Restoring Reason, Beauty, and Trust in Architecture, Part 19: The Islamic Garden

Episode Topic: The Islamic Garden

Attilio Petruccioli, Professor Emeritus at the University of Rome, La Sapienza, explores the profound connections between architecture, nature, and landscape in the context of the Islamic garden. Drawing from his extensive research in Islamic architecture and landscape design, he examines the symbolic and structural elements that define these gardens, from their origins in historical sites like Samarra and Granada to their influence on European design. Uncover the Islamic garden’s role not only as an aesthetic expression but as a reflection of environmental philosophy, urban development, and cultural identity across time and geography.

Featured Speakers:

• Attilio Petruccioli, University of Rome

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Transcript

Introduction and Welcome

1 0:06

Welcome. Good evening. Good evening. It is a great honor and privilege to introduce today's speaker, professor Lio Petro, a distinguished scholar whose contributions to architecture, landscape, and urban studies has profoundly shaped the field. Professor Pet's academic career spans decades and continence living a lasting impact on both scholarship and practice. From 1994 to 1998, he served as the Han Professor of design for Islamic Societies, the MIT, where he also directed the Han program for Islamic Architecture, a leading center for the study of Islamic urbanism and architectural heritage. He later extended his influence to Harvard University, further, further deepening the academic dialogue on architecture and cultural landscapes. In 1998, he returned to Italy where he became Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Barry, a role that he held until the 2004. During his tenure, he worked to transform by design a small academic institution in southern Italy into one of the leading international research centers for the study of traditional urban environments and the integration of modern information technologies into physical restoration and social revitalization. His dedication to advancing architectural research has resulted in an in an extensive value work. He has authored and edited more than 32 books covering topics such as architectural design, the history of Islamic architecture, and the methodology of design, including less landscaping, contextual design, typological research, and work on modern architects. His research interests extend from traditional settlements and housing to Islamic architecture, urban and territorial studies, Mediterranean landscape architecture. Professor, pastor has also played a significant role in architectural research beyond Europe. In 2012 and 2013, he held the mhe, I pronounce it wrong, probably, sorry. property chair, a Qatar University contributing to studies on urban regeneration and sustainable sustainable development in the Gulf region is working Middle Eastern and Mediterranean architecture has provided crucial insight into the interplay between heritage conservation and contemporary urbanism beyond academia. He is also founded the bi Orientalists and Islamic Environmental Design Research Research Center in tranny, Italy. Institution that continue to serve as valuable resources for scholars worldwide is pioneering research and dedication to education has made him a cornerstone in the fields of Islamic and Mediterranean architecture. On a personal note, I had the privilege of studying under Professor Pet in B, where he was my thesis professor. His work in teaching play a fundamental role in shaping my passion for architecture and architectural research. And I hold much of my academic and professional growth growth to his guidance and his inspiration. His ability to bridge rigorous scholarship with unwavering enthusiams for discovery is something that continues to resonate with me. It is with great admiration and gratitude that I, that I welcome a Professor Lio pet.

