experiences, traditions, and cultural stratifications, while the “margin” transcends its role as a limit to become a threshold — an intermediate, dynamic space where nature, history, and dwelling intertwine. The aim of the research is to restore meaning to territories often considered peripheral, recognizing within them the potential for rebirth based on an awareness of their roots and on the valorization of the landscape as a system of relationships. The study develops through three main phases: the morphological and historical analysis of the Salento territory; the critical reading of the transformations and vulnerabilities affecting the inner areas of southern Salento; and the definition of a design proposal — the Parco Meridionale Salentino — conceived as both a recompositional device and an operational tool for territorial enhancement. The research method combines historical, geographical, and design approaches, intertwining documentary sources, cartography, GIS analysis, and fieldwork with a theoretical reflection on the relationship between landscape and architecture. The investigation demonstrates that the Salento landscape cannot be understood through isolated fragments but only within its relational continuity, where each element — natural or constructed — participates in a coherent and dynamic system. The morphology of the land, the agrarian structure, the polycentric settlements, the ancient routes, and the double coastline form the components of a single territorial organism, where memory and contemporary transformation coexist. The identification of the southern plateau of Leuca as a critical and operational area marks the transition from analysis to design. Here, geographical marginality becomes an opportunity for renewal: the margin turns into a generative place, capable of revealing latent potential and inspiring new forms of dwelling. The Parco Meridionale Salentino emerges as the outcome of this reflection, conceived as a cultural and environmental infrastructure that connects nature and settlement, past and future, conservation and innovation. It takes shape as an open, reticular system in which each fragment of the territory — a farmhouse, an ancient road, a coastal segment — regains meaning within a unified vision. The landscape, understood not as a mere backdrop but as the protagonist of the project, becomes a space of belonging and responsibility. The research restores to the territory its living dimension, recognizing that to design means to act with care, respecting the historical density of the soil and the fragility of its transformations. In the landscape of Terra di Leuca, finibus terrae, the threshold becomes opportunity, and the boundary turns into a place of encounter between cultures, memories, and possibilities. The thesis reaffirms that the landscape is a collective fact — not an image to contemplate but an act of culture, a civic practice capable of generating the future. Every dry-stone wall, every ancient path, every rural architecture becomes part of a shared narrative, where the continuity between nature and artifice translates into a new balance between memory and innovation. The Parco Meridionale Salentino thus represents not an endpoint, but the beginning of a re-inhabitation process grounded in knowledge, memory, and responsibility toward the land and future generations.