The City as a Network: Configurational Properties and Patterns of Growth of the Peri-Urban Landscape: a Theoretical Tool through Space Syntax and Landscape Urbanism

This research assumes as a specific topic of analysis the peri-urban landscape, an environment manifesting many contradictions among the traditional forms of cities, their actual patterns, and the permanence of a rural ambient. Current theories on sustainability propose the definition of a limit to the urban growth. It seems like the hypothesis of sustainability explicates itself through the postulate of the “compact city”, with strategies of densification, infilling, or re-compactation of the urban margins. Opposite to this, a sustainable approach to urban design consider the indeterminacy in terms of urban growth , the evolutionary patterns, and the predominance of open spaces of the peri-urban landscape. This research wishes to develop a theoretical approach to the project of the peri-urban landscape, defined, first of all, with a critical literature review approach through the idea of “network”. The question this research wishes to answer is: what conceptual categories and operational tools can be applied to the design of the peri-urban landscape, considering that cities develop different patterns of growth depending on the specific social and economic factors? The review defines the characteristics of a project in the peri-urban as evolutionary, progressive, and based on a network of interconnections and open spaces. One limitation this thesis is trying to address is the lack of a method accounting for the complexity of the city and its relationship to the wider territory. Envisioning scenarios of development for urban margins requires a focused understanding and description of the existing patterns at the macro-scale. Therefore, it could be proposed an analytical and a combined analytical-design model forward, based on the concept of networks. This is developed through the detailed study of a theory for the analysis named Space Syntax, and the exploration of the possible conceptual and operational relationships with typical approach of the Landscape Urbanism.