The Role of History in Urban Planning

Typological Process in Architecture

Analyzing Urban Fabric and Settlement Patterns

Behavior of Aggregation in Urban Fabrics

Archeology Without Excavation: Reading Urban Signs

Student Projects: Learning from Historical Contexts

Speaker 2 3:41

Well, uh, I, I have to thank, many persons. For this event and this invitation, first of all, the Dean of the School of Architecture, or not Dame University. And then my good friend, Julius Caesar, Paris Hernandez, for proposing this, this invitation. And, uh, my former nice student GI mat for this, uh, long, uh, very probably exaggerated, uh, introduction. Thank you to all of you, including the other friends that, uh, of the school that are attending this, uh, this, uh, conference. I have to say that I feel a bit emotion, but, I also think that to say that this evening, I feel, uh, like part of a family, it is not a formality. Uh, we are, uh. An epi minority of architects that believe in a different idea of architectural design. we, and now when I say we attend the, Western society in general, we are facing a, a very deep crisis. we live, in a, in a sort of eternal present. And, uh, we are, uh, not capable of designing the future. We, the, these western society of the architects are similar to the Isaiah Berlin Fox that teachers disperse the, and occasional forms of knowledge lost in the flow of information. The fox thought is controlled by k Chronos. Chronos is the time that divorce and consumes. The contrary, the edge hoc represents the organic world where everything is brought back to an, an ordering principle. It lives in Kyles the time that has ma memory. We, I, I would like to, to say that I, I want to, to feel, I feel very close to the idea of being a sort of, or trying to be a sort of edge mark. the, uh, the title, the, the first part of the title of my, of my conference is called Embrace of History because I believe that the study of the, of the past history with its, concreteness of the facts is the ball work. Against the, the loss of the sense of the space in which we op, we operate now, and the loss of understanding of the time, but which history, uh, not the history of the postmodern are, are architects that consider history as sort of cabinet full of images that they can, uh, sort at their will. But, uh, the process of the history that as a Norwegian, uh, an evolution and arrived up to us in the moment in which we operate, it's, uh, exactly what I said, that the time, that has memory. I also think that the history, is operative for the architects. We are not, uh, journalists, we are not historian. we are not, geographers. Those people describe the reality, but we as architects, we are entitled to transform the reality. The reality. Therefore, this, the history, if, doesn't teach us how to make design is useless. Well, I think that, uh, now we can, uh, uh, start with the slides and the image and we comment and I will try to explain my thinking. I will try to explain why I feel your school very close to my ideas of architecture and maybe to share some ideas with you or to quit. We started with, uh, this sentence of each that is very, very deep and important. That which distinguishes truly original minds is not being the first to see something, uh, sorry, I have to move something new. But seeing new, some well known, seen and ignored by all, which means basically that, the, the knowledge is not, based on the, and the, the practice of the architecture is not based on the invention of strange puppets, you know, but it's based on finding, it's a finding versus inventing, finding the, what the rules, the principles. The basic idea of the, of the architecture and finding where, finding in the history, in the product of the history, in what the history has left during the process and the its evolution. Well, so, trying to, evidently finding, you know, the, uh, what is left, what is offered by the history to us. we can start from the, from the landscape, which is the, the, the, uh, the, the biggest scale of the architecture. Still architecture, but big scale. And, uh, what, uh, in order to, uh, to, uh, understand this, uh, this process, I have. Put together this diagram. I, I think in squares, you know, don't mind it. Not necessary to use squares, but I have put together this, uh, diagram of space and time actually in which I, compare. I, I compare the what is in the landscape, the relationship of the nature, and, um, artificial that means the interventional demand. And, um, on the horizontal on top, I have, um, schematic organized the nature in four, Elementary morphologies of the, of the land. That is from the left. From the left to the right, the reach, the, the slope, the bottom of the valley and the planes. And in the vertical, uh, line, I have, uh, um, put in, in organized, uh, um, uh, for conditions of progressive complexity of the, uh, aggregation of the parts, uh, or the, or the, or the artificial parts, uh, that are, um, that they have resume in very simply. On top, we have a small courtyard or a small farm, a small ion that could be a, a, a small village. Uh, I have, sorry, I do, I have an instrument. a small farm, a small, uh, village without hierarchy, without any institution or a public building and so on. And the, and municipality. That means already, uh, an important, uh, aggregation that is as, uh. As, uh, institutions and so on and, uh, big metropolis, something like that. Uh, don't worry about the fact that, uh, I have, uh, selected, very schematic elements, a minimal, because this diagram can be in any moment, you can open one of those quarters, uh, or, um, quadrants, and you can put a in yeah, indicator on, on the ashi, uh, Ashe and or ordinary. Ordinary. And I can, uh, give more deeper, but it's not necessary for our discuss. Now, it is possible. So, what if I cross, for instance, the, uh, the reach that is here, that is the most simple structure that we find in nature, but also the, the first ad, the first used by demand, and the, uh, the, um. The, the, the, the, the beginning, the origin if you want, of the, this relationship between demand and nature. so we, if we cross them, so we get, uh, what, what I call type or typical, uh, territorial type if you want, in which you report, I report, schematically, the little, the little, uh, data farm, uh, the, uh, the, the parts on top of the reach and so on. And, um, schematic, agricultural activity, minimal. Okay. We are talking about history in this moment. we can cross, uh, we can cross all of those, you know, and all of those are 16. They are, uh, typical territories. Okay. The territory, the the types in which, uh, the, uh, we have a, a, a balance between, uh, the, uh, the, uh, questions asked by the nature and the reply of the man, you know, in this relationship are those that are in the young unknown. So there is a proportion in this case, in the others, there's no proportion. Other, the, the questions are the, are pushing, are pushed by the, by the nature, uh, too much, you know, and the man has, has a problem in, uh, in, um, in following and to give a, a reasonable reply or the, he hasn't the technology enough. So all by, but all of them exist. No. If you take, um, for instance, uh. Something like, uh, the municipality, you know, on top, on top of the bottom of the valley, that's very typical thinking of Italy, you know, uh, many. But also, uh, along the slopes, along the hills, it's not so balanced, but it may exist, think to all the hill towns in Italy, for instance. So anyway, we have, uh, this, um, this, uh, this, uh, this, uh, situation that what is interesting is that you can read this diagram synchronically that means now, okay. And you list a lot of examples of the way I've done, but, um, if you look at the, uh, diagonal in this sense, you realize that this diagonal can be read also, chronologically. Um, because, uh, uh, as I said, uh, first of all we have, uh. The, the, the demand is moving and, uh, living on top of the, of the ridges, uh, because the ridge is dry. Because the ridge is the only path that can be used without technology. It exists in nature. And, uh, and also it was for millennia, the highway of the priest, history for the big immigrations from one continent to the app. uh, the, uh, we have a second phase. The second phase that is represented, by the. The, in the sediments on the, on the slope, you know, uh, that requires certain technology to, in, to implant your sediment. and, uh, for instance, uh, the, the small villages, of course, because the economy is minimal there, it's, uh, we are at the beginning of linear neurolytic if you want to put some, some dates and so on. And then we have the municipality at the bottom of the valleys. And clearly the big metropolis can, uh, survive and they can develop mainly in the plants. The plants are totally artificial. They, uh, can