Form and Structure of the Knowledge Framework for Urban Planning: Methodological Approach and Assessment Issues: The Case Study of the Municipality of Fondi Urban Plan

Abstract

Analysing the formation of the Knowledge Framework (KF) for the Municipality of Fondi, a medium size municipality in central Italy, this research explains the methodology used to describe and interpret its specific territorial condition, aiming to delineate a series of operative guidelines for further implementations in other contexts. The article deals with comparisons with several urban planning approaches, transposing them to the study area, through the filter provided by the approach of Regional Design. The objective of the research is to produce a comprehensive KF for urban planning containing all the necessary information to unravel the assessment issue to put in place planning actions oriented toward sustainable spatial development. The research reorganizes the information legally required to define a Knowledge Framework into five Systems, articulated in analytical and synthetic products that as a whole aim to innovate the Knowledge Framework by recognizing it not only as an analytical process but also as a fundamental urban planning tool.

1. Introduction

The Knowledge Framework (KF) is the integrated system of information and data necessary for understanding the issues carried out by land use and urban planning tools. It constitutes the complex information necessary for an organic and comprehensive representation and evaluation of the state of the territory and its evolutionary processes, as well as an indispensable reference for the definition of the objectives and contents of the plan for sustainability assessment [1].

The importance of the cognitive dimension in planning was highlighted in the early 20th century by the modern movement, marking the establishment of deterministic and reductionist functionalism. During the 4th CIAM in 1933, under the leadership of Cornelius van Eesteren, the principles of “The Functional City” were defined [2,3]. During this event, which was fundamental for the subsequent scientific approaches to the plan, the complex analytical work and early design findings of van Eesteren’s plan for the city of Amsterdam—identified as one of the most significant examples, particularly for the methodology adopted in the construction of the KF—were examined and discussed along with other examples.

Indeed, the plan was preceded by a voluminous statistical quantitative analysis, addressing all aspects of urban reality. This statistical analysis was the basis for the sizing of the plan, based on which the city’s demographic development was projected until the year 2000 and assumptions of a relevant population increase [4].

In the Italian context, a figure of absolute importance in the role of the cognitive apparatus within the urban planning process is certainly Giovanni Astengo [5], who, throughout his career, emphasized the importance of recognizing a scientific character to urban planning. The Plan, in its interpretation, is understood as a tool for knowing, designing and transforming a complex reality, and therefore the articulation of the process that produces it is also fundamental, which must pass, initially, through a phase of quantitative analytical reading, followed by as clear an understanding of reality as possible, and then define the objectives within which the choice is oriented (i.e., Assisi Plan) [6]. The ultimate ambition that Astengo proposes throughout his career is a process of rationalization of the Plan, thus lowering the threshold of the subjectivity of choices (i.e., the Genoa and Bergamo Plans) [5].

This brief historical excursus highlights how during the twentieth century, cognitive data represent essential material in the study of urban phenomena—both as components or aspects taken individually and in their reciprocal interrelationships—because they are capable of directing the many political, legislative, administrative and technical actions that continually come to modify the reality of a territory [7].

Within this perspective, the collaboration between the Municipality of Fondi and the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence, formalized in May 2022, for drafting the Knowledge Framework of the municipal territory has begun. The research agreement, which was created to experiment with a new approach for the study of the territory, is proposed as the first step for the presentation of the new General Regulatory Plan (GRP) of the municipality, with the current one in force since 1973.

From the first analysis, the research manifested the need to respond to two purposes: the first operative one sees this work as a fundamental step in the initiation of the process that will lead to the total reconfiguration of municipal spatial planning and in particular for the new GRP; and the second, more scientific purpose identifies the opportunity not only to collect, in a single and coherent product, all information, data, graphics and infographics material useful for the urban management in the elaboration of a KF, but also for local promotion. The KF must therefore contain all the elements that allow for the easy evaluation of the different possible choices to be put in place in planning, i.e., those best for the territory to be oriented towards sustainable development. In the case of the Municipality of Fondi, this appears particularly relevant since it is a territory that for a large part presents urban–rural characteristics; the preservation of natural components, agricultural areas and, at the same time, the sustainable socio-economic development of the city depend precisely on the arrangement of the territory that is given by the planning instrument.

