Toolkit design methodology / Architectural project by use of classification and taxonomies

Author: Giuseppe Resta
Affiliation:  University Roma Tre and Polytechnic University of Bari

Abstract
The paper is focused on a methodology carried out to approach landscape and urban design, on the base of a codified process, during an international design workshop that took place in Shkodra. The fragment comprises the mouth of the Buna River, ranging from the Albanian part of the delta to the western side of the marsh. The even landscape changes drastically every year, and often more than once, in a waterbed with houses and stables apparently floating on it. Moreover, informality along the street and the coast spread unfinished buildings, reducing the draining capacity of the area and putting in danger those who decided to move there. Here we suggest a methodology built on a system of localized interventions. As Jan Neutelings pointed out, we need to find new metaphors to read those diffused cities that do not establish a recognizable relationship between the inside and outside, figure and ground, city and countryside, as they provide green spots, which contain built spots too. His metaphor of the patchwork, deflated the idea of a comprehensive large-scale design conducted by an isolated agent. We should not forget that Albania admitted the rules of the free market only during the 90s, at a mature stage of the European liberalism, causing an explosive run from state-owned lands to fragmented private properties. Then the main issue is the distance between the author (of the plan) and the user, and the way the latter can bend and transform certain rules according to his needs. The proposed design is a soft landscape infrastructure that analyzes the overlapping artificial and natural pattern striving to enhance the natural diversity of the area, though addressing natural and human threats. The overall process is intended as an architectural toolkit that gathers three steps up to the final strategy: the formation of an analytical tableau; the visualization of a new geography; the definition of the architectural toolkit.