survive only if, uh, the, the man has the, have the technology to, to manage them and preserve. Otherwise, they will reverse back immediately to swabs. this represent a cycle. So a cycle of the humanity that goes in four, five phases from the beginning and a complete, structuration into a, an organic, system. then, uh, you might have a crisis. in general you have a crisis when the system is not anymore, I balance and then whatever in general happens is that it goes, it reverts back to the first level. Of course, not in the sense that, it is, you go back to zero, but in the sense that you, there is a, a, a step back in which these, the, the, the, the system will use, Old structures, you know, all the previous cycles. Um, now according to different areas and different civilizations. So the system works in different ways. for instance, you know, uh, if, uh, the, the, the, the four squares and so on, uh, in the diagonal could be a typical of the Mediterranean war and other areas. for instance, somebody asked me one day, where is Iran? And, so in the end I arrived to the conclusion Iran is made by DC two, squares, where you have, uh, a system that works before on top of the, uh, of the pipeline because it is a, it is a plateau around, basically a plateau that maximum can arrive to develop the slots that are at the, at the edges of this plateau. But when it goes in crisis, it goes back to the plateau. not no problem. You know, every civilization, uh, has, uh, developed a way of using, the, the soil, the land that they had, and they have to adapt themselves. So they develop a long four oh square or in, in Italy, even two cycles that mean eight, you know, something like that back and forth. or, um, some of them remain on top of the regions. You know, there is a region in Geria called Kaia. Where they settled, it was balanced. It was agriculture, agriculture, trees, the apples fruit. And they remained in that situation for millennia until, uh, the arrival of the French, you know, that means, uh, hundred 30 years ago or something like that. Well, so in few words, we, um, when, uh, we, uh, afford, when we want to study a landscape in a given area, uh, or make a project of, of urban management, so on, if we believe that the history is given to us, the. Principles or the rules for the design. We are in a certain way to reconstruct all the process of the, uh, of historical process, of the formation of that territorial, of that, uh, city and so on. Not because, uh, uh, division that we have to have is not only a vision into the present situation that's very limited, so very neurological. It gives the sense of the skin of the proof, the sense of the skin, of the proof. If we want to understand really deeply the structure of the system, we have to know it from the region through the evolution up to the end. So in the case of the territory, starting from the, um, the regions that, that are schematically represented to the left, and uh, looking at what the plants must be in that time, you know, uh, completely flooded. So you imagine why they remain on top of the other regions because, uh, you know, it was impossible for populations, tribes, groups to cross a space like that, not, and that therefore they were able to move, uh, along the regions, no, in between of the sources of the, of the, of the rivers or the of the streams. And they were able to settle in the fork for instance, uh, in the small montori that were clo the closest point to the water, you know, without crossing the streams because they had no ability of doing that. In the second phase that of the, that we call cross reach, that means slope, mid-level, moving on the same, uh, on the same top line. Okay. The same high, they, they, they, they, they are able to cross the, the re the streams at the, in, in, at a high level where, you know, the, the level of the water is very low. And the connector, those, some of those settlements in the same time, this is a, a cross reach, path. At the same time, the older ridge is abandoned because economically le less interesting and so on. But another thing I want to, to, to show you is the fact that, there is a moment, there are moments in which, uh, the two regions. They can, uh, find a for cross a stream at that point. This point becomes important because it could be most, probably one of the most important settlements that will develop, you know, in, uh, in, in the history and so on, because they are no very important of a territorial landscape. This is one, this is two, or this is the, the scheme that is completely invented. But what is interest is that, if you see, uh, the, these, through the evolution, you are also able to understand better what, physical structure is. So the, the, the, the, this, uh. Town, little town to the right to or to the left. They are both in north, not Rome, in, uh, in Italy. They are ill towns. Both are, um, based on, uh, uh, rich part that, that becomes at the end. The promontory, uh, the, the right one is, uh, is called colo. Is um, is a very narrow, uh, narrow reach. So basically it looks like, uh, the stick of, of, um, like a stick. But, you know, when you evaluate that, you don't say it's like a stick. You say this is a structure that comes from a reach, uh, which a typical form. The, the left one is, say this is a typical structure that comes from a reach, but since the reach is large enough, there is a, a, a, an, an increase, an increment, uh, in this direction so that it doubles, you know, and so on. But you have a scientific vision and not a socalled, let's say, um, a visual, vision auditing, that allows also to, um, to understand the, a structure that, looks chaotic at the first site like this sediment in lag north of Italy. Um, that looks, uh, chaotic in itself. But if you are able to dismantle this, uh, this, uh, this, uh, cows, uh, based on this, uh, ability that, or information that you have, uh, that you have got from the historical process, you read immediately that, uh, for instance, this part, uh, is generated by a, a reach that is sloping down, arriving up to this point here. Okay? Please note in this point, there is a demand square. There is a mass square because you also have a secondary, structure that is, uh, it, it moves on the same, uh, level, uh, top of line goes through the, the, the square or something like this and gets out here. Okay, so there is a, a linear structure that crosses the, the, the, the structure of the, of the, of the reach. And you have another level lower and therefore newer, I mean more recent, that is this one. Okay. That you said here, disappears here and so on. The first operation for is you have to remove the, the parts that are clearly encroachments. Okay. So when you remove those that have no significance, this structure will appear very clearly. And this is the, what is left offer for is. Many more, many more things. But this is what is offered by the history to to, to the, to the designer that has to put the hands on top of this structure. You cannot avoid the fact that you have a system that of reach to, uh, parallel system of the cross re, uh, regions and so on and so forth. You cannot make inventive puppets on top of it, and end, end, end of it. But, uh, just, uh, I, uh, I show you a and a small thing that is also a bit amusing. I organize a course of, uh, landscape based on the, on this, uh, on this concepts in Italy when I was teaching in America. So I brought, uh, American students to, uh, Tuscany and with a nice colleague of mine. We gave this, uh, course one month in, uh, in, in the countryside. We were lodge there. It was very nice. So in the morning we had the theory and uh, we used and they used to study seriously. Then in the afternoon, we used to go around to see the regions, to see this, to see that, and they had to sketch and so on. At the end of the course, we said, now you have to make a sort of exam. And, uh, so, we gave to every student one, uh, piece of, um, of what we call a sort of imaginary Italy. Okay. A sort of, um, invented, invented cartography. In which there were, there were only deliverables, the top lines and few informations and so on. some, something about the geology that is important, et cetera, et. And then we said, okay, now you reconstruct this simulation of the, historical process of the, uh, of, of this, place. And, uh, and, uh, let's see what happens. So they made the first drawing in which they have, uh, remarked the, the ridges, the hypothetical, sediments, iMentor, and so on. Then the second phase, they have marked, the second, the, sorry, the cross ridges and, uh, other sediments connected with the cross ridges and so on. They made hypothetical bit of agriculture. Initiatives, uh, there, et cetera. Then at the bottom of the, uh, in the third phase, at the bottom of the, of the, of the Valley, they have imagined a, a minimal development