A French word that stands for all the natural factors which characterize a site, such as soil (composition, pH, permeability, depth), subsoil, climate and microclimate, exposure to the sun, rainfall, wind, altitude, slope, and vegetation.
Published in Chapter:
The Power of Monsanto's Stone: Contribution to the Study of the Sustainable Adaptative Strategies
José Manuel Afonso (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
Copyright: © 2018
|Pages: 31
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-4186-8.ch006
Abstract
There is no point in rushing because, in fact, people are going nowhere in particular. No matter how arduous the observation, in a slow and difficult sequence, people are always in the same place: in the countryside. There, people were yesterday and will be tomorrow. The landscape is a singularity with no limits: each tree, each granite boulder, each course presents infinite perspectives indistinguishable from each other. Sustainable landscape will be a mandatory topic in the twenty-first century and will influence the interventions in open spaces. These new paradigms will allow a healthier environment, where the relation of architecture and environmental comfort is present. In this sense, the chapter addresses aspects of the environment in its relationship with living culture; studies construction techniques with a lower environmental impact; and develops adaptative strategies of “sustainable project” for ordering and appropriation of habitable space according to the principles of cultural, economic, and environmental preservation.