Massimo Carta and Maria Rita Gisotti.

The book stems from a design intention and the desire to dialogue with the southern shore of the Mediterranean on some major current challenges in the field of urban and territorial planning. To this end, six projects are identified, founding matrices of the Italian disciplinary tradition, from which design guidelines are extracted. Some strategies emerge: the structuring role of non-artificial open space; the ordering function of collective space; the centrality of public action in governing transformations; the importance of a multidisciplinary and integrated approach; a concept of heritage understood as a living repository of ideas for the project. Finally, the evocation, in filigree, of a limit between man-made and natural things that gives measure and dimension to our world.