of more, uh, um, let's say not industrial agriculture, but a bit more, uh, organized agriculture, uh, that you see. We are here and here, uh, de the creation of some important service settlements, you know, service, uh, little towns, uh, in, in, uh, right in the bottom of the, of the, in this case, there were no planes. So basically the, uh, system grew always there, but without many changes. So this was one of the exercises. in reality, uh, those, cartographies were real pieces of it. At that point, we sorted, you know, the, uh, the original, cartography or the present situation. And it was very funny to compare what was the simulation of the growth of this, uh, of this, uh, of this, um, area. and what is the reality? There were differences, as you can imagine, because, uh, well, it's not, uh, an easy exercise. There were, uh, other in some coincidences, and it was, it was an interesting, uh, exercise that I recommend, you know, because it's very, it's, it's very useful. Okay. now, uh, we, we, we move to, to, uh, to we change scale and, um, uh, I'll show you what, applied. To, uh, to the, to the scale of the, of the building, of the building type of the, of the typical, aggregation, you know, or, yes, aggregation or the plant of the city, uh, the bigger scale. So three different scales. what could be, uh, the, this, reconstruction, let's say? Okay. Now, I, uh, first of all, I, uh, I mentioned, one, uh, several times the word type, because I strongly believe that, this, uh, sort of work that you make of, uh, simulation and reconstruction of the, of the, or the evolution of the history, either you have all documentations, but you don't have many as you can imagine. No, uh. or you have to, uh, work with this idea of the type that, that is the vehicle, in my opinion, of this, operation. So very quickly, uh, we define this idea of, type of my idea, what I proposed to you, and uh, then we go back to the scheme type is the organic ensemble of the common characters of buildings in a given area and over a defined period of time. So in few words, type is, uh, an abstraction is a concept, not a area building that, uh, in general, uh, collectivity has about what is, uh, a house, what is, the, how the house should be aggregated with, uh, what kind of plots. Okay, which size, whatever. And I insist on this concept, it is. A product of the collectivity. It never happens that a single individual gets up in the morning, said, I will invent a type. The type of the row house. The row house is a long product of transformation within a community made by certain community. The other important thing is that, uh, the, the type in my, in my concept is, uh, is uh, it changes in the time because of the collectivity changes. And, uh, they produce different ideas of the, of the house or the type. It changes also geographically because from, from a place to another place, uh, the type will be different. This is very important because in synthesis we can say that the concept of type is a dynamic process and never a format scheme. Some people like, uh, Julia Car GaN for instance, they believe it is a former scheme and, uh, the story is totally different in this case. Why the, uh, idea of working, with the type is useful in any case besides that, it is true because, you know, you can also study in, uh, the, um, small sentiment in a period and you can study, for instance, uh, all the roofs of the houses of a certain, of a certain or south band to discover at the end that in a certain period the type, of the, of the, of the roof, uh, it was one that means that you study, study, uh, thousand, uh, roofs just to discover that the way you're making the roof in a certain area, 17th, 17 time, 17th century, et cetera, it was. So at that point, if you are able to work with the type, detect, catch, the type, that, that will simplify this work that otherwise will be very long. Otherwise, good luck. What you see now is, uh, uh, the final reconstruction already done off, a typological process. I call that typological process, what I call, I used to call before the historical process because it is typological. It is basically a, a reconstruction made out of the documents, uh, in relation of the, or the place. This is an invented place that you see. Suppose it is a small, medium sized town in Italy that will make everything easier. then, uh, you work with the documents, you work with the, uh, the idea of permanence, of the signs that you read in the topography, in the, in the, in the buildings, in the sites, in the, in the, in the streets and so on. And, uh, of course there is also a component of, um, ability of working with the, Typological typical behaviors? No. So when, uh, suppose that you are reading the, the urban fabric? No, I, I, I always start from the urban fabric because the ideal type comes out in the, uh, in the, in the urban fabric because you have many houses together. If you start the houses one by one, scatter here and there, you know, it, it is streamed. It is more difficult. So working, you are working on, uh, this, uh, this, uh, fabric. A very elementary initial No. That, uh, refers to, uh, a type, an ideal type that is ative. It is the first one, and later on you work with the, the types that are current, I mean current means that are known by everybody, and they are shared by. By the community. So I would say if in this here you get the information enough and then you're able to go on, then you, you see what happens. But, uh, then it, and, and the tur, you know, you also, uh, detect and understand the third phase, but you don't have information about the second you are able to fill this gap, you know, through the, uh, typical behavior that you have learned, you know, about cases, but also you have to, in certain a way, use your ability to, um, imagine what is the, the passage that is missing. Okay. now, so what happens in the, in the first phase, the com, the community has a clear idea. What is the type, how the house should be. They have clear ideas, but also how it should be aggregated in this case, in a very simple two row houses along the street, you know, something like that. And also the organization, suppose you have a problem of an obstacle, maybe it creates a fork. So you have a first, simple, plan of what will be a city some one day. But there's an interesting, interesting fact that, uh, when, uh, the individuals of the community, they start to, build their house, they have to apply to the reality. This idea of type that is an abstraction. Suppose that, uh, the, the i, they have to build the house along ato um, a slope. At that point, they have, uh, changed the idea of the time they apply. They have modified this idea, so the real building will be slightly different or you need one more room or, um, you have a plot that is irregular trapezoidal or things like that. So those are variations of the type that are, in any case, very important because all of them, this are the variations you see. They contribute in time to the formation of the next idea of, uh, current type. Now you see a good solution of your neighbor and you say uhoh, and then the community starts to absorb this idea. This system goes on. Of course, there are continuous influences between the scale, between the building type, the aggregation and, and the, the, the typical, um, the typical plan of city and, uh, in this way, you know, this, this process, but the process of the grow, of the growth, uh, of the, of the, of the city and the time it is, it's not always linear. No. You have moment of crisis. Okay? You put your line and I say, okay, there is a moment of crisis. Could be a plague, as in Italy, in the medieval period in, uh, 1334. Or it could be, uh, an quake, it could be economical, disaster, whatever. Um, at that point, the the, uh, current tide that is connect to the, that is modified because the city is growing, stop. Stops. People at that point, build, transform what is existing. They adapt and so on. And therefore the current type doesn't develop on the contrary, the variations. they go on because you still try to adapt what exists and make variations of the of the existing types. So at the end of the hypothetical crisis, uh, what happens, people have developed an, uh, a, a knowledge, an ability of, and, uh, knowledge, let's say, of many examples of variations and so on. They, but they had, they have lost the idea of the current type, what they do. At that point, they refer to, a different, culture, not different culture, sorry. To a different place or a different, or a different culture that, you think is superior, culturally, militarily, and so on. Typical case in Italy, in, uh, in the 19th century, the reference is Paris or Vienna, no problem. and what you import, you know, types from, uh, those leading, let's say cultures okay. Or, uh, if you are in North Africa, your reference is