City-Nature. Spaces in-between coastline and sea

The content of this essay is the partial result of an original research conducted by the author in the Urbanformgrammars (UFG) research group of the Polytechnic of Bari on the settlement principle of City-nature applied to the area of Tricase in Southern Salento (Italy) and Saranda in Southern Albania, in front of Salento on the Adriatic sea. Research Contents. The crisis of the contemporary city represents the occasion to rethinking its form beginning from the assumption of the void of nature as a constituent part of its structure, in which the form of the land is the syntactic root of urban form. Our work try to offer a consideration on the plan of the "form", both from a theoretical point of view, individualizing in the idea of “city-territory” the field of application and experimentation of the research, both from the design point of view, assuming an episteme able to recognize in distinguished way the morphological value of the landscape and that of the urban settlements. The polycentric settlement system of Salento, based on the triangulation of the territory defined by a net of paths and settlements units (cities, Terre, masserie) that includes rural areas and coasts, constitutes an appropriate city-nature model. Theoretical principles. The idea of city-region witness a reverse topological background/figure relation between country and city (Koetter F. and Rowe C., 1977), in which city is placed in nature: nature can be considered as the background in which are placed urban parts of concluded form and nature is one of all the elements of city structure(Ungers O.M., 1977). This settlement model, composed by urban nucleuses linked themselves by the net of the infrastructural system, was introduced by two theoretical models, one based on measured territory triangulations of linear cities in country that connect urban nucleuses (Le Corbusier, 1945), the second on a system of planned urban structure placed in nature and adapted to the site (Hilberseimer L.,1949). Aims of the research. The disciplinary aim of the research, developed into two phases, the first analytical and the second synthetic (design), was to identify and try out new sustainable settlement/dwelling models and basing their form on a mindful relationship with the place and its natural "resources". Case study. We take in consideration two case studies, one is Tricase, a small-sized town in the polycentric settlement system of Southern Salento, directly connected with its small harbour on the Adriatic sea; the second is Saranda, a small town in a linear settlement system in front of Corfù on the Southern coast of Albania, of roman origins. Project areas are both excellent natural coastal sites both places "of crisis" of the urban form that mark the limits of the waterfront and measure the morphological unity of the “territorial room”. Conclusions. City-nature model opposes itself to the consumption of territory and offers an harmonious interpretation of the relationship between urban and natural landscapes through settlement/dwelling forms in continuity with nature and evocative of forms belonging to the collective memory.