Landscape Lab: Drawing, Perception and Design for the Next Landscape Models (Urban and Landscape Perspectives, 20)

This book explores the relationship between the sciences of representation and the strategy of landscape valorisation. The topic is connected to the theme of the image of the city, which is extended to the territory scale and applied to case studies in Italy’s Umbria region, where the goal is to strike a dynamic balance between cultural heritage and nature. The studies demonstrate how landscape represents an interpretive process of finding meaning, a product of the relationships between mankind and the places in which it lives. 

The work proceeds from the assumption that it is possible to describe these connections between environment, territory and landscape by applying the Vitruvian triad, composed of Firmitas (solidity), Utilitas (utility) and Venustas(beauty). The environment, the sum of the conditions that influence all life, represents the place’s solidity, because it guarantees its survival. In turn, territory is connected to utility, and through its etymological meaning is linked to possession, to a domain; while landscape, as an “area perceived by people”, expresses the search for beauty in a given place, the process of critically interpreting a vision. 

Fabio Bianconi (1966), associate professor at University of Perugia. Graduated in Civil Engineering at the University of Perugia and Phd at University of Ancona, he is teaching in the degree courses of Civil Engineering and Architecture at University of Perugia, where he has participated in numerous research projects of national and international interest. He has been also professor in the degree course in “Science of Landscape Management”, in the degree course in “Technologies for the Conservation and the Restoration of Cultural Heritage” at University of Perugia, in the course of “Techniques of Landscape Simulation” at “Sapienza” University of Rome and at University of Trento. He is author of international articles and the director of the International Laboratory of Landscape Research (CIRIAF-SSTAM) at University of Perugia. He carries out his research activities within the fields of landscape simulation, in the use of I.T. systems for the documentation of the architectural and environmental heritage, in surveying using digital techniques.