Disastri al margine. Crisi e opportunità della ricostruzione di Norcia e del suo territorio tra i terremoti del 1979 e del 2016

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Utopia e distopia nel progetto digitale

Sono passati più di venti anni dalla pubblicazione di Being Digital, il celebre libro di Nicholas Negroponte, all’interno del quale il fondatore del MIT Media Lab affermava che “il passaggio dagli atomi ai bit è irreversibile e inarrestabile”. Tale preannunciata rivoluzione, sembra oggi giunta a una fase più matura coinvolgendo sia la sfera pubblica che quella privata, le professioni, la politica e l’economia. Il digitale, facilitando e razionalizzando di giorno in giorno processi precedentemente analogici, è diventato ubiquo. Se da un lato gli aspetti positivi di queste trasformazioni sono evidenti, altrettanto palesi appaiono le aporie: dalla dipendenza tecnologica al rapporto con i social media, fino alla diffusione di una superficiale cultura dell’immagine che mette a rischio gli aspetti più complessi della disciplina architettonica. Il digitale maturo è caratterizzato inoltre dal fenomeno dei Big Data e dalla conseguente diffusione dei metodi di Machine Learning, che mettono ulteriormente in discussione i fondamenti ermeneutici del metodo scientifico, indicando l’inizio di una nuova era in cui non sarebbe più necessario costruire regole e formule per descrivere e comprendere i fenomeni naturali, ma sarebbe sufficiente trovare delle “correlazioni” computazionali (The end of theory, Anderson 2008). In questo numero abbiamo l’opportunità di tornare su un tema sicuramente dibattuto, ma sempre attuale per il frastagliato mondo dell’architettura, che come altri settori ha subito e adottato il digitale e i suoi metodi.It is been over twenty years since the well-known book by Nicholas Negroponte Being Digital has been published. In this book the founder of the MIT Media Lab stated that “change from atoms to bits is irrevocable and unstoppable”. It seems today that this announced revolution is in an advanced stage, investing the public and the private sphere, the professions, the politics, the economics. The digital, by simplifying and rationalizing analogic processes, is today a ubiquitous phenomenon. On one hand positive aspects may appear evident, on the other aporias are undeniable. Technological dependency, pathological relations with social medias, the diffusion of a superficial culture of the image that compromises the most complex aspects of architectural practice are just few of the problems that the digital may provoke. The contemporary phase of the digital is also characterized by the Big Data phenomenon and by the resulting Machine Learning methods. They challenge the hermeneutics principles of the scientific methods showing the beginning of a new era in which it will be possible just to find computational “correlations” (The end of theory - Anderson 2008) instead of rules and formulas. In this issue of IN FOLIO entitled “Utopia and dystopia in the digital project”, we have the opportunity to go back to a topic that has been long discussed. Nevertheless, it remains an actual theme for architecture. Digital techniques affected the way a project is produced, displayed, measured and communicated. Just as in our life, in our cities and in our offices, data become more and more important. Just think about how the BIM and its growing diffusion enrich architectural projects with digital information. Therefore, we invite you to send us original articles on the impact of the digital on architectural and urban design, on construction, on urban studies the history of art and architecture

Valnerina Bike Sharing: prospettive di trasformazione territoriale

Il contributo proposto intende esporre il progetto Valnerina Bike Sharing, un servizio intercomunale di bike sharing elettrico a pedalata assistita finanziato all’interno del Programma di Sviluppo Rurale per l'Umbria 2014 – 2020, che s’inserisce in un territorio compreso tra la Cascata delle Marmore e la ex ferrovia Spoleto-Norcia. Con l’obiettivo primario di incrementare il turismo responsabile in territori a elevato valore naturalistico, l'intervento intende incentivare la mobilità ciclo-pedonale, sostenibile e accessibile, utilizzando in gran misura l’arteria sentieristica della rete regionale che si snoda lungo l’asse del fiume Nera contribuendo alla definizione di un sistema unitario in grado di incrementare, anche attraverso la mobilità ciclabile, la fruizione di un territorio ben più vasto di quello interessato dal progetto Valnerina Bike Sharing, favorendone l’integrazione con i servizi offerti dagli operatori locali