The balance aspired to be maintained between these two purposes—the first that will determine future municipal spatial planning and the second, which sees the KF as the moment in which the territory is discovered and manifested—is ensured by the decision to rely on a renewed language, which, despite following the normative demands on planning documents, breaks free from the deterministic language of last century’s urbanism [8] and which contributes to the critical issues described above; therefore, the KF appears as the organic set of knowledge referring to the territory and landscape, on which to base plan forecasts and assessments [9,10].

To do so, the mandatory documents required by the regional laws have been articulated and integrated with new layers of information. This choice is based on the conviction that the territory, although it can be studied, does not lend itself to a definitive description, given the dynamism of its components and the spontaneity of the events that occur there. By trying, therefore, not to exhaust the research and anchor it solely on studies of quantities and distributions of tangible and scientifically quantifiable elements and recognizing a shortcoming of traditional KFs in this approach, contributions (individual and collective) more related to perceptions and interpretations (by definition more vague and less solid) are also introduced and considered but nonetheless are part of the complex mosaic of realities that are woven into the territory. This choice stems from the conviction that within the territory act as forces that are measurable and unmeasurable but nevertheless linked and whose sum and interaction becomes decisive in the processes that transform the area and the actions that take place there in a holistic vision that unites each area, actor and activity.

The KF was therefore populated with more dynamic analyses that lay close and interact with the more stable and traditional ones [11]; the certainty of an artefact’s location is matched by the uncertainty of its use, amalgamating these two levels of analysis with themes such as vocation and potential, deducible both from planning tools (Regional Plan) and by interpreting the texts, words and images of those who have lived and told about those territories. By confronting the macrostructures and subplots—both material and immaterial—of the Municipality of Fondi, the research thus seeks to bring out the natural, social, economic, and regulatory pieces of which the territory is composed, their overlaps and exchange dynamics.

The intention is not only to ensure, at the future planning stage of the general variant, the identification of a network of guidelines and nodes to be systematized and enhanced within a vision that unites all levels of the territory [12,13,14], but also, in parallel, for the population, it is an opportunity to get to know the Municipality of Fondi, and for its promotion, it ensures the future policies of renovatio urbis the best degree of meaning, understanding and coherence [15].

By tracing the process of the formation of the KF of the Municipality of Fondi, the article describes in the Section 2 the territorial context, clarifying the scientific and regulatory references that guided the work. The Section 3 exposes the methodology used in the research for the construction of the KF, and the Section 4 describes the results of the work, clarifying the chosen structure of the KF. The Section 5 discusses the results of the research and reports the conclusion of the work, highlighting possible implementations of the developed guidelines.

2. Materials

2.1. Plans and Regulations

The present research is aimed at studying the procedural mechanism of the formation of a planning instrument and, as such, according to Italian regulations, it responds to the directives of the regional urban planning law in force, which in Lazio is Law 38 of 1999, “Norms on the government of the territory” [16]. Based on this norm, it was, therefore, possible to know the documents of which the KF must be composed.

Following the desire to give a critical reading of the territory through a systemic organization of the documents and to be able to articulate the KF in a clear and communicative structure, the normative and methodological references have also been grasped in the rest of the national panorama, where different regional norms condition the structures. In this context, made up of a multifaceted and varied regulatory patchwork, Emilia-Romagna’s Municipal Urban Plans (Piani Urbani Comunali, PUC) and Tuscany’s Structural Plans (Piani Strutturali, PS), the instruments corresponding to Lazio’s GRPs, with their proposals and methodologies helped define the direction to be given to the research.

From the Emilian Plans, the division into Systems that these tools propose was extrapolated and reinterpreted on the specific case of Fondi was considered not only as a key piece for the communicative effectiveness of the study but also for its clear framing of the territory’s emergencies so that they can be addressed with renewed awareness in the subsequent planning phases. A further characteristic of these tools, which are of great methodological inspiration for the research, is their attempt to never disconnect the study of present conditions from considerations of future actions, having already recognized an important moment in the cognitive phase to reflect on possible developments of the territory. The PUCs moreover contain analyses related to the historical evolutions of the territories, from changes in land use to population fluctuations, recognizing the possibility of extrapolating future paths of development in the sequence of these changes.

