RICERCA ITALIANA     

Mediterranean Spaces and Cultures. Measurement, Analysis, Comprehension, Evaluation and History for the Knowledge and Monitoring of Transformative Processes in the Mediterranean Area.

Università degli Studi "Mediterranea" di Reggio Calabria

Abstract

The research concerns the study of spaces and cultures of the Mediterranean area, through the measurement, analysis, assessment and comprehension useful for the knowledge, proposal and management of transformative processes. The research aims at contributing to define the interdependence between some Mediterranean countries in order to document, from a disciplinary point of view, their identity values, as well as to understand and give shape to charming hypotheses tied to the concept of Mediterranean character. For over a decade, some cognitive paths on the different Mediterranean countries have been developed in the different research centres starting from the hypothesis of a common cultural origin and of a common belonging to a "Mediterranean continent". Such paths are evidence of similarities, assonances, phonemes of one vocabulary, words of one language. They have identified the possible definition of a common Mediterranean culture in the central importance of exchange and in social and cultural interactions. The Mediterranean Sea is a place of relationships par excellence. A place where various and manifold forms of thought, knowledge and civilization intersected, blended and integrated more than in any other part of the world.
The Mediterranean area was already the object of PRIN (National Research Programme) 2003 of which this proposal represents a continuation. Actually, such an area offers a wide range of cases useful to experiment and improve survey methods, exemplary theories and practices for the comprehension and the recovery of urban tissues, as well as for the knowledge and development of places which are often characterized by a strong relationship between "traditional" ways of inhabiting and territory, between "implicit vocations" and purposes of transformation. Those implicit vocations must be interpreted by using some instruments allowing to highlight their complex dynamics, logic phases, cultural and religious matrices.
The adopted multicriteria thematic analysis allows to understand the various reasons of the present setting and to prefigure reliable hypotheses of future settings. The research aims at developing projects based on the knowledge and development of local resources.
The means researchers (professors, post-doctoral and doctoral researchers) and operators (specialist) have at their disposal, though with different roles and instruments, are: critical survey, graphic analysis, multimedia design and representation, economic and managerial analysis, historical comparisons, ecological balances, physical planning techniques, transports and lines of communications. Their purpose is, on the one hand, the recovery and development of architecture, environment and territory, with a particular reference to Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, to minor islands and to the oasis towns of the south of Tunisia; on the other hand, the project of a system of infrastructures triggering the development of coastal areas of Maghreb countries. Then, the multicriteria thematic analysis becomes a critical and assessment analysis, a metaproject language, a communication of the transformative processes of architecture and environment, a planning scheme for the project. <<<