Paesaggi digitali: le manifestazioni spaziali delle tecnologie dell’informazione e della comunicazione

The paper aims to investigate the evolution of the relationship between digital technologies and physical reality, through observing the main spatial manifestations of digital information and communication technologies. In the last decades, the flow of digital information began to materialize itself in a very physical infrastructure made of transcontinental cables and data centers. The analysis revealed the growing environmental and geopolitical implications of digital technologies

Suspended territories and windows of opportunity after the 2016 earthquake in Central Italy

While globalization is promoting strong economic concentrations in a few urban centres, peripheral regions are negatively affected by decreasing population and increasing impoverishment, due to the lack of policies and the failure to develop and maintain rural economies. Although natural disasters accelerate these trends, the shock created by unexpected events may generate a window of opportunity, linked both to risk-reduction processes and to transition paths towards more desirable futures. This review aims to discuss tendencies in post-disaster management in the central Apennines after the 2016 earthquake, since this shrinking rural region is slowly concluding the emergency phase and starting to plan reconstruction in the medium-long term. According to the UNISDR Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the reconstruction phase is a critical opportunity for Building Back Better. In order to achieve this primary objective, this paper suggests new scenarios based on a multi-scalar approach and on rural-urban interactions. This is a new opportunity for the rural areas in question to re-evaluate the role of the landscape and the environment and act accordingly. The creation of clusters of highly efficient multifunctional agricultural and infrastructure projects is seen here as an opportunity to create future ecosystems and new approaches to land and landscape management

Territori marginali e finestre di opportunità. Norcia tra gli eventi sismici del 1979 e del 2016

Il contributo intende indagare la stretta connessione tra disastri naturali e traiettorie di sviluppo territoriale e come queste ultime siano determinate in larga parte dalle politiche pubbliche messe in atto nella fase post-emergenziale. A seguito dei disastri, il dibattito pubblico e politico, i grandi investimenti, la possibilità di operare trasformazioni urbanistiche possono generare uno scenario di opportunità e rinascita definibile come «window of opportunity». Si prende qui in considerazione l’evento sismico del 1979 di Norcia, insieme al relativo processo di ricostruzione, avviato assieme a un piano di rinascita economica incentrato sulle vocazioni locali e capace di frenare le tendenze all’emigrazione presenti nell’area. Il contributo intende pertanto indagare l’insieme di fattori che hanno permesso di sfruttare le opportunità legate alla possibilità di intervenire su una più ampia traiettoria di sviluppo socio-spaziale; in particolare rintracciando nei processi di ricostruzione alcune antinomie tipiche del piano: eccezionalità-ordinarietà, centralismo-localismo. L’obiettivo della ricerca è analizzare il ruolo delle politiche pubbliche nei processi di governance locale e regionale in queste aree interessate da processi di trasformazione e ricostruzione. Attraverso l’analisi del caso studio si propone di individuare le interazioni e le dinamiche che danno luogo a scelte di governo territoriale

Domini collettivi, forme di autogoverno per la gestione degli ecosistemi e lo sviluppo locale

One of the most ancient forms of self-government of environmental systems is that relating to the management of civic uses and collective lands, in which a specific local community controls and manages sustainable resources (fields, pastures, woods, etc.) sustainably and efficiently. The paper aims to briefly retrace the salient stages of the history of collective domains, and to explore their value as "goods that are produced by long co-evolutionary processes between human settlement and environment" (Magnaghi 2016, 139) highlighting the appearance of complex socio-ecological systems (SES). Finally, using the SES framework, developed by Elinor Ostrom to analyze the sustainability of socio-ecological systems (Ostrom 2009), on the role of collective domains as an ecosystem management tool and as a device for local development. Through the empirical analysis of a case study located in Central Apennine in Umbria, we want to highlight elements of continuity and discontinuity of the system as the socio-economic conditions change