Tuscany’s PSs are distinguished by their adherence to the concept of the Territorial Statute, which originates from the need to respond to the growing need to manage and transform the territory according to the principles of sustainable development. The Statute, regulated by 2014 Regional Law n. 65 [17,18] “is to be founded on an autonomous knowledge of the objectives of resource use, elaborated through a description of the existing reality, place by place, which the community discusses, recognizes and sanctions” [19]. The Territorial Statute is an instrument that gathers the entire territorial heritage within it and is proposed as a common good constitutive of the regional collective identity, which refers to the set of long-lasting structures produced by the co-evolution between the natural environment and human settlements, whose value for present and future generations is recognized [20]. Within this complex palimpsest, the figure of the structural invariant is inserted, which is intended to gather the specific characters, generative principles and rules that ensure the protection and reproduction of the qualifying components of the territorial heritage, however, has never constituted a constraint of non-modifiability, but onlythe reference to define the conditions of transformation [21].

The aforementioned tools have been interpreted and appropriately transposed on the regulatory and territorial reality of this area of Latium, which, however, needs to be studied according to logic proper to the urban and territorial context to which it belongs.

2.2. Data Source

2.2.1. Municipal Level

As part of the collection of data useful for this research, the dialogue with the technical offices and repositories of most of the documents and cartographies affecting land development and management, from aerial photos (Figure 1) to technical-administrative documents, has been fundamental. In the course of a series of meetings and dialogues with the Urban Planning Sector and Town Planning Department of the Municipality of Fondi 1, it was possible to accumulate and sample data concerning most of the areas useful for the construction of an effective KF, both to ensure the completeness of the work and also to give scientific basis to administrative ambitions, which today must necessarily be achieved with an outdated municipal planning tool that dialogues poorly with the most recent superordinate plans (such as the Regional Landscape Plan, the Hydrogeological Plan or the Forest Management Plan) and with national and European directives.

Numerous fieldworks, guided by the technicians, in which the emergencies of the territory, whether positive or negative, were met and were also useful to become acquainted with the intangible heritage that characterizes every territory, from historical traditions to the customs of the inhabitants, which then turned out to be decisive in the construction of a clear image of Fondi and the life that animates it.

Of great importance, for the content and bibliography provided, is the current GRP, in force since 1973, which contains not only the prescriptions and ambitions set half a century ago but also a description of the territory from the eyes and with the words of the 1970s, providing a cross-section of life in and around Fondi of a time that can now be deduced only through scattered traces.

2.2.2. Provincial, Regional and National Level

To enrich the already vast database provided by the municipality, it was useful to consult the info-geographical portal of the Lazio Region [22], from which decisive information was drawn for the systemic organization of territorial planning [23], particularly in the definition of the regulatory context and the environmental and landscape contexts, combined also with the study of the provincial plans of Latina and sectorial studies, such as the Plan for Forest Structure Management (PGRA) and the plans and programs promoted by the District Basin Authority of the Central Apennines. Also rounding out the set of most authoritative sources is the consultation of analyses conducted by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), which has provided useful information for understanding the socio-economic status of the area.

Among the materials collected from these sources, the one that had the most influence in determining the direction and reliability of the research was the Regional Territorial Landscape Plan (PTPR), approved in 2021. This document contains a wide range of information useful for the understanding, first, and management, second, of the regional territory, reporting the protections and ambitions of the whole of Lazio in a single and homogeneous language. Through three layers of analysis, called Tables A, B, and C, and the PTPR collects, in order, landscape types (distinguished by the three macrogroups: natural, agrarian and settlement), constrained areas to be protected, and lastly, constraint proposals. This last table’s ambitions within the national normative panorama is certainly not taken for granted as it intends to anticipate more local and prescriptive instruments and collects all elements recognized as valuable features of the territory but which, as of now, do not fall within the list of those protected by law. The very existence of this elaboration guarantees these elements’ dignity and value but also gives rise to the deepening of their reference system (cultural, environmental, etc.), which can thus find itself augmented and structured in a more solid and recognizable framework.

2.2.3. Other Sources

In order to enhance and branch out the reference database that would guide the research, data and materials from sources unrelated to official bodies were also considered useful and integrated into the study. This additional sampling of publications, including ancient essays [24], both in-depth historical [25,26] and thematic [27,28,29], collections of postcards [30] and hiking guides [31,32], ensured opportunities to reflect more deeply on components of the territory, in the phase of defining the overall ambitions of the study, that could not emerge in databases that are defined as “official”. Thus, from this, additional bibliographic collection, words and feelings of the inhabitants of the municipality, perceptual analyses of those who visit or promote it, as well as mythological and folkloric anecdotes have been captured, which, although they are not able to change the technical scientific analyses that such a work nevertheless entails, they do manage to ensure an even greater understanding of the identities that intertwine and amalgamate in this place, helping to define the innate directions of transformation inherent in it in a more focused way.

