Place identity and PlaceMaker: planning the urban sustainability

The questions connected to the urban analysis, which study aspects that are not univocally translatable into objective facts, regard in particular three appearances: the scientificity, and so the objectivity of the results and the repeatability of the method in different contexts; the updating capability, and so the possibility to add new data, to modify the existing ones and to obtain other results; and the times, and so the sustainable possibility of using the results respecting the evolution of a sustainable programming and town planning process. To answer to those questions the method of analysis PlaceMaker and the relative software, actually under development, have the following main characteristics: flexibility, facility and rapidity of use, strong graphical impact, and indexing of the results. PlaceMaker is a method for analyzing the contemporary urban landscape designed to identify the elements that do not feature in traditional mapping and that constitute the contemporary identity of the places, representing them in a complex map that renders those places intelligible. Starting from those premises, the aim of this work, carried out in the framework of a Convention between Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and Dipartimento di Progettazione Urbana e di Urbanistica--Universith di Napoli Federico II, is that of illustrating the method of analysis of PlaceMaker and investigating on the construction of complex indices starting from data and symbols related to the place identity. In order to support the study and the project of the sustainable urban landscapes, the symbols created for the elaboration of the complex map, final result of the analysis, are translated by the PlaceMaker software into numerical indices. Thanks to those characteristics, the prime users of PlaceMaker are the following: urban planners, administrators, citizen, and all people involved in the sustainable city construction. To complete the work, suitable case studies are presented. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9488(2010) 136:2(139) CE Database subject headings: Urban development; Sustainable development; Computer software.