valeria SCAVONE | Università degli Studi di Palermo (original) (raw)
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This paper focuses on the potential of the rural landscape of Sicily, the largest island in the M... more This paper focuses on the potential of the rural landscape of Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, taking into particular account the critical need to deal with the problem of depopulation of the small inner areas by leveraging the "integrated exploitation" of local resources. The rural landscape is considered to be capable of playing an essential role in many fields: ecology, production, culture and tourism. In this regard, guidelines are set by the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, the EU guidelines and the experience from Italy's Rural Development Plans, the latter of which aim at achieving the much sought-after multi-functionality of agriculture. This study has been conducted in our particular moment in history, when new attention is being drawn to the potential of rural landscape due to its fragility, the crisis of traditional production systems and the changes caused by urbanization, which have had irreversible effects on many rural areas, based on traditional agriculture, and on ecosystem services. Keeping this goal in mind, the Sicilian case study should be considered as a sort of "test bench" where the validity of the abovementioned considerations can be tested. The area Agrigento-Caltanissetta-Enna in mid-southeastern Sicily is an area composed of sixteen municipalities in the three (ex) regional provinces of Agrigento, Caltanissetta and Enna, which, from the coast facing Africa (characterised by major cultural sites UNESCO Heritage) stretches to the "heart" of inner Sicily along the "grey line" composed of trunk road S.S. 122. The rural landscape that characterizes this area is the result of a complex process of interactions between various natural and anthropic factors that often conflict with each other and define the identity of the landscape itself and its dynamic and economic processes. The area treated in this paper has been analyzed to highlight its particular features, thus proposing a
To reactivate an urban landscape, through a complex system of relationships, needs a goal: trigge... more To reactivate an urban landscape, through a complex system of relationships, needs a goal: trigger a course of identification based on cultural heritage like an “ID card”. To do this without losing the historical common memory, culture doesn’t have to be only for the “elite” but has to begin the raw nerve of the development.
When Kevin Lynch wrote about wayfinding, it was not for tourists but for inhabitants whom daily live in that place: the field of “orientation” was essential for him like it was for Camillo Sitte. This theorist of urban planning (not fully understood) said that “the space and the city are important if they are active” and Wieczorek [33] explains that “active” means the rule of the spectator in the perception process.
Recently, the experience of study, design and realization of Wayfinding Agrigento, has a aim: a local sustainable development that causes Agrigento to be a creative city, to re-start from its own identity, from its abandoned places, from its neglected architectures, from the difficult orography that characterizes its urban pattern. This project guides urban users throughout Girgenti (the historical center of Agrigento), into a slow rhythm of life, to stand out to the urban patterned identity, in a social progress of discovering and rediscovering of the historical heritage.
The suggested paths are connected with a website that can also analyze city users’ movements in the historical center to plan services and public urban “gears” for the community.
Girgenti starts to begin a real living organism that communicates and interacts with its urban users, reacts and dialogues with them, produces knowledge and triggers its regeneration.
Advanced Engineering Forum, 2014
This paper focuses on the potential of the rural landscape of Sicily, the largest island in the M... more This paper focuses on the potential of the rural landscape of Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, taking into particular account the critical need to deal with the problem of depopulation of the small inner areas by leveraging the "integrated exploitation" of local resources. The rural landscape is considered to be capable of playing an essential role in many fields: ecology, production, culture and tourism. In this regard, guidelines are set by the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, the EU guidelines and the experience from Italy's Rural Development Plans, the latter of which aim at achieving the much sought-after multi-functionality of agriculture. This study has been conducted in our particular moment in history, when new attention is being drawn to the potential of rural landscape due to its fragility, the crisis of traditional production systems and the changes caused by urbanization, which have had irreversible effects on many rural areas, based on traditional agriculture, and on ecosystem services. Keeping this goal in mind, the Sicilian case study should be considered as a sort of "test bench" where the validity of the abovementioned considerations can be tested. The area Agrigento-Caltanissetta-Enna in mid-southeastern Sicily is an area composed of sixteen municipalities in the three (ex) regional provinces of Agrigento, Caltanissetta and Enna, which, from the coast facing Africa (characterised by major cultural sites UNESCO Heritage) stretches to the "heart" of inner Sicily along the "grey line" composed of trunk road S.S. 122. The rural landscape that characterizes this area is the result of a complex process of interactions between various natural and anthropic factors that often conflict with each other and define the identity of the landscape itself and its dynamic and economic processes. The area treated in this paper has been analyzed to highlight its particular features, thus proposing a
To reactivate an urban landscape, through a complex system of relationships, needs a goal: trigge... more To reactivate an urban landscape, through a complex system of relationships, needs a goal: trigger a course of identification based on cultural heritage like an “ID card”. To do this without losing the historical common memory, culture doesn’t have to be only for the “elite” but has to begin the raw nerve of the development.
When Kevin Lynch wrote about wayfinding, it was not for tourists but for inhabitants whom daily live in that place: the field of “orientation” was essential for him like it was for Camillo Sitte. This theorist of urban planning (not fully understood) said that “the space and the city are important if they are active” and Wieczorek [33] explains that “active” means the rule of the spectator in the perception process.
Recently, the experience of study, design and realization of Wayfinding Agrigento, has a aim: a local sustainable development that causes Agrigento to be a creative city, to re-start from its own identity, from its abandoned places, from its neglected architectures, from the difficult orography that characterizes its urban pattern. This project guides urban users throughout Girgenti (the historical center of Agrigento), into a slow rhythm of life, to stand out to the urban patterned identity, in a social progress of discovering and rediscovering of the historical heritage.
The suggested paths are connected with a website that can also analyze city users’ movements in the historical center to plan services and public urban “gears” for the community.
Girgenti starts to begin a real living organism that communicates and interacts with its urban users, reacts and dialogues with them, produces knowledge and triggers its regeneration.
Advanced Engineering Forum, 2014