stanbul because you belong to the automatic park. No. So, and a new, a new current type at that point is formed. Mixing hybridizing, the, uh, old, the variations, real example, real building variations. And, uh, this ideal, uh, type coming from, Vienna, Paris, and so on. In this sense, although in Italy, every city had a, was influenced by Vienna, Paris, the pro, the final product of the 19th century, uh, architecture. And Germans was different from city to city for the same, for the simple reason that it was also based on local experience. Fine. Uh, sorry for this long, uh, digression. It's, um, this process is, long. compared to the, to the fact that you could on the country invent a puppet, uh, sketch or things like that, and in five minutes solve with ef the criminal, the architecture, this, uh, uh, is, is, uh, a way of, the only way serious, in my opinion, scientific to, uh, approach the problem of what do you get, uh, at the end? Oh, no. One thing I have to say, what I have described, uh, going from the origin to the end. In reality, when you make it as a simulation, you start from the end, from here, and you go in this direction up to the origin. When you find the ative type, what do, okay, now, uh, this process is. The way I have described this, uh, pro, this, uh, product that is not only analytical as you can imagine because, uh, you know, you put together so many data, okay, but also you have to in field many gaps. And that is already an idea of, of a moment of Synthes that we have to introduce. So it is a sort of meta project, what you make in reality. No. So a sort of redesign of this historical technological proofs. it's very long. But, of course with the experience, you can take some shortcuts clearly now and, uh, uh, looking at complicated, structures like this city, this is, this is exquisite drawing of, uh, of Algiers in, uh, in, uh, hundred years. Hundred years ago. beautiful, uh, beautiful, uh, spontaneous, informal, uh, structures, uh, that, that show this, um, change, you know, at the very micro level, you know, guys like this one that invades for the street, other guys that, have, uh, this, uh, system of, uh, curb belt, part of the house that is, uh, um, hanging on top or on top of the street and so on, tunnels created, through the, between 2, 2, 2 houses that are facing one the other or also the, the layout of the streets extremely, extremely crowd. But, you know, it is possible I say to um, to understand. Avoid too much analytical work with the shortcuts that are based on the typical behaviors of the, of the urban fabric, typical behaviors in the sense that, uh, everywhere in the world, you know, there, there are typical reaction of the man when he is rational. Okay? That means not modernist, basically, that, uh, are the same in China, in North Africa, in America, or in Italy. And, um, I'll show you the examples. so at, at this point, uh, first of all, you, when you have a, a drawing like this, which is a survey of the, of the ground floor of a city, this is facts in Tunisia, uh, you have a. The x-ray of the, of the city, and you have the x-ray of the, of the pathological process. The problem is that the informations are too many at the, so at the first site is pretty difficult to, to read it. So there are certain moves that you can make. The first one is that, uh, you can, uh, realize that, a group when they settle, they in general tend to make a regular, regular settlements. And, uh, so in this sense it means that even, uh, city like sparks that is a, a city or that was a city a a Medina of 50,000 inhabitants is made out of different settlements in the time made maybe by different cultures. So the first technique, two separate information. So you, draw with different colors, the different orientations of every wall, and you discover that, that they, the wall don't go occasionally around, but they are grouped in No, in various groups in general. Uh, every group, uh, has a color or every group in a certain period has a different color from another. And so you are able to start to give, uh, an idea of chronology, for instance. you are able, if you can, if you have the, the control lines underneath that you can realize if you have, for instance, a former river that was, uh, closed and uh, that was, uh, covered or things like that. but. But if you are able also to measure all those line parallel lines, you sometimes find that there are, uh, common, minimum common, uh, denominators. And, uh, that means that, uh, some of them are, uh, you agreed will come out one or more grids. Okay? That means that, then some there, those, uh, those, areas were planned or semi plant. Okay? So in this case, apart, for instance, very clearly comes out, uh, grid that is based on the radio, which is a Roman measure that is, um, 120 feet by 2,240 feet. Clearly a module like the, a module, you know, is the standard is a signature of civilization. So when you get this measure, this is Roman. So for instance, nobody says that this is Roman city. I tell you, this is a Roman city and this is the next step. There is also preexisting, uh, structure. Underneath that is, this work of which I don't, I am not able to tell you anything else. We have archeological evidence and so on, and I didn't go very far with it, but this is what you can get. There are other, typical behaviors that we lap a lot. For instance, you know, when uh, you see, this, uh, fork, I call this mustache or the, the mark of the hand on the ground, and we have one, we have another one here. We have another one here. Okay. Smaller. And we have this strange, um, orientation of all the streets here that go in this direction here. Uh, PCCC is a Roman city. I give you the information deals Roman cities here. Okay? So when you see the mustache, well, they in general, reveal, uh, a condition in which, uh, you have a sort of, uh, funnel effect. So it means that, uh, there is a flow that is stopped and uh, there and, uh, tends to pass from a passage that is compulsory and no other oppo options are offered. So what could be a gate could be breach. Or could be reverse, not an external gate of the, of, of a city, but an internal gate of an important building, for instance. So that attracts, you know, the flow, uh, of the, of the people, therefore also the, the parts. And in fact, you know, this, uh, this place is called, uh, porta Catalina. the, the gate doesn't exist anymore, but we have evidence by, from this, typical okay, reaction of the parts. We have the other gate, I don't remember the name here, number three. The number four is a, is a bridge. Could be a gate, but we know it's a bridge by the fact that, uh, the old, uh, bed or the other river was here and we have documentation for that. And then it has been moved here. So this is an old bridge. This one is another case When the, the, the Arabs concur, uh, they built the, uh, the great mosque at the outside of the Roman city at the, at the edges of it. But that, attracted the population in such way that they modified even the morphology of the main streets, that were, uh, pointing into the, into the main, uh, into the well. Often you will find many curves into the, into the, the, the morphology of the streets of, of your, of your fabric, and, uh, um. It looks chaotic and irrational at the first site. But then on the contrary, it's very important because often the curves will reveal something that is Eden, but not more visible. This is the case of trees, small towns in Italy, Roman, Roman towns. And what is, uh, visible in the present fabric is this, uh, growth of red lines, streets. All of them clearly make, are tangent to something or they avoid something. So clearly they, uh, take this form because they avoid the corner of maybe wall or they make a car because they point straight into gate and so on. So it possible through this crowd of, uh, curves to, uh, rescue to find. To discover walls of Roman or President, all the city, and the gates, the position of the gates not necessarily always symmetrical. Look at this one in negative. The means, you know, through the effect produced by the, uh, the obstacle in the case, the walls, in other cases, uh, when in, uh, we are in phase, and this is, uh, this is the, the, the, the main mosque, the, the great mosque fried, the mosque of phase existence still existing. You see here, the deformation induce the look into the, into the morphology of the, of the streets that, tend to avoid the corner, you know, here. And then they go straight. It goes tangent to it, to the wall, tangent to the wall, and then it separates and so on. If, uh, the mosque were weren't there, you know, we can imagine that there was, in any case, a big, uh, structure regular there. Uh, that was, uh, hidden by the time, by the way. Uh, another case very quickly. This is in Tuni, a small settlement probably of a group, rather regular but not