The leitmotif running through this book is a meditation on the various iconographic representations constructed in the course of research and during the drafting of planning instruments on various scales. There is special focus on the structure of drafting processes, a number of illustrative methodological syntheses and the attempt to adequately record the legends of the maps. The aim of all this is to restore the central role of the production of images in the experience recounted, and their importance within the project for the territory. To this extent, we can say that this book is an illustrated – through the products of research and the operational activities of what are frequently large and articulated groups – approach to the task of construction and organisation of the knowledge of local contexts, materialising in the attempt to delineate guidelines and scenarios for a sustainable future. Representations that are diversified in terms of method and of scale, of users and of aims, offer the cue for addressing issues that are central to the discipline, such as the need to render interpretations explicit and restore the quality of the contexts, the need to construct shared visions collectively, and from grassroots, the need to ensure that the graphic documentation can efficaciously perform differently modulated regulatory tasks. This is a process not necessarily oriented towards ameliorating the iconographic quality of the images, but rather towards consolidating and refining the languages, as well as achieving an enhanced awareness of the potential – and obviously also the limitations – of this type of disciplinary product.

This book is conceived with the desire to dialogue with the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea about some great current challenges in the fields of urban design and territorial planning. In this perspective, the authors identify six themes at the basis of the Italian disciplinary tradition, from which to extract suggestions for future projects. Some specific strategies emerge: the structuring role of the non-artificialized open space; the ordering function of the collective public space; the centrality of public action in the governance of transformations; the importance of multidisciplinary and integrated approach to problems; the heritage intended as a living repository of ideas for the project. Finally, the evocation of a limit between anthropogenic and natural factors that gives measure and dimension to our world.

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Settlement and urban landscape quality is a vast field of research, ranging from studies on “the shape of the city” to studies on functions and services performed by the urban landscape. In Italy, a decisive steering role is entrusted to regional landscape planning, as introduced through the current Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape. Regional landscape plans define the rules to which all municipal plans must conform. This paper aims to assess the effectiveness with which the general principles and rules regarding settlement and urban landscape quality defined on a regional level through landscape plans are transposed and implemented on a local level through municipal plans. We chose the case study of Regione Toscana, which has a Regional Landscape Plan approved in 2015 (PIT/PPR) that identifies “settlement morphotypes” and “contemporary urbanisation morphotypes” and presents “Guidelines for landscape redevelopment of urbanised fabric in the contemporary city”. We examined how the eight municipal plans approved so far are addressed in the PIT/PPR contents. We also conducted a more in-depth study on topics of interest through structured interviews with four designers who were responsible for most of the plans analysed. We also conducted a more in-depth study on topics of interest through structured interviews with several plan designers. The results from the discussion showed some weakness in the PIT/PPR’s ability to guide local planning tools to improve urban quality. Additionally, the PIT/PPR’s effectiveness appears more evident in the rhetoric of arguments used by local plans than in the results of the transformations that they prefigure.