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The
hydro-agricultural origin is important to understand the urban
layout of the Sassi of Matera. Above, the Sasso Barisano is a
basin into which water coming down from the plain above conveyed.
Below, an overhanging garden resulting from the threshing-floors,
the agropastoral matrix on which the process of urbanisation was
implanted.
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| Maya hydraulic
technology. a) before the classic age the settlements were carried
out at the bottom in natural depression used as water reservoirs.
B) in the late classic age hydraulic technology made it possible
to build in high places, using the roofs and the monuments of the
town as water catchment devices which filled a big central reservoir
with water. |
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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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| 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. |
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| Ecological
dwelling based on solar energy, water harvesting and a hanging garden.
The roof garden consisting of a hanging roof made of vegetation
provides heat insulation both in winter in summer. Thanks to their
homeostatic qualities plants automatically regulate the protection
they give according to climatic conditions. This allows energy for
heating to be reduced by up to 50% and electric conditioning to
be completely avoided. In summer time on a roof made of vegetation
the temperature does not exceed 25 degrees, whereas a conventional
covering may reach 80 degrees. Furthermore, plants improve the quality
of the air by producing oxygen and retaining dust particles. From
an urban point of view the advantages are so significant that in
Tokyo, where the mean temperature increased three degrees in the
last few years, the city council has forced people to replace roof
tiles and cement with the roof gardens. |
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The
residential complex of Hsb in Vasteras, the ecological courtyard
and the waste and wastewater management systems.
1.
Compost 2. Cistern 3. Filter
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