3. Method

3.1. The Regional Design Approach

To accomplish the understanding and combination of the different faces that make up the territory, the principles proposed by the Regional Design (RD) have proved fundamental. This approach, born as a reaction to the now manifest inability of large-scale plans to respond to the new and increasingly pressing needs of the population and of the different territorial areas, bases its processes on the awareness that the administrative limits (within which, as a rule, the Plans, of classical settings, impose and define their directives) poorly dialogue with all the flows that animate the territory within them (transportation systems, water, energy, commerce, information infrastructure, and also local identities, associations, traditions) [33]. There also arises the need to know and interpret all the “immaterial” aspects and values that are unique to each place that constitute its identity; thanks to this type of reading, each territory, or portion thereof, is enriched in its specific roles and positions with dignity and value, and in its specific roles and positions, which concerns a far more complex mosaic of territorial mechanisms.

To convey the complexity of which place becomes the bearer, the RD relies on a new mode of representation with abstract features that are, now more than ever, in line with the dissolution of roles and forms and that are increasingly evident in our cities and countryside. The functional dissolution and hybridization, the extinction of the form follows function paradigm, and the disjunction of the relationship between the two terms have helped create a new field of research [34]. It is based on a dynamic mode of depiction, capable of capturing future developments through a visioning process [35,36], and is enlivened by debates with stakeholders [37,38] about shared territory [39] and suggestions, thus finding a strong link with the activity of planning, which is seen as a tool for persuasive storytelling [40,41]. Thus, the concepts of percolation, density and porosity take over, moving away from the principles of hierarchy, seen before as the only possible form of organization, and toward a field of horizontal and diffuse relationships, stimulating different ideas of modernity. The descriptive form chosen to narrate the territory, therefore, adapts to the transformations taking place in the territory, which, insofar as they are undefinable and purely concrete, find correspondence in the tool of concept and diagram [42].

An example of the application of these principles can be found in Florence’s 2017 Metropolitan Strategic Plan (MSP) [43], which bases the future ambitions of the Tuscan Metropolitan City on a much more qualitative than quantitative reading. Within this tool, the different parts of the territory are no longer unpacked based on political boundaries, but rather through rhythms [44], figures with uncertain boundaries and changing meanings, with the specific purpose of not dogmatically fixing the (unattainable) intrinsic characteristics of the areas but rather, exclusively, of interpreting their trends and transformations. Through the reading and representation of the various indices that describe the territory (urbanization, infrastructures, ecological network, etc.) “areas” were defined, with blurred and overlapping boundaries, which, due to marked peculiarities, went on to define ten rhythms, each of which is fundamental in the constitution of harmony, seen as the only element to be safeguarded to protect and increase the resilience of the entire metropolitan city. Thus, in this context, although areas with faster and less fast rhythms emerge, there is no indication of any process of speeding up the slow ones, which are not interpreted as “less”, but as “other”, [45] since, exactly as in an orchestra, they too turn out to be fundamental in the identity definition of the metropolitan city of Florence.

Although the RD approach was developed to study realities larger than a single municipality, the process of analysis and interpretation proposed by the RD offers itself nimbly at the smaller scale as well thanks to the recourse of the theme of identity, which is conceptually applicable to both a large territory and small areas or individual buildings [46]. By conceptually deconstructing a place and entrusting the narrative of that place to a graphic solution devoid of edges and value/defect relationships, the subplots of territories and the life that animates them can thus emerge. Even phenomena that by definition are considered negative, and for this reason should be eradicated, (squatting, crop abandonment, crime) are observed understood, as much as possible, in this interpretive analysis; even before asking how to remove them, there is a need to know why and how they were formed.

A mode of research is thus proposed that, with a holistic approach [47], welcomes within it as much study material as possible, in the certainty that every factor or action that influences a small part of the territory, as it unfolds and repeats itself over time, also influences all other factors and actions. The recent events related to the pandemic and war conflicts corroborate this thesis even more, and it has been shown that the urbanized and non-urbanized world move based on interconnected rhythms and factors, capable of transforming each other. The RD, therefore, aims to recount these interconnections, giving each part of the complex mosaic, in which all territorial realities are structured, equal value and prominence so that they can finally concert in a set of strategic visions for future development.

