Archaeology and nature: hyblean cultural landscape and territorial ...

To safeguard fertile, dynamic and active creativity, it is therefore determining to use that part of the operating
memory that may access and critically elaborate the sensitive, perceptive and emotive factors linked to the
topos and previous experiences, to enrich the resources of the imaginary, abundant in signs at times merely
functional, at others prevalently poetic or utopian [2], which are translated, after a logic-evolutive pathway
into structured and coded project signs.
All the stages of design-concept thinking are characterized by alternating phases of releasing creative
energy, of comparison and rational verification and of production and reception of impulses and stimuli in the
sensorial parts of the brain. These are processes of design-concept acceleration, which beginning from the
recognition of the actual configurative state of the site and existing structures, interpreted through specific
orographic, territorial and cultural values, set off a continuous development of reasoning and possible
prefiguring, congruent with the givens of the problem, with the expectations of the system of the asset, with
the updated technological progress and with the contents of the apparatus of already experienced and thus
acquired knowledge.
This apparatus of signs cannot but be proactive and strongly determining in defining the lines of force that
must guide the entire procedure of an ideational thought that, with a deep sense of respect for the identity
characteristics of the place, feels responsibility to produce designs of composite morphologies that are not
only fitting to the geographic whole of the topos, but that can also positively affect the environmental quality
of sustainable ecosystems.
With this responsibility, the morphological complexities of the project interventions represent a magical
moment and a crucial workbench in which the process of manifesting the articulated systemic coherence of
ideas is put to the test.
Ideas that, from the action of the first manifesting as impulse of elaborating sensitive and perceptive factors,
to the fulfillment of a logical-evolutionary procedure that may clarify all the parameters of reference, remain
closely connected to the concepts of freedom and complexity.
All this leads to a profound consideration on the choice of procedures that have a fundamental and not
simply instrumental role, in the expression of the design-conception process in all its stages.
Suffice it to think, for instance, of the architectonic creations by Zaha Hadid who, with regard to the
importance of the choice of suitable tools to shape the idea, states: “From the start, I thought of architecture
in a different form. I knew what I wanted to make and what I wanted to design, but could not make it in the
conventional way, because with the traditional methods I didn’t manage to represent it. The traditional tools
of representation were of little aid. Thus, I began to search for a new way to design, in order to try to see
things from a different point of view. Then, with time, those designs, those perspectives and those paintings
have been transformed into my true instruments of representation”. [3]
So design creation defined by strongly characterizing signs, or by apparent morphologic epidermic simplicity,
combined with the complexity of inner lines of force, compel serious reflection on the innovative
methodologies of representation of the product of architecture at the service of the primeval idea.
Fig. 3: Strength lines drawn by the topos. Zaha Hadid, One North Masterplan, Singapore, 2001-2021.
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