“A Metadesign Tool for a “New Vernacular Architecture”. Application to the Design for an Eco Park in Tripi (Italy)”,

ABSTRACT By interfacing definitions of “New Vernacular Architecture” and “Vernacular Modernism” with an original reading of “Critical Regionalism”, this paper puts forward a notion of metadesign as a strategy to foster “new vernacular” approaches in the Mediterranean region and, in particular, in Italy. A check-list of regionalist design variables is arranged and, focusing on the Straits of Messina area, a “broad” and a “single” pattern identified as possible operational modes. A metadesign tool is devised on a comparative reading between these variables and the factors that hinders a “new vernacular” approach. The tool is, finally, applied to the design for an eco park, and generalized through a graphic model that synthesizes its exportability to other contexts.