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In the Israeli-Palestinian context there is an intricate territorial conflict based on two different and contrasting narratives of historical, cultural and religious belonging. In this clash, it is the state of Israel that holds power and exercises it through spatial, politicaladministrative and economic control over the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Since 1948 a continuous process of contraction of Palestinian Territories (PT) has been initiated, this by means of targeted policies such as the incessant construction of Israeli settlements, the declaration of military zones and the construction of by Pass roads etc. The research explores and analyzes the role that planning has played in the process of colonization of the PT, using planning techniques to achieve political objectives, by making the strong part prevails against the weaker one. Thus, this thesis aims, from one hand to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of planning system used by the Palestinian National Authority in areas of its sovereignty: it is done through the use of analytical and comparative methodology to study the planning system in the PT and its historical development and the descriptive method of the impacts of Israeli policy on Palestinian cities. From the other hand, by using the city of Jericho as a case study, the thesis elaborates the research issues and advices for better planning and management of the PT based on future scenarios of the political situation.

The research is driven by the motivation to contribute to the elaboration of the "science of the city" (Lefebvre), through the study of relationships and correlations which insist in the city. The choice is to investigate processes in which the lefebvrian concept of the “right to the city” is claimed in order to verify if it can be verified in these contexts not only the emergence of rights or a way of exercising rights related to the city. Above all, it intends to understand if a capacity for legal production can be identified. Recognizing the impossibility and uselessness of denying the conflict, and even evaluating the contribution of urban movements and practices in promoting greater collective well-being, it was decided to verify their contribution to generate another meaning of the right to the city that include the genesis of rules and effective government tools. It has been chosen to adopt a methodology strongly based on research-action and case-studies that allowed analysis and continuous interactions. It was intended to operate considering the interaction between movements and groups with the institutions, in order to verify dialectics according to their contribution to the general interest, for an improvement of institutions and generative processes of norms.

The research examined mining landscape in Sardinia (Geo-mining, Historical and Environmental Park in Sardinia) as a place for everyday living. Developed within the theoretical framework of ‘production of space’ and cultural landscape concept it challenged place to identify and public participation in heritage conservation. Topic-specific theoretical principles and cases of practice have shown central role of everyday life routine and public participation in making-decision process for long-term heritage sustainability. Comprehensive elaboration of mining landscape in Sardinia confirmed domination of abstract space (bureaucracy and economy - mining industry in the past) that has modelled the landscape ever since. Productive synthesis of theoretical findings and international practices complemented the guidelines for the Sardinian case. Reproduction model illustrated components to the interpretative, evaluative and transformative value of mining landscape in Sardinia. Place identity (bound of place and people) is vital for reproduction of mining landscape in Sardinia as a place for living and loving. Both theory and practice, suggest territoriality of place-specific identities. The development principles focused rethinking the heritage conception on the regional level but starting from and with the local community. Research suggests more amplification of everyday life practices for a particular site of the mining landscape in Sardinia.

The year 2015 will be another step toward diversity in Thailand due to the initiation for ASEAN Economic Community. Unfortunately, the urban neighborhoods who will be facing this population dynamic were left out of policy planning table. This is going against many literatures as scholars have been suggesting for more focuses on local community level where native and migrant will meet. These encounters could result in both social cohesion community or tension, separation that lead to social segregation. Various studies support that good-quality physical environments are significant stimulator for diversity, including space for interaction, amenities, cultural spaces, public infrastructure. Henceforward, this research is trying to address the neighborhood diversity. Through the cultivation of diverse neighborhood design principle (DNDP) factors from comparative case studies. We found 20 key factors essential for DNDP. In final part of the research we attempted to implement the DNDP in real neighborhood of Chiang Mai along with gaming simulation tools. Eventually, we learned that DNDP with the GS have the ability to promote mutual understanding among local stakeholders and prompt the acceptance of diversity concept that stimulate a powerful dialogue and leads to new local initiation for diverse neighborhood planning. And this is proved to be the fabric that can hold local society together by pushing the boundary of more active communication and breakdown stigma walls for good.