planned. You see here, and uh, in time you see that the behavior of the street tend to go around, avoiding the corner here, leaving some leftover space around. Like this is a tangent in this direction. And then in a second time, all this part is being en field probably by the, the same people of the group obviously know that use all the possible, uh, space that is left over. We call that increment, um, or implementation, growth also of the, of the fabric. Another thing that you can, you can note is the deposition of this, um, mustache. That tells me that probably the old entrance and unique entrance into this, the small settlement and within the, the, within uni was here. And then, you know, it happens as usually houses and or land is subdivided, it changes and so on. And so in, in historically now the entrance is here. important mechanism that will tell you a lot of information, which I help you a lot, is, uh, is looking at the behavior of the aggregation of the, of the fabric or the houses or the buildings. And, um, what is the relation of this, behavior to the street, to the public. to the public street. let's, this is a diagram that I have invented, so it's not real, but imagine there is a river, there is a bridge, and there is a natural first path that is a sort of natural path that goes, uh, not straight, because in the, in the countryside, you, you avoid, you know, Obstacles and so on. So this part is the original one. Along this part. You, uh, people, the group tend started to settle and, uh, they built their, their houses along the, the, along the, the, the part tendentially the plot tend to tend to be perpendicular to the street itself, because it is more logic. Now, of course, they can, plan and they can settle along the path for kilometers if they want. But it's not logic because after certain distance it makes sense that you, uh, that you use also the, the rail, the, the, the, the back part of the system. This, the area like this. No. So for instance, you know, after certain you start to, to plan your, uh, your, uh, block. So basically this also tells the story of information of the spontaneous blocks of, of city, of the spontaneous city. And, uh, you know, you from the beginning to the end, you stop when, uh, it is logic for you to stop. And in general, the measure of this front of the street is part of the, of the, of the culture. No. So in a city, they tend to have longer blocks. In our city, they tend to make shorter blocks. And, uh, that is really the culture component. But then another point, it makes sense that you, you move, uh, your, uh, your, um, your fabric into the, into the rear. And uh, uh, you implant city, uh, streets, secondary streets, we call them implant. Or Planned Streets, you know, like this one for instance. And so if you look at the behavior, you see immediate difference because this behavior, this part of the matrix, fabric goes from the beginning to the end of the block. This one starts from here because the rest is occupied and goes up to the end. And this goes up to the end. The end is decided by the culture. They decide. In Rome we have long blocks or even 60 meters. In other cases, in other cities we have 24 meters and 30. So, again, you know, a after seven distance, you feel the need to close and to have a, a connection. No. That is another street, a third level or street of connection between two planned street in order that at this point the block is closed. And, uh, at this point, again, the, the fabric is typical because it'll go from here to here. So basically it, it'll infill the leftover space. In this case, for instance, no, no houses because, uh, the, the, the block is very long and very narrow. And therefore there's no this opportunity. But both streets are connections. Street, there's a four important, level of the streets that is. let's take a case that our city grew reasonably, et cetera. And, uh, the original point, the bridge is becoming a very important node or even pole or the city. So important point or reference, economical, symbolic, and so on. In the fabric inside of the city, there is a very important, other node that is growing a cathedral magic. So at this point, the attraction that is made by these two poles, economic and so on, is so important that it becomes, interesting and economically, to make a, a shortcut to cut through the fabric, okay? And connect these two points. Osman did everywhere, uh, interventions like this in Paris, but we have also interventions, uh, smaller in the medieval cities, uh, Italy or in Islamic, uh, cities too and so on. How do you recognize them? It's very simple. Since you cut normally in general, diagonally casually into the existing fabric, the, the, plots that will remain, you know, that will be recuperated from the old fabric. And then now face the, uh, the new street. All these plots are triangular. They are not rectangular. If you words, they are triangular, trapezoidal, or they are rectangular, but cut. Gon on one side. So it's very, very important why this, this, uh, is important because at this point you are able to establish a hierarchy of the streets of the, of your place, and also chronology in certain way. So we are, you know, making steps, uh, learning, you know, more and more. So we also can decide, uh, from the behavior more in detail. We are carry one in, in Tuni. Uh, this is a triangular plot with three, uh, streets around. Uh, which one is the metrics the most important? The first one, the metrics, uh, you know, is the yellow? The yellow because, uh, being built, in the empty, area, you know, they can develop the, the type, exactly, the, according to. Idea of the type, okay. Here the houses are, uh, you know, because of the form of the, the, of the, of the, of the side, but also because, you know, it is already a cuppa height, you know, it is deformed. So this difference make the fact that this is the plan street and this one is a matrix. And this look, you know, this is a, basically an infill, the of the connection. This thing is very interesting because not only you establish the arc, I keynote publish a, a coherent, uh, chronology. But you also discovered interesting things that this is a, um, a city in, uh, in Morocco. It's called ra. It is, uh, unusual because it is a city that was inhabited by a majority of Jews, about more than 50%. And, um, according to the history, you know, the documents, you know, it was, uh, designed, planned by a French architect called K according to a system of cardo, the commands, voila. This is the, the commando you see straight. And this is the Cardo Street intersecting the center with the market. So this is the story. then you read this, uh, thing and, um, you make a distinction of, uh, you, you drawing in red, uh, what is the behavior of, of a metrics and, uh, what is the behavior of the plan of the plant, uh, streets or yellow. Okay? And then, uh, you have, uh, also, uh, some, uh, you know, connections gray like this here. So, okay. What you expect, you know, to, find, a matrix is along the two axis. Obviously it was planned, it was founded, and it should be there strangely. It's very rare. Only at the end here, along what was the, the real gate or the tools? You find this red, but where you find the red here where you don't expect? This is a most probably an old part that was, uh, existing. It was existing because there were for sure settlements of burs, you know, here around not connected, no. in this area for sure. You know, you see those are just, uh, all connections, you know, very, very winding and irregular and so on. So, uh, in this sense, uh. You know, you add more and more information, you know, through this kind of operation that you made on the, typical behavior, based on the typical behavior. The last, the last thing about this, uh, recon re redesign. The say of the meta. This meta project of the, of the, of the, of the sites, of the, of the cities is, uh, what I call the archeology without excavation because, uh, you know, since we, we want to know what is underneath, but we cannot excavate, um, rarely we can make archeology. What we have to relate are the, the permanence, the sign that, come out on the ground level. Or something that is underneath, again, you know, this is a, it's very interesting city in, uh, in, uh, Tunisia. And, uh, according to the history, it says it was built in, uh, the, uh, 14th century, uh, around this fortress that you see here by, uh, a local, uh, Muslim, shaik or sukan. And, uh, but if you, you have a fantastic plan like this. And then you measure again, you know, the, the, the, the, the, all the alignments and so on the, here, this is very regular. You can see, you discover that it is based on the, on a standard that is based on the actus, which is under 20 by hundred 20 Roman feet. at this point, you know, this is not 14th century. This is