Knowledge and Urban Space: Learning from Stones

Cities, as we actually know them, are made with stones and bricks, variously arranged to shape the buildings and to let people move around them. The form and the disposal of the buildings are obviously designed in order to obtain an architectural effect and an urban layout. That is what cities are made of. But cities are also something different: they are systems of activities, linked by mutual interactions, so as to form networks of invisible wires in the open spaces defined by the buildings. And also that is what cities are made of, even if we don’t perceive it, nor design or construct. In order to bridge the gap between the two patterns, we are focusing on the common ground they share, where the stone city and the human city actually meet and match: the urban space. As the main tool for analysing it in order to extract hidden knowledge elements, we have assumed the configurational approach. After a brief sketch of the method, centred on its more innovative and promising aspects, these researches are aimed at validating the existing techniques in order to verify their actual reliability as an analysis and decision mak- ing support tool.