This work deals with the pedestrians’ accessibility issues, especially how the walkability is a matter of justice and how it can be measured and modeled. It is possible to divide the research product into three main areas: The first area, an introduction, deals with the pedestrian accessibility implications for the urban justice. In this sense, one of the possible points of view, whereby a walkable city is a right, is justified by the right to the city and by the capability approach. The second area, based on bibliographic research, provides an overview of the measurement methods of accessibility, with regard to its definition in respect to the justice and equity. As a justice measure, the accessibility is affected by the definition of equity, spatial equity and accessibility. Each different definition of these concepts brings to a different measurement method, formally place-based or people-based. Differently to the literature, this work has the merit to implement characteristics of both the approaches. The third area is composed of two empirical tests, to define and validate the classification model. It also integrates a wide bibliographic collection of similar studies and a series of test on the models. The main result of the experiments allows one to define the space features perceived as important in the evaluation of urban environment and what is their weight in the judgment. Starting from results of the regression model some data mining classifiers are tested. Neural Network method seems to be the best one to be affected as a walkability evaluation tool.

The essential theme of this research is the refugee issue in Jordan. This phenomenon, which accompanies the history of the Kingdom of Jordan, can’t be considered only as the management of an emergency through sectorial policies disconnected and not addressing the issue of administrative reorganization and promotion of public participation. For these reasons, its necessary to start from the history of Jordan: from a long history of refugees and asylum-seekers (Attachment 1), from a role it plays at international level as a territory where the government defines experimental management forms (Attachment 2), to description the current administrative situation of the Kingdom of Jordan (Chapter 5); in addiction, it is fundamental to deal with the actual crisis caused by the conflict in Syria (Chapter 4). These topics interrelate in Chapter 6; define the guide lines to deal with the problem of refugees and the question of government of the territory in Jordan (management of collective services, reorganization of administrative authority). The case study, useful to understand the current situation, is the refugee camp of Zaatari (illustrate in Chapter 2), from which can be draw inspiration information and good practices to create urban and territorial strategies for a refugees.

Algunas ciudades históricas costeras, con cierto potencial de desarrollo turístico y arraigadas tradiciones culturales, necesitan una planificación adecuada para afrontar dicho desarrollo. La sobreexplotación de la franja costera impulsa el deterioro de los valores que la hacen diferentes de otros territorios, razón básica de su posible atractivo turístico. Así, bajo la consideración de que la cultura local y el paisaje están intrínsecamente unidos, influencian el evolución de dichas ciudades y territorios y pueden ser la base de un desarrollo turístico ambiental y socialmente sostenible, se plantea el análisis, en los casos de Agaete y Alghero, de toda forma de expresión de la tradición histórica local para componer la imagen contemporánea de su cultura, donde el paisaje sea el elemento articulador de los espacios en los que esta cultura se desarrolla, permitiendo la comprensión de su ordenación física a través del territorio y su posterior puesta en valor. Some coastal historic cities with certain potential of tourism development and strong cultural traditions need a proper planning able to tackle such development. Overexploitation of the coastal strip drives the deterioration of the elements that make it different from other territories, basic reason for its possible tourist attraction. Local culture and landscape are inextricably linked, influence cities and territories development and can be the basis of an environmentally and socially sustainable tourism development. So, with Agaete and Alghero as cases of study, analysis of all forms of expression of the local, historical tradition will set the contemporary image of their culture, where landscapes articulate spaces in which this culture is developed, allowing to understand its territorial structure and its subsequent revaluation.

According to the systematic approach, solitude corresponds to a lack of communication between a singular system (a human being) and its surroundings (be they another human being, society, or space). Taking this definition axiomatically, the following hypotheses and the main thesis may be formed: solitude can be studied through our relation with space and built environment; solitude is a condition capable of disconnecting us with our surroundings; solitude can either depreciate or give value to the way we experience and interact with our surroundings; solitude can either be enforced and depreciated, or mitigated by our interaction with space, and therefore appreciated. The aim of this research was to investigate if, why, and how this ontological and existential concern may become part of architectural design. The paper investigates spaces of solitude in the deadened cities of the present - cities where the space is temporarily suspended by the ongoing, reciprocal impact of how they are designed and how modern solitude weakens our relation with our surroundings. As a result, a different point of view on the relationship between the individual and space applicable for public space design, risk mitigation strategies, and strategies for urban development. It can be considered a tool for minimising the vulnerability and improving the resilience of built environments, and empowering people who live between buildings in order to become the real users and owners of their urban territory.

The topic of territorial disputes in a community as for the control and management of the land is an historical component of every people. And the way a territorial dispute influences the development of the territory itself depends on the will of the members of the community to carry on the conflict and the will of local administrations, or governments, to embrace and support such forms of mobilization. The present thesis aims at giving an interpretation of the various dispute-types, considering them useful occasions to define new stategies of local development and the management of the land. The community and the territory on which the dispute arises, are the main subjects of the research which tries to give a new meaning to dispute: the community expresses itself through its own ethnogeography (cultural conception of a territory), and claims its own territorial right by suggesting strategies of development. Two border situations have therefore been analyzed: the case of Tentizzos – Bosa and the case of the outskirts in the Nurra region. The study of such examples of disputes aims at pointing out the new projects on the territory and at giving answers to the needs of the territory and its people.