SUSPENDED TERRITORIES AND WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITIES AFTER CENTRAL ITALY EARTHQUAKE OF 2016

Nowadays cities are experiencing an unprecedented rate of growth, most of peripheral rural regions are facing shrinking phenomena. While globalization promotes strong economic concentrations in a few urban centers, peripherical regions are negatively affected by decreasing population and impending impoverishment, due to the lack of policy and the failure to develop and maintain rural economies. Although natural disasters accelerate these trends, the shock created by these unexpected events may generate a “window of opportunity”, linked both to risk-reduction processes and to transition paths towards more desirable futures. Earthquakes, more than other natural disasters, destabilize local systems and reveal the vulnerability of the environment; these disasters lead to an introduction of “state of exception”, in which a whole set of temporal regimes is created to exit from the emergency management phase (short-and medium-term) and lead to recovery and reconstruction of the build environment (long-term). This review aims to discuss tendencies in post-disaster management in the central Apennines after 2016 earthquake, since this shrinking rural region is slowly leaving the emergency phase and it’s starting to plan the reconstruction in the medium-long term. According to the UNISDR Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the reconstruction phase is a critical opportunity to “Building Back Better”. In order to achieve this priority, we suggest new scenarios based on a multi-scalar approach and on ruralurban linkages and interactions. This is a new kind of chance for the rural areas to valuing the importance of the landscape and the environment. The creation of clusters of highly efficient multifunctional agriculture and production of common public goods it is seen as an opportunity to create future ecosystems and new types of cultural production

Camminare e progettare territori marginali

The paper aims to provide a report of the investigation and design activities which were carried out in the Apennine ridge of Umbria in collaboration with the Landscape Design department of the Vienna Polytechnic. The research found concrete realization in some landscape interventions and aspired to indicate different perspectives on landscape exploration practices in marginal and peripheral contexts. The contribution will focus both on the didactic experience of walking through the landscape and on the report of the project results. Walking is seen here as a perceptive and creative act, as a fluid practice that helps to recognize the characteristics of a territory and to enhance them through minimal interventions

Nascita, evoluzione e prospettive di due insediamenti rurali di colonizzazione: Borgo Carso e La Bazana

In Italy and Spain, under the colonisation policies of the 20th century, different villages were built as a strategic effort to improve rural areas. Overtime such villages have been subject to external and internal drivers of change with direct and indirect effects on its socio-economic, cultural, physical and environmental context. In the face of such challenges and due to the need to adapt to new requirements, activities, and functions, the design ideas that initially steered the development of the villages suffered several shifts. Thus, existing villages of colonisation in Italy and Spain hold valuable information to achieve a better understanding of spatial transformations, expansion processes and the links between material and immaterial heritage in ad hoc settlements. The two villages we analysed during the workshop – Borgo Carso (built in 1931) in Latina, Italy and La Bazana (built in 1954) in Badajoz, Spain – are particularly interesting as both were designed to have just one connection to the remaining urban system (insediamento a terminazione) and both present a strong relationship with the rural landscape. Yet, a closer and more updated look reveals different development and expansion trajectories and in order to get a better understanding of such dynamics, an analysis was carried on non-material aspects (such as historic background, socio-economic and demographic trends) as well as on material elements (such as the urban and architectonic features, including road connections, public spaces, uses and social facilities). It was then possible to draw an interpretation for the expansion patterns that each town experienced, which highlighted complex relations with the spatial context and with landscape. At last we developed and propose some project and design suggestions envisaging possible future developments for both villages. By focusing on these two cases and carrying a comparative analysis we hope to give a better sense of the colonisation practices and outcomes in Italy and Spain, while providing interesting hints on urban problems of ad hoc settlements and the echo it has on the heritage value of the urban fabric and architecture of each country