RECOVERING ANCIENT SETTLEMENTS: APPROACHES TO NEGOTIATION FOR COLLECTIVE SPACES

Conjugate design approaches and tools for negotiating the recovery of ancient residential and productive settlements, is the goal of a work developed within the research Prin "Landscape protection between preservation and change. Economy and beauty for a sustainable development”. The cultural frame of reference is informed to re-establish past links between the ethical dimensions of the built landscape, economies and society. Placing at the centre of reflections the connections between identity and development, the paper focuses on issues posed by the need to give back to settled communities collective spaces in time privatized, fielding procedures for consultation and negotiation of investments and choices. The ancient built landscape of Torre Annunziata, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, is taken as case study, to validate the theoretical assumptions and procedures. Starting from the 1600, this site is characterized by the presence of a minute settlement, dedicated to the production of dried pasta food, emblematic example of interactions between the settlement choices and the economic, social and physical features. Over the course of three centuries, the quality of pasta is directly related to the morphology, distribution and construction of those buildings for production and outdoor spaces intended for drying and packaging. The presence of a minute industrial base is able to create a bond within the community who share manual skills, technical expertise in the use of environmental resources for the creation of spaces for collective use as places of production. Since the mid-30s, the closure of pasta factories leads to a strong transformation of the ancient buildings. Today, innovative regulatory approaches represent an opportunity for rethinking of recovery strategies, in an area that suffers from a structural deficit in planning. The shared reacquisition of spaces for collective use as commons, is supposed to trigger processes aimed at giving future to degraded settlements. In order to design new settlement scenarios, the paper comes to the integration of traditional administrative models with the cooperative strategies of urban consensus.