The “Street as Project of Public Space” problem is a “Right to the City” problem. It is, because of – paradoxically- it increasingly denies the Right of large part of urban population to move freely in the city and finally to “use”, to live freely the city. All individuals whom do not match the “ideal citizen” [adult-male-healthy-productive-wealthy-driver], they live in a hostile city. We could maybe “give back” public spaces to these urban populations [children, women, elderly, disabled, migrants, poor, pedestrians, cyborgs, and fyborgs, and so on]starting from here: understanding the importance of individuals’ diversities, make it a big challenge for the project. The research explore possibilities about how to do it in a incisive and positive way, analysing conventional and unconventional tools of project and design of public space and street: play, education, participation, self-building, urban inclusive communication, colour, ephemeral structures, micro-scale interventions, unforeseen reactions, time and times, commercial services, slowness, velocity, but overall the incredible diversity of “urban” bodies. The first part analyzes and criticises strategies and modern proposals about the street design; the second part explores the tools and possibilities of different way of design; the third part present some fieldwork projects made by TaMaLaCà group and spin-off, and finally some proposals for the Street as Project of Inclusive Public Space.

The assumption of the thesis is that the city and the territory be considered two inseparable realities. Placing ecological issues and city design side by side can have an important influence in developing planning forms that will take into account the physiology of the region, and pay significant attention to the dynamic aspects and ecological processes underway there. Starting with the debate on low-density settlement situations and referring in particular to lagoon areas as ecologically complex environmental and settlement spaces, the thesis focuses on the city in terms of a territorial space interpreted as an intricate autotrophic and heterotrophic ecosystem in continuous evolution. Attention is explicitly focused on some critical environmental spheres, namely the lagoon areas, urban systems that are sensitive to the changes occurring in the environment due to human activities carried out on a hydrographic basin scale. The context examined is the Oristano region in west-central Sardinia, especially the territorial areas of the Cabras and Santa Giusta lagoons, where one of the important issues is the management of the integrated water cycle, linked with agricultural and fishing problems, but above all with the future of the small urban realities and the quality of the spaces they own for fruition of the environment.

The research argues that the resilience concept can renders coastal cities capable of turning tsunami vulnerability into a window of opportunity to create better living environment and enhance urban resilience against tsunami. Three research objectives are set. The first objective is to describe the disaster resilience in terms of urban planning and find a way to put the theoretical resilience into practice. The second objective is to determine tsunami vulnerable characteristics of the coastal city based on a case study of Kochi City. Finally yet importantly, the third objective is to explore whether or not Kochi City is tsunami resilient in terms of spatial planning. Three core criteria are adapted to define the disaster resilience of cities: the robustness of physical infrastructure, institutional capabilities to self-organize and to bounce back from the disaster, and social learning capabilities to create suitable measures for spatial based risk management. Coping with the disaster depends on the competency and resilience of the social agent, and subsequently on the robustness of the physical infrastructure. The findings reveal the disaster risk awareness is present, as in written documents and unwritten commitments, both at national level and at community level. Nevertheless, the local spatial planning authorities have inadequate capability to exercise the norm in tsunami mitigation. The critical infrastructure such as schools is still located in a tsunami-prone area.

We present an online support system for urban maintenance which: 1. lets citizens directly report neighbourhood issues which may require attention from the urban maintenance services: 2. evaluates the priority of reported issues; 3. allows the allocation and management of resources and workforce on solving issues and 4. permits public tracking of their status. The web application was entirely developed using low-cost Google cloud services, with the advantage of low deployment and hosting costs and practically no systems administration costs, a highly replicable and transferrable solution, and a rapid development process relying on robust Google services. The model for evaluating priority of reported issues is based on the the ELECTRE TRI rating method. In the paper we present the system's standard workflow, the evaluation model and the implementation details. We also discuss its possible more general implications for fostering and supporting citizens participation. Unlike many existing platforms for citizens reporting of maintenance issues, our system incorporates an explicit and publicly accessible evaluation model to prioritise issues and assign resources for their solution. This, we argue, is a crucial prerequisite for the principles of transparency, publicity, accountability and equity be observed by municipal governments., Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, 2014: INPUT 2014 - Smart City: planning for energy, transportation and sustainability of the urban system

