The architectural design in time of crisis. A research of "roots" to support the development

Abstract

Vitruvius wrote the first treatise of Architecture and in it we find the fundamental recommendations for a good design. In the past 50 years it seems, instead, that each of these directions had been lost and there is today the need of promoting a new design paradigm that is attentive to nowadays criticalities and directed to sustainable development. The term sustainability starts to configure the quality of human actions since the 80’s following reflections on the resources limit (raw materials and fossil fuels) and the environment capacity limit of absorbing emissions and waste. The concept of sustainable development was elaborated in 1987 in the Brundtland report according to the need of distinguishing it from the concept of growth, that is to say with the goal of tending simultaneously toward the quality verification of programs in the environmental, social and economic dimensions. All that invited the whole society to reconsider its "lifestyle" that, in the specific field of architecture, meant finding a new design approach geared to a lower consumption and greater caution and responsibility in the choices. The configuration of a new design paradigm can trace their roots in the study of history and can proceed to evaluate the actions in a broad context of skills to ensure the quality of the products.