Approach for conservation and integrated transformation between tradition and innovation. The Sassi of Matera

The Sassi are an ancient civilization, which immerse its roots into the knowledge of places and traditions. They are the third oldest urban build up area in the world, made up of terraces, alleys and houses that emerge from the rock, between the rocky slopes of the canyon. A place where the rules are overturned; a complex system of overlapping floors, in a continuous multiplication of points of view, irrational and crowded. The urban recovery project, designed for such a characteristic place, has to deal with every type present, the context must be studied, analysed and understood. The main objective of the research activity is to define an approach methodology known as "integrated conservation", focusing attention on what we now call "controlled modification", to safeguard and enhance this heritage, to make it usable by adapting it to the contemporary needs, towards a design methodology that combines sensitivity and respect for history with the possible enhancement of such assets with fragile balances. Recovery intervention is defined as an integrated process of knowledge and must be elaborated on the basis of a specific technical-scientific knowledge of the elements characterizing this context. The intervention is elaborated on the analysis of the value that these have to relate to the potentialities that they develop for the satisfaction of functional, performance and fruitive needs expressed by the user. In order to regulate and fix right to the current violent and incongruous speculation of the touristic/receptive transformation interventions in the city of the Sassi, it is necessary that the recovery project must mediate between the design choices, the functions and the materials of each single part of the city. The validation of this approach is being tested on a sensitive part of the city of the Sassi (Matera), located at the feet of the Cathedral, inside the Sasso Barisano. It is therefore necessary a methodology of approach to the project based on the analysis of needs and performances that allows to analyse the levels of degradation, obsolescence or inadequacy of the existing context by guiding the technical intervention: a complete diagnosis that allows to identify the performance, the existing constraints and the framework of new requirements, to define the requirements, priorities and objectives of the project. From a cultural point of view, the challenge is to combine the correct technical and high performance choices typical of recent technologies, with the need to safeguard and enhance the specific historical and architectural features of the existing part; the priority of the project is to pass on the building heritage secured, preserving its identity and its intrinsic historical value.