Developing Semantic Models for the Historic Urban Landscape Regeneration

Abstract

The historic urban landscape is the material representation of regional cultures and traditions, developed in relation to geographical and climatic conditions of the area and the availability of local resources and materials. A habitat matured over the centuries, rich in layers on history, heritage, social meanings, crafts and traditions. It’s a complex cultural landscape, material expression of site adaptation models and environmental resilience, in which each element can be identified and documented; such a landscape can be described graphically as a catalog with multiple information levels developing appropriate semantic models. Direct analysis, digital technologies and transcription methods offer tools for innovation in the process of knowledge and preservation of this heritage. A research application is running on the traditional landscape of the Murgia in Puglia: a rural environment, now partially urbanized, characterized by the presence of the trullo houses; a habitat, listed in the Unesco heritage, which widely uses the dry-stone construction, a prehistoric technique of middle-eastern origin still in use in many parts of Italy. The research is documenting the environmental practices in the countryside and a visual catalog of contrada rural settlements.