An emergence of the disaster resilience concept broadens the idea of urban risk management and, at the same time, enhances a theoretical aspect in a way in which we can develop our cities without making it more vulnerable to natural disasters. Nevertheless, this theoretical plausibility is hardly translated into a practical implication for urban planning, as the concept of resilience remain limited to some scholars’ debate. One of substantial factors that limit the understanding of people about disaster risk an resilience is a lack of risk awareness and risk preparedness, which can be solved by restructuring social learning process that enable a process of mutual learning between experts and the public. This study, therefore, focuses on providing insights into the difficulties of disaster risk communication we face, and how gaming simulation can be taken as a communication technique in enhancing social learning, which is regarded as a fundamental step of disaster risk management prior the mitigation process takes place. The study argues that the gaming simulation can facilitate planners in acquiring risk information from the community, conceiving the multitude of complex urban physical and socio-economic components, and conceptualizing innovative solutions to cope with disaster risks mutually with the public., Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, 2014: INPUT 2014 - Smart City: planning for energy, transportation and sustainability of the urban system

Walkability Explorer is a software tool for the evaluation of urban walkability which, we argue, is an important aspect of the quality of life in cities. Many conventional approaches to the assessment of quality of life measure the distribution, density and distances of different opportunities in space. But distance is not all there is. To reason in terms of urban capabilities of people we should also take into account the quality of pedestrian accessibility and of urban opportunities offered by the city. The software tool we present in this paper is an user-friendly implementation of such an evaluation approach to walkability. It includes several GIS and analysis features, and is interoperable with other standard GIS and data-analysis tools., Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, 2014: INPUT 2014 - Smart City: planning for energy, transportation and sustainability of the urban system

Facing a critical discussion on the issues related to the relationship between architecture and archeology involves the examination of several issues, under discussion and study. The problem of transformation of the territory on which insist existing historical arises when any project comes into contact with archeology and the difficulty increases exponentially with the increase of the possible points of contact, overlap and integration between seniority and the contemporary. In Sardinia, the widespread presence of historical remains imposes the need for a process of protection not limited to a local vision, focused solely to routine maintenance of the remains to preserve. The conservation entrusted to the presence and application of the constraints and to the current policies of protection appears ineffective and often results in protective enclosures, untouchable in theory and extremely fragile in practice. Impervious limits to life and to everything that happens externally, which exclude the pre-existence from a system to collective perception, necessary to the enjoyment of an archaeological site not only by “authorized personnel”, but also to those coming from "outside". The work aims to provide some guidelines for the valorization and the reuse of archaeological heritage, inquiring on possible ways of integration with the local and supra, through an exemplification of the method applied to the site of Neapolis (OR).

Public space has historically been a structuring element of the city, for its collective life, a space of democracy or an element of compensation of social and spacial inequalities. Yet, the recent debate shows a crisis in the design of public space for different reasons: deterritorialization, change in collective shapes and actors, lack of public resources. In the wake of the traditional criticism towards the modern, urbanism and architecture have shown how the practices of being together are nomadic and possible, and are not in need of a stable project or localization. Practices in use often clash with the project of a collective space: the former representing the needs of everyday life, the latter seen as a “normative project” of the public space resulting from a normative and governmental apparatus. The discussion above raises a substantial question: what happened to the project of public spaces? This study proposes an inquiry based on the “percolation of meanings”, outlining the genealogical traces of the role of public space based on its relationship with the concepts of environment and with the shape of the city, and adopting them as a key to re-build and revisit conceptual inertia and new interpretations of the role of public space project.

The main focus of the thesis is an important experience in the conquest of public space from the citizens. Using the construction and deconstruction of Can Batlló's appropriation process, we are able to define the critical elements through which the context was educated, making possible the public space appropriation, recognizing the result reasons, understanding the problems and difficulties we came across and facing the future risks of this conquest. The thesis is not a simple narration of a story, but it follows the key issues and problem development, till arrive at the final results of this experience. The dissertation will be useful and meaningful for the answering of general questions, but especially for a practical critic about the project role and its expert, about the relationship with the institutions and participation problems and limits, typical democracy problems. An important goal for everyone that doesn't believe in the possibility of urban regeneration without the inhabitants as main protagonist, and for everyone that believes in the professionals' full immersion in the social practice, seen as a tool for discover again a role and a function of the expert, especially of the architects.

