“Locus qui Apud Montes” The Redesign of a Degraded Urban Edge in Pimonte

Abstract

This study investigates some aspects relating to the urban form and design, as part of the international debate on its new instances of urban regeneration and environmental sustainability. Particularly, the theme regards the re-design of degraded urban edges in those towns strongly linked with landscape. The dissertation regards an experimental study of urban and landscape renewal presented for a research project proposed by University of Maryland and RAS Foundation. Its objective is to regenerate degraded urban areas of the “Vesuvian District of Culture & Tourism” of the Campania region, in Italy. In this context, there was a design workshop to prepare projects to be propose to local authorities. The team from the school of Architecture of Bari, composed by A. Petruccioli (scientific coordinator), G. F. Rociola (design coordinator), V. Cantore, P. De Pasquale, F. Erriquez, D. Fallacara (students), studied the town of Pimonte, severely hit by an earthquake about thirty years ago. Its most representative place is the San Michele Arcangelo which surrounding area, as a result of that disastrous event, gradually became a marginalized area, transformed in a dump with illegal buildings. These aspects were considered in the design proposal, characterized by an urban fabric with housing, public buildings, a square and a park. This project attempts to recover the original centrality of the church of San Michele Arcangelo in the urban structure, strengthening at the same time the link between the town and the agricultural landscape of the Lattari mountains. The study aims to provide a methodological contribution for urban and architectural design in the degraded and fragmented built peripheries, according to an approach that considers the project as a critical synthesis of the characteristics of the place, updated in continuity with the “invariants” and the “traces” of the settlement development processes, through their critical interpretation.