Complex analysis for the sustainable planning and construction of the place identity: the Sensitive Relief method

The city is not an artificial construct: the city is a set of habits, customs and lifestyles. These elements are interrelated, and rather than being viewed individually, they are subsumed in the identity of place and the identi-fication of the city. The contemporary city is characterized by complexity, simultaneity and instability, producing situations of transience and transformation. As a matter of fact, the mutations in interpersonal relationships and intergenerational gaps, technological development, mass migrations and globalization have transformed the spaces in the urban landscape; new types of place have arisen and the utilization of existing spaces has been modified. These transformations have contributed to an increasing urban identity crisis and transformed cities into heterogeneous, multi-ethnic and multicultural societies. The new urban features of the territory are not easily identifiable and cannot be represented by a traditional planimetric relief, often remaining ‘invisible’; other elements can only be identified by sense perception, which becomes a measure of analysis and a reference for planning. In order to give suitable terms and explain such new sites, several academics have tested maps, words and multimedia images, hypertext and software able to render this complexity and to permit readability, which have in most cases created new interpretations of urban features. Starting from this premise, the aim of this work, carried out in the framework of a Convention between the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and th