Cities and space matter for social justice, for it is more and more determined by spatial injustices. The attention on the spatial context, I argue, is inevitable for promoting social justice in general, since it may represent an important source of inequalities. If we want to deal with (in)justices, it is necessary to define which policies should be put in place and which citizens they should to address. It is needed, above all, to try to understand how the urban context relates to the individuals, how it supports or limits their development. The capability approach provides an useful theoretical framework for analysing this relation and for evaluating Urban “QualityOfLife”, not only for the measurement’s sake, but potentially also as a tool for evaluating urban and territorial policies, in terms of their effectiveness in increasing the capability sets of people. In this work I propose a decision-aiding tool grounded on the capability approach for the assessment of the (in)justices in space, in terms of the distribution of “urban capabilities”, which are those determined by the relations between the individuals and the distinctively urban and territorial features and phenomena. The tool is devised as an aid for urban planners in order to orient urban development policies and to increase the urban opportunity set, by analysing "urban handicaps”, which are “missing freedoms" in terms of spatial, urban and territorial factors limiting people's capabilities.

There are many ways of imagining the future of the city. We can start with the growth of urbanisation, which envisages that in 2050 more than two-thirds of the world population will live in cities. And from there calculate the increase in the ecological footprint that urban life will determine, the increase in consumption of the land, and the possible rise in inequality and segregation. Or reflect on the new role of the city in globalisation and in the nation-state crisis. Or refer to the new lifestyles or homologation produced by globalisation. Or look at the city from the standpoint of the country, of territory being abandoned, its desertification and the loss of biodiversity. Or try to classify the many types of city and the semi-urban settlements irradiated by the city.

During the twentieth century, with the advent of industrial society and globalization, the language of planning changed according to the shifts in construction and use of physical space. By borrowing terms and spatial forms from biology and cybernetics, industrial society and globalization increased the original semantic connotations. Moving from cognitive sciences, this paper outlines the definition of architecture as connective-collective intelligence and presents its implication in urban design. Spontaneous and commercial initiatives are redefining the communication form of urban life, affecting the procedures of the transmission of traditional knowledge. This approach to building environment is moving towards a complex multichannel interaction, involving both the individual and the collective experiences of space and technology. In describing some signs of that process, the authors outline new features that are changing the concept of sustainability in urban design.

In this investigation we explore the concept of difference as city’s interpretational paradigm, in order to understand the changes of multicultural contexts. Difference is read as a moment of transition and change among points of view, in their mutual relation. We study ongoing dynamics in the relationship between public and private space, and especially in intermediate spaces generated by the simultaneous presence of differences. The presence of migrant communities that cohabit in the same place enhance the continuous regeneration of different space interpretations. The on-field investigation, brought on through the comparison among three different multicultural realities (Sassari, Dakar, Aubervilliers, in Paris outskirts), made the presence of mutable spaces emerge, being defined by unpredictable relationships. This way it is possible to identify dense places, special spaces of change, by following the traces of urban space appropriation forms. The on-field investigation has moreover emphasized the conflicting role, which expresses itself through the relationships built up among the present dualities. This study intends to reconsider the conflict as a necessary tool towards urban regeneration and production of new differences.

The research develops from the assumption that “the urban” can be identified and extended to encompass an entire territory. Considering the complexity which challenges the consolidated idea of city, what type of approach can we use to read, know and design the city and the contemporary territory? What meanings does the territory take on in the urban life? What new forms of cities are emerging? Urban contexts and their representation have changed considerably during the last decades. The contemporary city manifests itself in many forms and on various scales. Numerous large urban concentrations characterized by continuous transformation exist alongside small and medium-sized cities generated by processes of urban development marketing which have been applied in a similar manner in the majority of urban contexts. The latter are “marginal” territories, where low density is a common feature. These small and medium centres have gradually lost their urban qualities, and currently many of them are struggling for survival. The contemporary city that shows itself in unusual spatial configurations compared to the consolidated city, is due to the changes in settlement and the social, economic, cultural and landscape changes that have taken place and continue to take place on the territory. The need to seek new definitions, connected with a widening of the concept of inhabiting, to which corresponds an expansion in the use of territory, projects spatial images which require new interpretative categories at the border between different analytical and project-oriented disciplines. The aim of this research is to trace the relationship between natural resources and the potential evolution of future urban landscapes in urban territory. This means referring to “urban” as “social” and to examine closely the spatial dynamics of the contemporary city. The approach is based on the recognition of “settlement ecologies” as territorial contexts through which social and spatial organization gives meaning to space settlement. The research aims at destructuring the axial rigidity of the dichotomous system by picking out territory and urban, beginning from the identification of semantic relationships, in trying to rethink the discipline of urban planning through the irruption of the “landscape” as structural element of the city, checking contributions in terms of methodology.