Roman. Structure transform. The other interesting thing is that, out of the science that you can read into, you see that you have some curves that all, uh, end in certain points. Particularly this mustache is very interesting, but also this here. So you can detect that there was, uh, a, a certain point, out of this Roman CTA, a small village, you know, of, two and a half actors, very small, right there. So this is, uh, uh, what, uh, gmo, uh, is the thing, as I said all the time that you work with them, the level of the fabric you can project your attention on the smaller scale that of the building type. Uh, for instance, in this case, I just show you the possible diagram of what is a hypothetical reconstruction of the courtyard, of the courtier house. According that we have a year three, uh, different courtier house here in vertical. That means that I is related to the orientation, no, in relation with the orientation and how they get encroached. So this is, uh, the description of one of the processes of transformation of this, uh, this is what we say, encroachment in civilization, desertification. So words, you know, uh, this is a single, uh. Built a small, tiny, uh, row houses inside, then I start doing to, to, to densify. So until you get a palace, uh, even a palace, this for instance, applies, well, for instance, in Rome, this big scheme. But, uh, in part, you know, some part of this applies to Venice, you know, that clearly has a different tradition, different condition. There is a water is Venice and, uh, not involved. Or finally, uh, for instance, you know, always talking of court, the houses, it could happen that, what is a, a, a spontaneous formation of, of a block, you know, becomes codified as in this case, in Cairo where, uh, you know, they a certain point, this, uh, formation. Of encroachment basically becomes what they call the Waka. That is a combination of, uh, a commercial structure and a residential mainly for artisans. So basically the, the ground floor that you see here is only boutique, no, shops. You enter with a monumental, uh, entrance into the, into the courtyard where you have the shops. But at the mid level on top of it, you have this, uh, range of uh, sort of lodge or sort of portico that goes, uh, all over, around on top of it. And that is a, for the of the artisans. And then on top you have all, sort of row houses on two, three levels, uh, that belong to one family of an artisan. that this is clearly the transformation of, uh, original courtyard, uh, houses. And, uh, in, into a row house. But the memory of de courted is remains on top on the terrace. So every unit has, you know, it's on, uh, covered, it's on open to the sky terrace. It's all like that very complex structure. Medieval in Cairo, medieval imagine. Uh, but it is a part of this, um, transformation of course from a spontaneous system into a codified. So there are many of those similar called Ocala. So a new type that we call the specialized. It's finished the story. in part I have a very few things, but now I have a question. So, what at the end of this, uh, typological reconstruction of the process, what, um, the, uh, process will, will give us at the moment in which we make the real project? Okay. Rules. a can what a Canva is a Italian term of the theater, um, of the Renaissance Theater. It is a theatrical text that summarizes the story and divides it into scenes indicating the characters and events, but not the dialogue. So a few words, it's, it's not a real text, it's just a very schematic text in which the actors were able to play and vent and create a lot principles. Uh, you know, principle means a basic principle for, uh, for your, for the intervention in your, or in that specific site. but they giving them a lot of, a lot of possibility and space. And this is loved by the art, by the architects. This idea or nothing. Yeah. So clearly the, the, the, the, the, the artist stars, they don't, they don't care all this, uh, history at all. They make their own history. They are self, so, but we don't care them. So, I don't know. I tend to, to like the idea, uh, uh, or the rule or the kind of the rule is like, uh, the idea I think, uh, sort of, um, of, um, chess game. In which you have very tight rules, few, very few, but, thousands of possible moves. And so the fantasy in reality is not a lot at all. You know, you can, uh, you can, uh, play, but you have to respect certain rules that come from the Eastern, in this case kind of actually is, uh, is again, uh, you have a basic reference, uh, structure on which you can play structure that you have to respect, you know, but that gives you possibilities for your design. The, no problem about that. I leave this question to you because, uh, um, well, we have to think about, uh, and this is a, a question that we can, discuss in the, in the, in the, when you want. no, it's, okay. few me, if you gimme a few minutes, I show you, few projects that come out of this, methodology if you want. Most of them are projects of the students and, um, because, uh, in 50 years I always took students, abroad in mainly in Islamic countries, sometimes also in, uh, in, uh, in Italy, uh, et cetera, uh, in America also three times. and the reason is very simple. Um, when I was a younger res, uh, researcher, assistant profess, I realized that all the students who wanted to, they were pressed to create their, uh, their brand, personal brand language. Personal language. Because if you don't have a brand, you are not, serious architect. You are not in the market. And so, and how do you create a brand? There were these students used to copy from the last, issue of the magazine. So, and that there was a sort of a total cultism, you know, and the ality, you know, of the product. So the, the best solution was that of, um, locking the, the, the, the library of the, of the magazines of architecture. I didn't have that power. Or taking them to countries where they don't have issue, they didn't, they don't have magazines and tell them, look, you go around. Look around, learn from the, the existing, the reality, the built reality produced by the history. And, um, this is what we did. And of course, um, when they came back and they made their own project, the project of the, of those sites, of course the project have many mistakes. But what is interesting is that they, many of them, made a known serious tentative of reconstructing this typological process and that to give a solution that was coherent with this, uh, typological, you see here, a project in, uh, in Turkey, in Anta, Clearly very simple. It's a bazaar, it's a small, ba bizarre that is, uh, inspired, very much close to the, to the local architecture or an indu temple in, in Bundi, or again, uh, a piece of, uh, of, uh, residential fabric, based on the interpretation of the local type in India. Again, it's, uh, or, uh, this, uh, this is the college, you know, in another city, you know, that use, I mean it's clearly influenced. Definitely, uh, by this, the local topology and it's coherent, relatively coherent and so on. And, um, in, uh, in, uh, in Morocco, in that city, in Zu, those are, that are the Jews a possible extension of the city that actually, uh, puts together a fabric that is, uh, very much, you know, in, in line with the, with the traditional one, with the hierarchy of open spaces. You see the big, uh, the, the, the bigger common garden, the, the common courtyard. You know, and every a apart single apartment has its own little patio, you know, so there's an a of the, of the interior spaces of the, of the, of the, of the, of the city or nation with the quality of the life of the, that, that country. And, uh, the, it comes always a compact, very, very competitive fabric. Of course, that because, uh, that is what you learn from the ca, the, those cultures there. I, at this point, I stop because, uh, I talk, a lot. the real reason. Recently, no few years ago I came to a thought that about all this, uh, this question and realized that, why I, I was thinking the, the students there and the way it was designing in, uh, in the Islamic countries, the poor countries, and, countries, uh, out of our culture, Italian. And I realized that, uh, the, the most important thing and, uh, the most, uh. Significant is the fact that, those students going there, not copying from the magazines, trying to make and absorb a different, different culture. They have, acquired a method a minute of looking at the reality and history. And, uh, some of them coming back to Italy and practicing in Italy, they have applied the method to their own culture and now they make produce that are more coherent, more logic, and are not, made out of stupid invention. I thank you very much. I'm sorry for I talked, for a prolong time and, uh, if, uh, somebody is still there, uh, we can. I'm finished and I thank you very much. I don't hear,

