University of Naples Federico II, 27-30 September 2015
The Seminar aims to investigate the issue of the re-appropriation and the recovery of river landscapes, often compromised and degraded as a result of human or natural changes, starting from the case of the Campania region, which sets out as a laboratory where it is possible to test the combination of appropriate methods and technics to actively plan river landscapes.
In this framework, adopting a landscape restoration approach might suggest useful hints to return landscapes to their natural conditions, counting on resilience, if specific conditions of sites make it possible. At the same time, the conference highlights the importance of enhancing local communities’ resources in order to reinterpret and redefine landscapes.
Scientific coordinators: Francesco Domenico MOCCIA and Elvira PETRONCELLI
Tracks
a. Conservation and transformations of dynamic landscapes
b. Resilient spaces of river fruition
c. Geographical approaches and visual and interactive strategies for river landscapes
d. Water and land in the landscape project
a. Conservation and transformations of dynamic landscapes
Coordinators: Bianca Gioia MARINO and Rossana VALENTI
Several and strong modifications have hit our landscapes and today characterize our contemporary places: they have very often been cause of destruction and annihilation of environmental values and of historical and aesthetic meanings in recent decades.?The river, in its physical features, is probably the most submitted natural element to the transforming action due to the human intervention: sometimes it has been covered, deflected, intercepted to slow it or to regulate its velocity, as well as altered and polluted. These transformations have often led to substantial changes of the urban image and of historical and natural landscapes. The indication about government transformation actions, about conservation interventions of physical elements and about the recovery of the intangible values must take account of an integrated perspective of the several disciplinary issues, that together connote and signify the reality of the river landscape.
The session aims to connect, in an interdisciplinary way, issues relating to the identity – or rather to the ‘identities’ – of the river landscapes and relating to the interpretative mechanisms through which we identify decay, needs and their potentialities. This procedure has to consider aesthetic and historical values of river places and, furthermore, it is necessary to identify the issues about the historical and archaeological heritage, the geo-natural features, the historic landscapes, urban and not. In this sense, the requests of memory and, at the same time, of the current perception associated to the contemporary aesthetics, on which the issues related to the iconography and literature must be connected and developed, are particularly essential.
b. Resilient spaces of river fruition
Coordinators: Vito CAPPIELLO and Marialuce STANGANELLI
With this track we invite to discuss researches, projects and didactic works concerning river landscapes resulting from a “design with nature” approach or co-working with nature for the restoration of damaged landscapes.?Our focus is the natural functioning of river corridors, their adaptation to natural processes and the attention to vitality in its various aspects, from the good biologic functionality to the capacity of activating dynamic and livable landscapes.
In contrast with the artificiality connected with hard engineering methods treating river landscapes’ problems, this track aims to collect contributions focusing on developments based on ecological infrastructure and on a fertile, mixed and functional dimension of landscape, which define healthy and vital places.?This approach fits in a perspective of “evolutionary resilience”, as the capacity of the city to adapt to changes and to transform in response to stresses and strains. The relationship between resilience and resistance in river landscapes, their capacity of living in the water and, on the contrary, the necessity of being protected from waters approaching, is a critical issue to face.
c. Geographical approaches and visual and interactive strategies for river landscapes
Coordinators: Pierpaolo D’AGOSTINO and Barbara DELLE DONNE
Water is a strong element modelling and characterizing the landscape. A particular kind is river landscape: since ancient times settlements and human activities focused on rivers, where they have left their signs. Formerly the relation was pointed and dynamic, today the relation is weakened: river landscapes have acquired unnatural looks and unsustainable shapes. This conference will be an opportunity to think about that river landscapes state: environmental damage to tackle; recovery to implement returning their original space; people and places to secure; recovery actions to protect the landscape. These contexts can be analyzed through the development of ICT logic, the positive spread of instruments able to provide exchange about information and knowledge, allows interaction, both horizontally and vertically, between user that have, even though with different attitudes, as common goal to protect and maintain the best environmental conditions and landscape.
On the other hand, about several technical points of views, there is also the increasing achievement of those strategies aimed at the digital representation of the whole environment, both in terms of coalescence and visualization of information contents, and in terms of simulation about previous conditions or future configurations and states in which it is possible to evaluate those landscapes even denied or depressed. Remarking on this last point, it should be noted that the investigation about the heritage landscapes, especially when denoted by specific connotations such as those related to water resources, cannot ignore the ability of synthesis offered by the sciences related to the representation, also updating its intellectual framework and tools. Tools that, therefore, encourage the in-depth analysis and the investigation about territorial conflicts by experimenting with new forms of graphic, cartographic and ‘infographics’ visualization: we need to work for a new organization of a multitude of visions, which become evidence of a complex pattern of perceptual, formal and substantial relationships, for which it is a priority to handle huge and often interactive data bases and models, also graphically in order to aim to an effective and appealing analysis designed for a wide audience more and more involved in the chain of decisions and actions.
d. Water and land in the landscape project Coordinators:
Dora FRANCESE and Francesco VIOLA
The subject of water, mainly referred to river systems, can be declined according to various deep studies, which faces the wide scale and/or a certain number of land portion at reduced scale.?One of the proposed research lines relates to the river basins: the transformation and its relationship with both the landscape resources and the production chains in the areas.
The declination according to technological and architectural design might include the issue of local material culture, in harmony with the numerous mills and various artifacts and hydraulic systems which once served as a tool and space to accommodate local productive activities.?Equally important is the study of the connection between water spaces and the infrastructure built in order to disseminate and transfer the water pure and clean to towns and villages. Both the ancient and the new infrastructure could be investigated with the aim of ensuring the interventions designed to monitor and care for the landscape and at the same time acts to safety and health for the inhabitants, as well as respect for the natural environment and cultural.
At large scale, other topics of interest of the session are about the sustainable transformations of the water landscape concerning relations between the configuration of the territory, the production systems and the behavior of populations. The cultural involvement of populations, in terms of literature, poetry, theatre, habits and lifestyle, allows the understanding of the processes of landscape transformation and the economical and human relationships due to the different uses of water.
The structure of the Seminar
It is divided into two parts, intertwining in three study days:?- paper presentations, in which to discuss international interesting cases;?- in situ activities, in which to get in touch with territories (places and relevant actors) and to exchange ideas and experiences.?Seminar activities will be structured according to the main branches of the UNISCAPE network: didactics, researches, landscape projects, landscape observatories.?The official language of the Seminar is English (no translation facilities provided).
Two design workshops will be organized, in which to creatively interact starting from the observation of concrete cases: the Sarno plain; the Irno valley.?A field trip will be arranged, investigating places at different levels, from landscapes’ understanding to iconography and literature inspirations, to questions regarding the recovery of river landscapes, to the solutions carried out so far.
During the focused visit it will be possible to discuss with the involved actors, to examine convergent urban policies and their effects on landscapes, to immerse in values of local culture, to suggest projects of landscape re-appropriation from which to learn, to collectively work in order to interpret river landscapes and propose design solutions.?Groups of participants will produce design concepts on the future of the sites that will be reported in the final session of the conference.
The registration at UNISCAPE en-route conference allows to receive a dropbox link to share useful materials in order to deepen knowledge on the selected sites.
The papers and discussions presented during the seminar are published in:
UNISCAPE En-Route issue n.3