The strong forces of transformation and change characterising our contemporary society, pose considerable challenges to control and stability that used to be two common features of the urban project. Traditional instruments used for describing and representing reality are no longer adequate for analysing an ever changing, complex world, rapidly aggregating, dissolving, and reassembling itself. This situation can be understood and analysed in the light of the functionalistic paradigm that influences and gives shape to methods of knowledge, analysis and planning traditionally used in urban contexts. This paradigm builds on an conception of reality organised according to a hierarchical and centralised order, steered by heavy and rigid codes, often interpreted as formal rules used as instruments in spatial projects. The approach appears to be inadequate for analysing and confronting contemporary realities in urban contexts in our contemporary world, that are characterised by less formality and increased flexibility. In this perspective, this thesis reflects on the possibilities of introducing approaches and methods that would include and integrate dynamics that are generally excluded from the urban project discourse. The research takes on an open and constructive approach to informal aspects and phenomena in urban contexts, and aims at exploring if and how some processes can become catalysts capable of enriching the conceptualising, prospecting and planning of urban space.

The thesis belongs to the concpetual foreground of territorial policies and planning practices for biodiversity conservation, focusing in the ecological network as a model useful in landscape planning. Ecological networks concept, attractive for its semplicity and intelligibility, leaves a real sense of imprecision and impracticability that motivate the need for a deep re-thinking of its foundamenal paradigms. This is the target of the research. The aim is to define a new GIS framework for planning capable to integrate in the latest advances in the theoretical landscape ecology, for a refinement of ecological network model towards a best integration in planning. Categorical representation of landscapes has heavily influenced the dominant paradigm (patch-matrix model) recognized meaningful in describing ecologicl processes. The inadequacy of this paradimg is the foundamental hypothesis of this research. The recognition of a complex system of hidden assumptions is demonstrated to be the real cause of failure for the ecologcal network concept and model for landscape planning. Furthermore a new theoretical development in landscape ecology (the landscape gradient model) was recognized as the new potential tool to redraw a unexplored relational domain between planning and ecology based on a process-based point of view. Thanks to recent development in GIS techniques a methodological proposal, aiming to demonstrate the skills of this new approach in facing planning problems, is presented.

Urban sustainability is a key issue in our world. The aim of the thesis is to decline this issue in relation to tourist-historic cities, analyzing the impacts of tourism on urban sustainability and defining a set of indicators for sustainability evaluation and monitoring in these cities. The thesis proposes a new classification of tourism impacts in this context identifying three basic ambits, direct tourism impacts, Public Administration Activities impacts and Carrying Capacity impacts, and two city categories, differentiated and undifferentiated cities depending on urban structure and tourism spatial organization. Indicators are used both to classify cities and to identify unsustainable dynamics. The main aspects of direct tourism impact are also aggregate in a tourism unsustainability index, which measures the aggressiveness of tourism towards historic city, according to the previous considerations. Once identified problems, the thesis suggests some possible policies to cope with unsustainable dynamics. In order to validate this new evaluation methodology, indicators are applied to a specific city, Alghero, to classify the city, calculate tourism unsustainability index, identify negative dynamics and suggest possible policies to Local Administration.

Policies are territorial, the population, probably, today no more. The changed mobility paradigms allows, in fact, the same person to participate to the life of different territories, not necessarily in spatial contiguity, in ways and times absolutely variables between individual. We can assert that almost life is global and pushed towards individuality while the direct and effective planning is local and collective. Therefore inhabitants in their collective dimension, have to continue to be the planning center, however, we cannot take in account that there's not just one resident population and exists, especially in touristic territory, transient population, consistent by quantitative and qualitative characters, that we cannot ignore for the territorial politics implementation. The thesis central concept is that the relationship between touristic populations and places are the sames for residents too. The aim is to demonstrate that residents and tourists are not different populations but just different ways to be inhabitants of one place. To be inhabitants is a fuzzy variable, the thesis try to build a method to recognize this value for each population. Policies can be builted around the inhabitants sets, not just around residents. The last thesis part search to drawn two decision support tools: a Touristic Obsevatory and a multiagent based system to modeling the destination choice.

