| 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. |
|
 |
|
|
Ghardaia.
Above, the mausoleum of the holy founder with a terrace and a
courtyard for harvesting humidity. Below, the overbuilding of
the settlements on the rocky summits along the palm-grove forms
the so-called pentapolis of the M'zab valley.
|
|
 |
|
|
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.
|
|
| 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. |
|
| The
hydro-agricultural origin is important to understand the urban layout
of the Sassi of Matera. 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. |
 |
| Alberobello
(Bari) is the historical centre where the megalithic technique of
the trullo evolves into an urban ecosystem. |
|
| 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. |
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
Environmental
rehabilitation project carried out by Unesco (Laureano, 2001).
|
|
