Technique and Form of the Land: The Systems and the Morphologies of Turkish Caravanserais The Design of the Landscape, the Caravan Routes, the Silk Road, the Caravanserais

This research doesn’t want to offer defined and systematic contributions; it isn’t a cataloguing or an historico-critical analysis of the “caravanserais” phenomenon. The aim consists in the effort to explain the relationship linking the form to geography, morphology and landscape architecture. The purpose is to offer a critical reading of the typological differences own of these structures, in relation to urban and suburban settlements, with particular reference to the examples scattered throughout the Mediterranean, in Egypt, Syria and Turkey. The caravanserais, commercial architectures on the ancient trade routes, are the topic of this paper. The cognitive analysis rebuilds a global vision about their origin, their character and the way in which these buildings build the landscape and the city. These complex and recognizable structures, the network of the routes, the land subdivision, the pattern crops are the elements contributing to the recognition of the landscape identity, where the physical factor and the historical events determine the perpetuation of techniques and forms

Defensive towers and river territories: water architecture in the Zhujiang river basin, Guangdong

[EN] The contribution intends to provide a reading and an in-depth study of the defensive heritage located in the Zhujiang river basin and its delta in Guangdong, China. The paper focuses on the case of diaolou, defensive towers already listed as UNESCO since 2007, built from the sixteenth century until the first half of the twentieth century in Kaiping country. These buildings show an interesting mixture of some local models and typologies and specific characters and styles borrowed from western examples. The research takes as a privileged point of view the relationships that these settlement systems forge with the hydrographic resource, which generates a territorial groove that determines the morphology of the territory and constitutes a historical vehicle of crossings. The arrangement of the fortified towers with respect to the river line is influenced by centripetal and centrifugal actions aimed at responding to defensive needs in the geography of this territory. The heritage of the diaolou seems to respond to two types of defensive demands: one linked to historical facts and the frequent bandit raids that took place in the Guangdong area in the nineteenth century; the other connected to geographical and hydraulic data, as the protection from the phenomenon of inundation and the consequent placement of the towers in the floodplain of the Zhujiang river. The course of the river gets in shape through the architectural technique, in the construction of towers and defensive works and, in the same way, some aspects of the design of this territory are defined through the description of the forms of the river. Architecture, hydraulic engineering and geography work together in defining the form of the settlement and invest the scale of the buildings, generating specific architectural types and morphological characters suitable for responding to the problem of water control, conservation and distribution.Ficarelli, L.; Vacca, V. (2020). Torri difensive e territori fluviali: architetture d’acque nel bacino del fiume Zhujiang, Guangdong. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 907-914. https://doi.org/10.4995/FORTMED2020.2020.11529OCS90791

La casa dei maestri

Il tema della casa unifamiliare, antico e complesso, è intimamente legato all'abitare, esperienza di spazi noti e amati. nel saggio sono analizzati esempi e opere dei maestri dell'architettura del moderno, in cui il tema della casa unifamiliare diventa un laboratorio sperimentale

La forma del deserto tra strade carovaniere e insediamenti. L’oasi di Dakhla come modello per la conoscenza e il disegno di parti e elementi dell’architettura in terra cruda.

An oasis is the result of the long and patient human work that shapes the soil by building walls, constructing hydraulic and irrigation systems, taking care of the palm grove, and organizing agriculture. Through the oases of the Western Sahara Desert, the caravan routes are shaped as a network of precise geometries, which from the shores of the Mediterranean cross and structure the entire territory. The most important settlements of the ancient kingdom of Saharan Egypt are the five western oases: el-Kharga, el_Dakhla, Bahariya, Farafa, and Siwa. They have a special connotation of identity whose form cannot be separated from the intrinsic relationship with nature. The natural and anthropic landscape develops and articulates, interpreting in continuity, the special and consolidated characters of the places. The streets hierarchy, the sequence of green spaces, the architectural types, and the construction techniques, are the translation of natural order and builds a sustainable and recognizable system. A privileged condition where collective places, houses, streets, private spaces, domestic and public dimensions, the space of ritual, the space of social iterations and culture, find themselves unconditionally connected. These case studies are strongly representative and are considered a tool for methodological definition: the construction of oases as the most complete example of a population in harmony with the ecosystem in the Mediterranean

Grammatiche della forma per la città del nostro tempo

La ricerca del Gruppo Urbanformgrammars si focalizza sul rapporto tra architettura e città. Assumendo questo orizzonte problematico si è sviluppato nel Novecento il contributo più rilevante del pensiero architettonico italiano. Ad esso il gruppo si vuole riallacciare guardando al fenomeno della città contemporanea per riconoscere, insieme alla crisi della sua forma, le potenzialità che da essa derivano