The purpose of the study is to define a new touristic form, especially oriented towards a social tourism. Today tourism appears more and more subjective and fragmented, object of different desires created by the differentiation of the offer, and it looks like others different aspects like spectacle and simulation, driving towards two consequences: artificial events created only to attract tourists and touristic enclaves. Tourist planning itself often ends up favouring, even if unintentionally, such degenerative phenomena, promoting processes of de-territorialisation. Places which succeed in becoming tourist domains thus present themselves as a function of their own image. Mass tourism drives to the necessity to propose in many and different ways urban lifestyles, with all the importance of its services but also with all mass anxieties. The first consequence of considering this tourism way of life is that landscape, ambient and culture of the host territories have seen banally, taking advantage of their resources, with the creation of artificial forms, both in the culture and in urbanisation. The goal of the study is to perceive the principle of “relation” between hosts and guests, like a vulnerability point, through which build a new form of tourism. Relation permits to share the tourist experience and the nature of real life of the hosts for the tourists. The way to increase this possibility of creating a relation is an implementation of social tourism, based in the contemporary existence on a tourist settlement and on services for the territory and, first of all, for local societies, that can be correlated with urban services, health etc, in which relation can develop, thanks to the possibility to understand real life of the hosts.

The purpose of the thesis is to determine an “activation gradient” able to develop the generative energy of a process of participated planning in conditions of indeterminateness. The research is based on a critical re-reading of four personal experiences and an intuition: the margin of energy, i.e. the funding element of participated processes, may express itself at its best along specific trajectories. The ex post analysis of those experiences evidences that the “institutionalisation” of the process drained off their generative energy. Involvement and sharing produced compromises that alienated the project from its authors, whilst its institutionalisation made participation red tape. Which the reasons of this ineffectiveness? This is a Khunian “anomaly”, unexplainable through existing theories: it requires a new paradigm. This anomaly brings in indeterminateness as the “planning engine” that stimulates innovation and involvement, favouring the activation of self-regenerating free spaces and processes. The “activation gradient” was then introduced to measure the paths of creative energy within an interactive process. The indeterminateness of the project, preventing an excess of compromises, avoids civic alienation whilst keeping alive participation through a longer dialectic process. Keeping margins means the continuity of involvement even when facing red tape paths, through the use of self-organisational practises giving life to structural subjects as “embryos of civitas”.

The aim of the research is to propose a model for evaluating the effects of territorial public policies on the increase of urban quality of life, starting from a critical analysis of operative tools currently utilized and with reference to the theories elaborated by Amartya Sen and others concerning the relation between the improvement (intended as increase of the quality of life) and the expansion process of freedoms and individual capabilities (capability approach). Capabilities are defined (Sen A., 1985) as that which each individual is able to be or make, in case he had the opportunity; capabilities differentiate from functionings that are states or things that individuals usually earn or make. Aim of the research is also to investigate the present condition and possible role of denizenship (Hammar T., 1990) with reference to the processes of elaboration, management, and evaluation of re-qualification policies and plans, and to analyse the existing relationship among the phenomenon of the citizenship enlargement (Friedmann J., 2004), the processes of population involvement in managing city transformations, and the quality of life level. The proposed model is developed in details for evaluating the effects of territorial public policies on the urban quality of life of children.

The urban sprawl in the agrarian territories of Sassari started more than twenty years ago, even if the urban development is disciplined by urban planning. In the essay we read the evolution of land use and land government, according to the plans at different scales; furthermore, a diachronic analysis of land use transformations is done, to underline the trends toward a sort of urban “dispersion” or “diffusion” (Indovina 1990), both residential and commercial. Such urban phenomenon is articulated in different areas, characterized by different ways of interaction between residential (or commercial) and (residual and marginal) agrarian land uses. This forms of interaction oscillate between two conditions: one is a sort of “olive trees and residential landscape”, a unicum of interaction between the trees matrix and the settlement. This landscape – in which the relationship with the environmental structure of the territory (the valleys system, Monte Bianchinu, Monte Oro) is privileged– is opposed to the settlements superimposed to the historical agricultural matrix (Li Punti, Predda Niedda), which dim it and determine non-structured hybrid edges. Between these situations, intermediate forms of interaction can be recognized; these need planning rules ad hoc, that choose the most suitable “devices” to govern the urban phenomena and to maintain the original landscape matrix.

