H2O_SCAPES. Agro Urbe Natura

“H2O_Scapes: Agro Urbe Natura” is the first volume of the publishing series ENABLE, outcome of the European research - Embedding collaborative platform for upskilling and networking towards sustainable cities’ - Programme Erasmus+ KA203 (Strategic Partnership for Higher education). Partners: - Faculty of Architecture and Design - UACS University American College in Skopje (Resp. UR. Maksim Naumovski); - Technische Universita et di Vienna - Skopie, Prilep (Resp. UR. Magdalena Maierhofer); - Department Architecture and Territory, dArTe - Mediterranea University Reggio Calabria (Resp. UR. Marina Tornatora). The field of investigation of the research are the marginal geographies of the planet, crossroads of anthropological, productive, landscape and cultural diversities and complexities, questioning the interdisciplinary themes and processes of transformation in an attempt to identify possible theoretical and operational trajectories that consider the project as a cultural moment of relationship between man, environment and place. The case study of the research is the territory of Prilep, a city in North Macedonia. The first volume presents the results of the work of the Reggio Calabria Research Unit, which investigated water landscapes through a general reconnaissance and the application of methods and strategies to the chosen case study, where a project experimentation was developed. A watercourse represents a body in the natural and urban landscape. It has a changing shape, which through the banks and edges, has continuous modifications, due to the currents, the fluidity and the soil that it bathes, crosses, invades and shapes. It can be taken as a strategic trajectory in the contemporary architectural debate on the city. On these reflections the ENABLE research is developed, connected to the design experimentation that investigates the symbolic, urban and environmental role of river courses in urban regeneration strategies, trying to develop a working methodology and to codify an atlas of possible design actions. The research identifies the landscape as the field of the project, proposing the idea of a horizontal city as a system of places in which the value of the landscape-territory is intertwined with that of collective use, places in which the characteristics of Agro Urbe Natura coexist.