Architectural Materials between Rural and Urban Models of Settlement Principles in the Urban Transformation

Urban and suburban expansion has led to the incorporation of the margins of cities and rural centers, determining an inconsistent architectural lexicon. This issue has become increasingly common, both be- cause of the overcrowding of the city and, on the other hand, because of a progressive focus on rural areas following an escape from the urban. Both aspects respond to a social problem, especially related to the pan- demic crisis which highlighted the inadequacy of widespread settlement models to fulfil the diverse ways for people to live and to inhabit the space, also increasing the progressive awareness of the environmental effects on the transformation of cities and territory. For these reasons rural areas are now regaining more visibility. It is therefore clear the need to explore this issue from the point of view of either an alternative to the urban or in a progressive global urban continuum, to define ways of a possible integration. From the compositional point of view, this ambivalence outlines the relevance of a doctoral research in architecture. In fact, all these issues directly bind the research to the practice, never losing the vision of the theoretical value of the topic, as a mission to understand and develop social needs. More specifically, the research aims to investigate al- ternative settlement methods in which the sense of living the “non urban contemporary” could be integrated or not in the urban expansion. The research is being carried out through an analogical and comparative methodological investigation among a collection of examples of transformations starting from the category of rurality in urban changes. The paper inquires the relevance of the thesis underlining the values of settling principles. In this way, it is possible to focus on the importance of the practical and theoretical section of the research responding to social changes. This research tries to go beyond a generic vision studying the ways in which typological elements fit into the urban aggregation, questioning the sense of these spaces today and the ways in which the characters of rurality become part of the city. This method of research provides a critical awareness of the selected contexts, establishing tools for applying theorical elements. Through this analysis it is possible to point out the importance of a qualitative approach, fostering the debate on this rele- vant topic for contemporary studies and suggesting a possible reading key, a formal method in architectural transformations, to open up to future experimentations.