Il paesaggio degli oliveti che caratterizza il territorio di corona della città compatta di Sassari è l’occasione per una riflessione sia sulla scomposizione di antiche dicotomie tra città e campagna, sia sulle prospettive che si aprono al futuro territoriale della città. Anche a partire dalle radici ambientali della città che a Sassari sono ben visibili. La città murata si attesta sulle valli, in particolare sulla congiunzione tra il Fosso della Noce e l’Eba Giara, richiamandone oggi una funzione orientata sulle attività dello svago e del tempo libero. La stessa valle dell’Eba Giara rappresenta un elemento di continuità su cui possono ritrovarsi le prospettive di riqualificazione delle aree periferiche settentrionali della città. Le valli come penetrazione del territorio esterno all’interno della città richiamano il legame storico tra città e campagna. La corona olivetata del territorio di Sassari comprende tuttavia le situazioni ibride, che sono proprie dei processi di periurbanizzazione. Gli spazi rururbani, che non sono né campagna né città, hanno problemi che non hanno la stessa soluzione dappertutto. Il tema centrale è il progetto di queste aree di bordo: paesaggio ed ecologia tra città e campagna. A dispetto della loro apparenza queste periferie rururbane rappresentano un complesso di situazioni variegato e complesso che si offre al progetto come un sistema di possibilità, come se in ogni debolezza vi sia latente un campo di potenzialità.

This research can be attributed to the studies about complex and weakly structured networks of knowledge and aquaintance that prosper and improve inside complex organizations and that constitute the place where decisional processes determine the design and consequent modification of the physical space. Is it possible to grasp those networks in order to act in a projectual way onto those phenomena that contribute to modify forms and meanings of urbanity considered as complex combination of material components (buildings and physical infrastructures, briefly the urbs) and intagible components (human and relational capital, briefly the civitas)? What kind of technique is more eligible to help planners in that hard task? Urban Gaming/Simulation, is a simulation technique that develops models of complex adaptive systems involving non artificial agents in collaborative environments. Although it is affected by several limitation, it can be considered one of the best communication and interaction technique useful to explore that kind of question. In the last decade the science of complex networks, with its new theories and models, reframed the way wee see the entire world giving scientific explanations to those sociological phenomena that spread into social networks. This research try to aswer the previous questions finding a way to improve Urban Gaming/Simulation as a design tool defining reasons and manners of implemetation of theories and models of the science of complex networks.

Questa relazione prende in esame inizialmente alcuni temi e questioni intorno al metodo operativo dell'attività di pianificazione del Parco del Gennargentu; successivamente tenterà di esplorare alcune suggestioni sull'idea di parco discusse nel corso dei seminari fin qui svolti dal gruppo di pianificazione della Provincia di Nuoro. I temi e le questioni riguardano: la definizione di parco; le condizioni formali di avvio dell'attività; l'impostazione culturale del Piano del parco; lo stato della pianificazione nell'area; le costanti culturali di questo territorio e infine i problemi legati al contesto reale del piano. Tra le suggestioni che sono emerse finora dall'attività di pianificazione vengono qui brevemente illustrate quelle relative al campo di relazioni fra le dimensioni locali e "sovralocali" del parco.

Con questo lavoro si mira a fornire un ulteriore contributo alla risoluzione dei problemi di pianificazione aziendale in una situazione di breve e medio periodo; contributo la cui utilità specifica è data, per un verso, dal riferimento ad un contesto territoriale - quello sardo - non ancora oggetto di analisi di questo tipo, e, per l'altro, dalle indicazioni generalizzabili sulla validità del metodo di analisi utilizzato che si possono trarre, al di là dei risultati particolari. Tale obiettivo viene perseguito attraverso l'applicazione ad un'azienda della Sardegna settentrionale del modello di PL, sia confrontando il piano ottimale con quello reale, sia analizzando l'«intorno» della soluzione ottlmale ottenuta, sia applicando al modello le tecniche di parametrizzazione dei più importanti elementi in gioco, in modo da costruire un quadro di riferimento dinamico per le scelte di breve e medio periodo, estrapolablle in un ambito determinato, esterno all'azienda considerata.

City, territory, architecture. Three words to supersede a dichotomy: between city and architecture, city and territory, and also architecture and territory. If considered two at a time, these words tend to emphasise their diversity more than their complementarity, as they are also positioned at each end of a range of states of affairs (things). The choice of a title with three words is also a critical reflection as regards antonymous concepts that today have invaded the debate on human settlement. We are thinking, for example, of city and environment or, more in general, nature and artifice. The sequence in which the three words of the title are pronounced is dictated neither by scale nor by a hierarchy, hence the second word, territory, does not follow on but is inserted, as an element common to the others, like a system of relations, an intermediate space, that presses for a reciprocal transformation of the worlds of meaning the three words evoke.