Narration and digital mediation of the landscape project towards a co-evolutionary palimpsest

This research is situated at the intersection of landscape architecture, territorial planning, and cultural heritage enhancement. Investigating the critical challenge of increasing fragmentation across contemporary landscapes and widespread heritage systems, it explores the potential of digital humanities and geospatial technologies to transcend the limits of traditional physical interventions, establishing new dimensions of spatial, perceptual, and cultural continuity. The primary objective is to define an operative methodology capable of transforming geolocated digital data into active design components that foster a dynamic, co-evolutionary territorial palimpsest. Within this framework, the study proposes a planning paradigm grounded in physical-digital convergence, seamlessly integrating the material reality of the landscape with digital informational and narrative layers to broaden territorial interpretation, public engagement, and transformative capacity. The investigation develops along two main trajectories. The first addresses the shift from static cartographic representation to dynamic spatial and heritage narration. Geospatial information systems, multidimensional modeling, geolocated auditory media, and geofencing systems operate as design instruments conveying the complex entanglements of space, time, collective memory, and human perception. In this context, the Complex Landscape Narrative Translation matrix developed within the ATTRACT project framework is articulated as both an operational and theoretical model for multilevel spatial narration. The second trajectory establishes an empirical-to-parametric framework. Structured across theoretical, analytical, and field-tested phases, the methodology evaluates how localized digital interventions re-establish cognitive and spatial continuity, closely aligning narrative layers with underlying geomorphological, historical, and infrastructural fabrics. Particular focus is directed towards geolocated auditory media as non-invasive spatial tools that reconcile digital immersion with physical presence, mitigating perceptual detachment. Empirical validation is grounded in two emblematic heritage landscape systems within the Lazio region: the historically continuous corridor of the Via Appia Antica and the heavily fragmented corridor of the Aniene Valley. Drawing on extensive in-situ spatial surveys, continuous pedestrian tracking, and behavioral analyses, the work demonstrates how narrative depth, territorial accessibility, and digital mediation can be effectively coordinated. Ultimately, this book offers a resilient paradigm for landscape design and cultural heritage, reinterpreting digital technologies not as mere post-design representations, but as active generative agents that construct shared spatial experiences and redefine the landscape as a continuously adapting, co-evolutionary palimpsest.