1 1:17:51

yeah, no, sorry, just a second. Okay. Okay. This is coming just in the very back.

Speaker 3 1:17:56

Thank you.

Speaker 4 1:17:58

Okay. Thank you Lio for this, uh, wonderful presentation. Um, now I would like to, to ask the audience if, if they have any questions for you, and I would invite anybody in the room to come down here for, asking Lio any question. Is Stefanos.

Speaker 5 1:18:27

Mine is not the question. It's the statement of admiration for the work, for this lifetime process of searching and, and trying to think of the world as being a world thought of.

Speaker 6 1:18:44

Hold on

Speaker 4 1:18:45

just a minute. Tell you

Speaker 6 1:18:54

I was.

1 1:19:14

Can you try second? I dunno which one it is. So we need to try each one of them.

Speaker 6 1:19:19

One. Yes. Uh, no, no, no.

1 1:19:23

Oh, it's not charged.

Speaker 6 1:19:24

No. Yes. No, no,

Speaker 4 1:19:27

no. Okay. No. Okay. You can come here. Sorry.

1 1:19:33

Sorry. We had difficulty, professor, we had difficulties with the microphone. There is, uh, a free microphone that apparently is outta battery. So Stefan also that, you know, the school is coming here to make, uh, his, uh, uh, statement. Yep.

Speaker 5 1:19:47

it's not, it's not a statement. It's just, I, I want to express my, my admiration for your work and to also state that it's very close to the pedagogy of the School of architecture and what we're teaching our students to do. the only thing that is very unusual about it, and, and, uh, very important to understand and to, uh, apply are the lessons that you're learning in Islamic cities, which allow for a great deal of compression, uh, in the, um, in the, uh, public space and in the, in the proper, the proper allocation of private and public space within, within, the city as a, as a whole, and also retains a, a, a balance, between monuments and, and fabric in a way that is unique and terribly unusual, in and, and very. Relevant to things that we need to do in the future, everywhere in the world to contain, to, to contain, auto mobility and to, uh, generate, maximum walkable environments. I think that we are applying this method to the school. We're working on it, we're, we're visiting different countries and, and thinking about different ways of working in these countries as well. So, we'd like to stay in touch with you and learn more and do more. I dunno whether others want to say something more, uh, in, in, in the, in a questioning mode, rather mode. But I, I think this is hopefully the beginning of a discussion we want to have together and not, the end of a lecture.

Speaker 2 1:21:23

well, um, there,

Speaker 5 1:21:23

there is a question of I didn't ask you about. Oh, okay. We might as well have a question or two. Thank you again very much for your time.

Speaker 2 1:21:32

Oh, I, I have plenty of time. No problem. All the night.

Speaker 7 1:21:40

Lio, thank you. My question is, this typological process of analysis and, and the designs that it generates, you began the, uh, well, the core of, in the core of the lecture, there were many, cities that are designed on slopes, right, with, with a great level of topographical change. And then we, we looked through the development of these streets in plan, but then some of the student work showed, a sophisticated understanding of how to handle design on slopes. I would want to know some of the advice that you could offer for how maybe this process or another process, enables in a, in a, a studio setting to, to teach people how to design on slopes.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Urban Design

Speaker 2 1:22:26

Well, um. Uh, and first of all, in order to reply to the first, professor, I mentioned that, we work on the same side of the street. Uh, and I knew that because I know your school, uh, since, uh, 40 years. Uh, I thought, in, in a program that was parallel to Notre Dame in Rome for 12 years at Prat. And, uh, so I met some of the professors, uh, that, uh, were there. I have seen, I have attended also some reviews and I knew that, uh, actually you are moving, uh, in the same direction. There. We have some differences, but that is, uh, that is the fund. So given that the, the question is, is in three is very interesting, of course, uh, about the slopes, the, the slope in itself, it doesn't change, uh, the, the, the, the, the problem or the, the attitude that you have to have the slope, uh, for instance, generates, uh, curves that are, um, curves and forks that are typical, uh, a technique to, uh, to connection levels, for instance and so on. And, uh, those are, you know, you can easily recognize when you have a certain experience. Of course, if you have a, a, a, a cartography with the top lines, you know, that will immediately help you a lot. And in this way, you are able to make a difference between the curves. That depends from obstacles and curves. That depends from the difference of level. So it is, um, it's based on, on the technique. And, um, those are replies to a problem that are typical always. So, uh, with a certain experience, you recognize them easily. all this method is also based on experience. That means that, the first time that you read, uh, fabric, you get, mad. but after 50, uh, you recognize easily. I mean, it's always, uh, difficult. But you move faster, you know, and, uh, you can, uh, you can move, um, and recognize all the problem. Now if you want, I open a question. Uh, a big question on which we have to think, not immediately, but, uh, I'm thinking, I'm very curious about the, artificial intelligence because imagine now that, very soon and even now, but very soon, the artificial intelligence will be able to make all that complicated reconstruction. A repro redesign, a re, re, re recomposition, okay. That I have. Uh. Explain to you rapidly, et cetera, et cetera, because, uh, it'll be able to recognize forms and then statistically will tell you, Mely, this could be this or that, but in, in one second, you know? So imagine that all this process that now takes, uh, between, uh, one week and six months, you know, depending on the difficulty or the place, as you can imagine, it could be done, uh, in, uh, minutes. But, now there, it opens a big, big, issue. No, because, uh, it means that, it'll open, in my opinion to people that have, uh, an attitude, uh, a scientific attitude to the design. And, uh, and they have a, a large culture of the design. So if it was not the people that make a sketch of puppet, all that stuff, okay, they will be able to control this process. Otherwise, the problem is that, the, uh, artificial intelligence has a tendency to invent because they want, they want to please you always. And if they don't have reply, they invent. This is a big problem because if you know the process. If you know how to handle, you say, what are you doing? What are you saying? So, but anyway, now I I, I, I don't go far too far and it's a, it's an open problem. It is extremely interesting. But what is more amusing is that with this, uh, artificial intelligence, the AA that make strange buildings and so on, you know, will be put out of the market by the milkman, that working with this computer will make, uh, a house, his own house. That will be even more strange than AZA project, for instance,

Speaker 4 1:27:33

at, we have a question here, and it's from Kimberly. and who says, thank you so much at Petri was probably in Rome. in the wrong program with Frank Montana when we were studying hill towns and our design project was a hill town. Thank you for all of your research over these past 40 years. I need to run to another meeting. Just wanted to say that I appreciate you and your work.

Speaker 2 1:28:04

Thank you. I remember Professor Montana, so you, you, you can get, you can imagine how old I am.

Speaker 4 1:28:13

Is there any other question in from the audience? Please. Okay. It seems that, there's no question Lio, so thank you again and um, for this, uh, wonderful talk. And Chi,

Speaker 2 1:28:33

I'm there. I wait for all of you.

Speaker 4 1:28:37

Okay.