| The
Hadramaut valley and the ancient walled town of Shibam surrounded
by the embankments and the channels of the traditional system of
flood sharing and cultivation of the fields, most of which are now
abandoned. |
|
| Sasso
Barisano, one of the two large depressions forming the ancient town
of Matera. The houses, terraces and gardens develop in successive
circles and surround the riverbed of the narrow drainage stream,
the "grabiglione", now paved. The high spur of the Civita, where
the Cathedral stands on a rise, overlooks the urban landscape. The
dwellings envelop the limestone bed by stretching out into the rock
with deep underground cavities whose entrances may be observed where
the buildings become fewer and leave the rock matrix bare. |
|
| Matera, Civita
and the glacis of the Sasso Barisano. An urban ecosystem is an oasis
model which evolves into a town. It gains complexity and stratification,
but retains its organic relationship with the environment and a
sustainable use of resources. The aesthetic qualities we appreciate
in the Sassi di Matera are due to the rules and restraints imposed
on the settlement by the water and energy requirements and the need
to protect the soil. The adoption of the same principles in similar
environmental situations explains the similarities arising even
with distant urban ecosystems such as Ghardaia in figure on the
right. |
|
| Ghardaia (Algerian
Sahara). The mosque had to accommodate all the inhabitants. When
this was no longer possible a new settlement was built in a similar
context. The habitat, therefore, maintained its clustered shape
which was in harmony with the environment. |
|
|
Vicinato
of the Sassi of Matera: a) cross section, b) plan.
|
|
|
The
Sassi of Matera. The hypogea overlapping each other in several
storeys. The roof of a cave becomes a narrow street or a hanging
garden.
|
|
|
The oasis is a self-catalytic system in which the first supply of water condensation and moisture is increased by the installation of palm trees which produce shade, attract organisms and form humus. The palm-grove determines a humid microclimate fed by hidden precipitations, water condensation and underground drainage through the underground passageways of the foggaras. The adobe habitat does not waste wood for firing bricks, it is kept cool by the underground water passageway and provides waste to fertilise the fields. The system runs the water resource in a cycle of use which is not only compatible with the renewable quantities available but also increases them.
|
|
|
In Shibam the habitat is important for the fertilisation of the fields with which it interacts in an indissoluble cycle of careful use of the resources. The town is able to meet the need of collecting human excrements, thanks to the kind of closet, the fabric of the houses and the whole planimetry. Excrement, essential in order to cultivate the desert , is dried in the sun. Thanks to the supply of flood waters impounded by deviation dams, the excrement turns into humus and colloidal material, which is dug out and used for building and periodically renovating the tall adobe houses of the town. Depressions are made, surrounded by embankments and channels and shaded by the palm-grove. Their function is that of providing agricultural foodstuffs and protecting the habitat from the floods by absorbing and storing quantities of water.
|
|
|
In the Sassi of Matera the digging of caves drains the slope and the inside of the rock thus making the cavities useful and providing water storage for the inhabitants and the terrace crops. The digging material is used for building the cave-dwellings by extending forward the lateral caves of each terrace and for building the protected courtyards. The rainwater off the roofs is harvested in the well inside the courtyard. In order to accomplish this task the pitches of the roofs do not protrude from the houses but they are rather built within the walls, where the community life of the neighbourhood takes place. The hypogeums, whose temperature is constantly 15° C, provide heat in winter time and cool in summer time. The layout of small streets and stairs is useful to channel rainwater for farming the terraces, which because of the urban development become saturated with houses or turn into hanging gardens.
|
|
