Architectural strategies and solutions | COURTYARD HOUSES
VERNACULAR CASE STUDY
#V2
CASALI, COURTYARD URBAN BLOCKS
ENVIRONMENTAL PRINCIPLES
PROCIDA ISLAND, ITALY
to respect environmental context and landscape to benefit of natural and climatic resources to reduce pollution and waste materials to ensure human indoor comfort to mitigate the effects of natural hazards
SOCIO-CULTURAL PRINCIPLES
author Adelina Picone
to protect the cultural landscape to transfer construction cultures to enhance innovative and creative solutions to recognise intangible values to encourage social cohesion
SOCIO-ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES to support autonomy to promote local activities to extend building's lifetime to save resources
Casali are a traditional architectural typology located in Procida island. The dwellings are organized in many residential units, built up on various levels and grouped together around a courtyard. The set of buildings constitute great urban blocks where the courtyard is the space devoted to relationships and to the family’s public life. The houses facing the sea side are often oriented toward the panorama, with the courtyard transformed into a terrace, or panoramic loggia. Casali are born as an urban block following a unitary project, not as the result of a stratification process occurred over time. Among the Casali of the Island it is worth mentioning Casale Vascello, located on the Terra Murata citadel, one of the original nucleus of Procida’s urban history, settled with a defensive aim, where houses have been fortified in order to defend the inhabitants from the Arabic raids. Casale Vascello is a wide courtyard urban block, where three-floor row houses, surrounding a rectangular courtyard, manage to configure a sort of microcosmos, closed toward the external urban tissue and very compact both from the point of view of form and from the typology. The entrance and stairs of each house are located in the courtyard, characterized by volumes and building modalities, features and materials based on a buttress arch and cloister-vaults. (G. Cosenza, 1993). Another atypical aspect that is remarkable in this casale is represented by the high density obtained through the house’s height, which makes it an interesting example to study for projects focused on new residential strategies in the field of the contemporary Mediterranean house.
• Plan of the courtyard block (credits: Cosenza et al., 2007).
• Views of the residential units grouped aound the courtyard (photos: A.Picone).
to optimise construction efforts
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