Per conquistare un luogo, una città, un paesaggio, abbiamo bisogno che qualche Virgilio ci introduca, ci accompagni, ci aiuti, altri che come noi e prima di noi abbiano vissuto, interpretato amato quel luogo.
Vittorio Gregotti, Diciassette Lettere sull’architettura

Identifying elements that have a recognized value in the configuration of the local identity is a basic condition for the conception of a strategic vision of potentiation of the endogenous factors that can promote the sustainable and balanced development of a given territory.

Knowledge production must also be structured in an analysis oriented to the identification of the multiplicity of relationships (bonds) that the identified elements establish between each other, as well as the role that these relations assume in the configuration/ perception of the local identity. This implies extending the focus in each element to the processes that concern it and to the multiple implications it has with other elements of identity.

Thus, it will be possible to increase the analyzed factors in order to feed the problem formulation process, obtaining broad observations associated with them and therefore greater guarantees of achieving the fundamental objective of value creation, determining the conditions of resistance to the disappearance/ transformation of identity values of the territory and the conditions for sustaining these values, considered as decisive factors in the relationship between the individuals and their territory and the places and their landscape.

Perception of landscape as the visible face of a territory, for each observer - whether he is an inhabitant, scholar or occasional visitor - is a result of what he experiences when he observes it and walks through it, and depends on how he connects to the world around him and on the environment, domestic or public, in which he lives.

A study oriented to determine the policies that may guarantee the permanence and increase the values in a certain territorial scope is confronted with the difficulty to realize the perception of those elements and relations not taking into account the experiences of those who inhabit and transform those places.

Starting from the rebuilding of the sense of place for an individual and its perception and interpretation, considered as an essential moment of the project dimension, it will be possible to create the "invisible" dimension of the ties that bind us to a land, a landscape, an immaterial culture.

In this sense, a study team from CEAU is working on the interpretation of colonization policies in the territory that have been applied in Fragile Territories, especially those that sought to root its people within their places. The object of the study is, then, the State action in the construction, remodeling and invention of places with conditions for people settlement.

The objective will be to understand settlement policies as a generator of socio-economic processes and forms of occupation of the territory and the creation of family nuclei for agricultural exploitation. (Ways of doing and done forms).

This line of research within the Centre for Architecture and Urbanism Studies of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, coordinated by Rui Braz Afonso and with the participation of collaborating member Nuno Bigotte Santos, has been developed since 2012 in an international collaboration framework that includes the Instituto Universitario de Urbanistica de Valladolid in Spain.

Guest researchers

Daniela Ladiana
Dipartimento di Architettura dell’Università di Chieti-Pescara

Barbara Bogoni
Scuola AUIC - Architettura Urbanistica e Ingegneria delle Costruzioni del Politecnico di Milano.

Tiziana Basiricò
Università Enna Kore

Luis Santos y Ganges
Instituto Universitario de Urbanistica, Universidad de Valladolid

Research Products

Other Editions