RIPENSARE LA CASA MEDITERRANEA AI TEMPI DELLA CRISI.

The Mediterranean house design, in all the different geographical areas, is characterized by two permanent features: a_the architecture of the house is conceived as a result from the relation between natural form (in the meaning of morphological and environmental relationships: landscape, traditional knowledge, climate issues, views ) and design (built) form; b_ the courtyard typology, according with it’s several variations, considered as the main focus of the design process. Learning from papers, studies, researches and projects, conduct in the Mediterranean housing field, I think is very interesting to understand mutations, to describe the changed paradigms derived both from the financial – energy resources crisis and both from new needs in housing, related to social aspects. The need to strive more and more towards energy self sufficiency of the house, with its related consequences in form and in spatial configuration, is leading towards the introduction of new variations and different point of views in the house design. A typological remark is important, starting from the following terms: typological definition, house form and culture, contextual issues, with the aim to design an authentically sustainable Mediterranean architecture. Vernacular architecture, in A. Rapoport idea, is a kind of pattern summarizing issues from tradition (particularly in landscape relationship) from climatic characters (particularly in climate-form relationship). Starting from vernacular architecture study, seen as a catalog full of models derived from a single type, the architect has ever considered energy, form, typology, tradition-based. Type and form in this way are strictly related with landscape, with the contexct and its characters. The new design of Mediterranean house begins from type (courtyard layout) and form in relationship with the landscape. The paper is analyzing some case-study, from different age and context, with different climates and landscapes, in the works of architects coming from Modernism ( H. Fathy, L. Cosenza, B. Rudofsky), attempting a comparison with some projects from contemporary (A. Siza, A. Campo Baeza, MED in Italy house)