Principal Investigator

Massimo GIOVANNINI Università degli Studi "Mediterranea" di REGGIO CALABRIA

Research Objectives

The research concerns the study of spaces and cultures of the Mediterranean area, through the measurement, analysis, assessment and comprehension useful for the knowledge, proposal and management of transformative processes. The research aims at contributing to define the interdependence between some Mediterranean countries in order to document, from a disciplinary point of view, their identity values, as well as to understand and give shape to charming hypotheses tied to the concept of Mediterranean character. For over a decade, some cognitive paths on the different Mediterranean countries have been developed in the different research centres starting from the hypothesis of a common cultural origin and of a common belonging to a "Mediterranean continent". Such paths are evidence of similarities, assonances, phonemes of one vocabulary, words of one language. They have identified the possible definition of a common Mediterranean culture in the central importance of exchange and in social and cultural interactions. The Mediterranean Sea is a place of relationships par excellence. A place where various and manifold forms of thought, knowledge and civilization intersected, blended and integrated more than in any other part of the world.
The Mediterranean area was already the object of PRIN (National Research Programme) 2003 of which this proposal represents a continuation. Actually, such an area offers a wide range of cases useful to experiment and improve survey methods, exemplary theories and practices for the comprehension and the recovery of urban tissues, as well as for the knowledge and development of places which are often characterized by a strong relationship between "traditional" ways of inhabiting and territory, between "implicit vocations" and purposes of transformation. Those implicit vocations must be interpreted by using some instruments allowing to highlight their complex dynamics, logic phases, cultural and religious matrices.
The adopted multicriteria thematic analysis allows to understand the various reasons of the present setting and to prefigure reliable hypotheses of future settings. The research aims at developing projects based on the knowledge and development of local resources.
The means researchers (professors, post-doctoral and doctoral researchers) and operators (specialist) have at their disposal, though with different roles and instruments, are: critical survey, graphic analysis, multimedia design and representation, economic and managerial analysis, historical comparisons, ecological balances, physical planning techniques, transports and lines of communications. Their purpose is, on the one hand, the recovery and development of architecture, environment and territory, with a particular reference to Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, to minor islands and to the oasis towns of the south of Tunisia; on the other hand, the project of a system of infrastructures triggering the development of coastal areas of Maghreb countries. Then, the multicriteria thematic analysis becomes a critical and assessment analysis, a metaproject language, a communication of the transformative processes of architecture and environment, a planning scheme for the project.
The theoretical elements supporting the research methodology concern:
- The representation of the stylistic characters of the territory and the environment, through the use of the metric, geometric and configuration analysis.
- The graphic analysis for the knowledge, the verification and the criticism of the study cases considered for a "multicriteria" and metaproject assessment;
- The reflections on the dynamics of urban and territorial development according to the cultural contexts defining common matrices and local specificities;
- The measurement and the control of a sustainable development of a natural environment built through an adequate use of territorial resources;
- Mediterranean international policy frameworks;
- The assessment and hypothesis of systems of infrastructures in course of transformation;
- A project financing tending to the assessment and to the financial support of the project.
The operational approaches concern:
- direct and indirect practices of measurement of architectures, complex constructions, specialized buildings, markets and places of exchange, urban tissues and infrastructures;
- practices of multimedia graphic delivery;
- the realization of models of transports/territory integration;
- the economic assessment of the direct profitability which can be obtained from the management of possible infrastructural works.
The results of the research will be formalized through:
- a volume edited by the Unit of the Scientific Coordinator including the contributions of all the Research Units;
- a CD-Rom containing the global data of the research;
- an international workshop for the presentation of the research work envisaging the participation of the scientific representatives of the various organizations and associations contributing to the development of the research. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

The members of the Research Units have a long experience in the field of survey, analyses and assessments for recovery, as well as in the field of infrastructures and transport systems and in the field of economy and business management.
All the Units will contribute to a multidisciplinary thematic research facing the complexity of themes of the "Mediterranean Sea", in order to:
- compare its common invariants determining its "diffused" qualities;
- assess its state of the art;
- foresee its transformations and projects.
Therefore, the research will aim at promoting an activity of analysis for the control of a sustainable development of the territory, that is at discretizing and measuring its material and immaterial values through a multicriteria analysis of the natural and built environment.
The research will focus on Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, minor islands and all Maghreb countries – areas being rich in history, culture and local traditions – in order to contribute to provide new economic stimuli through the proposal of a cultural and environmental model encouraging the development of the whole studied area.
Some aspects of the disciplinary identity of those places will be examined through the representation of the natural and built environment, experimenting with a working methodology supporting the professors dealing with representation with other scholars dealing with economy and transports and able to develop researches on the basis of their consolidated experiences on strategic planning and transport networks. Such a specific work is based on information coming from a continuous monitoring providing elements for the verification and the control of modifications.
The monitoring system provides data, at regular intervals, allowing to improve the "modelling approach".
The infrastructural modernization leads to the need, above all in the concerned countries, to reconsider the use of public spending through investments which can assure profitability and social welfare. Moreover, project financing modernization can solve the technical and scientific problems, hindering the development of the studied areas, by financing the necessary infrastructures.
Therefore, on the one hand, it is important to invest in public work influencing directly the costs/quality of the services/products offered by the productive system and, on the other hand, it is necessary to invest in infrastructures assuring a stable development, social balance and sustainable living and growth conditions. <<<