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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 the figure on the right.
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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.
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Ghardaia,
a big water sharing device used to distribute and channel the
precious floods according to the different oases.
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Ghardaia
(Algerian Sahara). The overbuilding of the settlements on the
rocky summits along the palm-grove forms the so-called pentapolis
of the M'zab valley.
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Ghardaia,
a torrent-street. When floods occur the street directs water to
the gardens beyond the lateral walls. On the right the figure
shows the water intake which intercepts the liquid in the torrent-street
and directs it to the gardens.
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The
dwellings of Shibam are tall tower-houses made of raw earth. Each
house is inhabited by a single family which is able to build the
massive construction thanks to the low cost of the material.
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Shibam
(Yemen). The ancient dam was not used to create an open-air basin
but rather to direct the floods.
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Shibam
(Yemen). To the embankments, the channels and the depressions
in the gardens.
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Shibam.
The dams conveyed the flows down the small watersheds where the
soil saturated with humidity could be cultivated all the year
round.
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The
harvesting systems of the floods in small depressions and gardens
separated by land embankments are still in use in al-Hajarain,
in the homonymous wadi, one of the numerous tributaries of the
Hadramaut.
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The
famous monuments of Petra, wrongly defined as tombs, were the
representative places, deposits of goods and places for family
rituals. All the excavations were also in connection with water.
The figure shows the so-called Palace Tomb, a monumental complex
situated at the end of the long aqueduct of wadi al-Mataha which
formed a big cascade.
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The
old centres of the Hyblaean region (Sicily). Above, Scicli and
the built façades overlapping the network of underground structures.
Below, Modica organised in concentric circles along the slope.
The similarities with the Sassi of Matera and the ecosystems of
the gravine are evident because of their common origin in the
hydro-agricultural layout.
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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.
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Oasis settlement: a, b) planimetry at the level of the plain and the terraces; c) axonometric projection. The surface of the terraces extends forward on the covered narrow streets which are inserted as a tunnel in the built-up area.
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Application
of the phytodepuration system by means of terraces in wadi Hadramaut
(Yemen). Below the town a system of consecutive terraces (A) in
harmony with the traditional landscape drains wastewater that
would otherwise stagnate in the environment that lacks rivers
able to collect them (Laureano, 1993).
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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.
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