New forms of the urban space in relation to nature. A didactic experience for the city of Monopoli

The loss of the boundary between city and countryside and the presence of large voids and fragments of nature in the city, if reinterpreted with type-morphological grammars, could constitute the basis to gain a renewed organic feature of the contemporary city and redefine an alternative form for the compact city. A recent teaching experience carried out at the Design Laboratories of the Architecture Faculty in Bari has chosen the city of Monopoli as a paradigmatic case study to test new models of urban space in relation to nature. Monopoli has a very clear forma urbis, which it developed during the time in relation to the natural morphology of the coastline, but that went into crisis in the contemporaneity. In the historical town it is possible to find some characteristics conditions of coastal centers of Puglia, typical ways of interpreting the relationship between the natural forms of the coast and the settlement forms. In the Laboratories these spatial models have been assumed as the key issues for the design: the coast that stretches over the sea with a promontory, interpreted through the themes of the podium, the belvedere, the muraglia, the bastion; the coast that houses the sea with a bay, becoming a water square on which the compact city overlooks; the coast linearly in front of the sea, interpreted through the themes of the palazzata and the riviera; the reinterpretation of the peri-urban and rural textures and the lama-cala systems.