Spontaneous Architecture and Construction. Typological Analysis of Vernacular Buildings from Italy to Morocco

At a time when environmental awareness and the need to preserve our planet are at the centre of global debates, it is crucial to explore innovative approaches that can combine our social and economic growth with respect for the environment. Often, when talking about sustainability in construction, we turn to advanced technologies and cutting-edge solutions, sometimes forgetting that the answer may lie in our culture and history. Vernacular architecture, with its deep roots in local traditions and intelligent adaptation to the surrounding environment, offers us a good example in this context, as it was born as a direct response to people's needs and perfectly combines the needs of a community with the available environmental resources. The following work, a synthesis of an international research project that is still in progress, aims to analyse, from a typological-functional point of view, two rural architectural typologies in comparison: the eighteenth-century Tuscan rural farmhouse and the typical Moroccan rural dwelling known as the douar. The main goal is to highlight how two realities, although geographically distant, shared the vision of integrating the building with the environment and the needs of the community and how, even today, these buildings, which have remained intact over time, continue to fulfil their function perfectly, projected into the future.