3.2. The Construction of the Knowledge Framework

As already introduced, the research followed the RD approach, which gives the design the dual role of a descriptor of the present and a prefiguration of possible futures. This dual character is particularly relevant from a scientific/operational point of view in the construction of a KF, allowing it to be capable, of overcoming the analytical question, which is normally understood as the only component of this document, by providing an interpretative and synthetic restitution that aims to shape the various parts of the territory, analysing them in their singularities and their mutual inseparability. Through this kind of reading, the different scales and components on which territory is structured are interconnected by multiple levels of analysis and suggestions but brought back to a system of their own, thus ensuring effective communicability of the results of the study.

Starting from the documents required by Departmental Circular No. 11,302 of 25 September 2000, which is the regulatory reference of the Lazio Region regarding the new implementation of GRP and listing the minimum contents of new cognitive frameworks, the research reorganized the required information into five Systems: Environmental System; Settlement System; Socio-economic System; System of Vigorous Planning; Landscape System.

Each system is summarized in a final synthetic document that is entrusted with the task of gathering the outcomes of the previous analysis of the territory in order to hold its main peculiarities. Specifically, the summary papers are Environmental Structures of the Territory, Settlement Centralities, Relationship between Territory, Settlements and Infrastructure, Transformability Map; Micro-Landscapes Mosaic.

The structuring of the KF into five Systems, the list of documents falling under each System, and the final synthetic documents constitute the operational outline described in detail in the following sections.

4. Results

4.1. Contents of the Knowledge Framework

As anticipated in the methodological section, the construction of the KF followed the need to respond to the requirements of Departmental Circular (DC) No. 11,302 of 25 September 2000, which dictates the guidelines for the realization of GRP, general variants and punctual variants, within which the list of necessary administrative acts and technical documents are defined. In the case of the realization of KFs, in Chapter II-Technical Processes, concerning L. 1150/42 and R.L. 72/75, Criteria to be observed in the formation of municipal urban planning instruments, and 28/80, Norms concerning squatting and the recovery of spontaneously sprung building nuclei, we learned of the need for the composition of a report and graphic documents, as report the following table.

The first observation made in response to the list of required documents concerns the strong homologation of different themes, which are found to be described within sometimes broad and generic and at other times very specific documents, resulting in documents that have little dialogue with each other and, above all, are complicated interpretations by non-technical readers.

The required documents were therefore collected into four thematic groups, which take the role of the backbone of the Fondi KF, named as the Systems [48] of the Fondi territory (

Table 1. List of the required documents by regional law.

ID	NAME
1	Territorial Framework
2	Main geomorphological features of the territory
3	Areas under hydrogeological instability
4	Areas under hydrogeological constraint
5	Framework of the GRP forecasts on the graphic elaborations of the Territorial Landscape Plan (PTPR)
6	Framing of GRP forecasts with superordinate planning instruments
7	Aerophotogrammetry
8	Land cover
9	Areas and properties of state property
10	Areas of special naturalistic importance
11	Relationship between land, infrastructure network and the settlement structure
12	Agropedological map
13	Identification of homogeneous territorial zones “A” and “B”
14	Equipment
15	Elements that appear likely to be safeguarded
16	Identification of squatter cores
17	Planimetry of the municipal territory showing the existing state of affairs
18	Road network and other communication and relationship systems
19	Focus on built-up areas

). The 19 documents are thus redistributed (

Table 2. Redistribution of the required documents in the four systems.

ID	NAME	SYSTEM
1	Territorial Framework	Settlement System
2	Main geomorphological features of the territory	Environmental System
3	Areas under hydrogeological instability	Superordinate Planning System
4	Areas under hydrogeological constraint	Superordinate Planning System
5	Framework of the GRP forecasts on the graphic elaborations of the Territorial Landscape Plan (PTPR)	Superordinate Planning System
6	Framing of GRP forecasts with superordinate planning instruments	Superordinate Planning System
7	Aerophotogrammetry	Environmental System
8	Land cover	Environmental System
9	Areas and properties of state property	Socio-economic system
10	Areas of special naturalistic importance	Superordinate Planning System
11	Relationship between land, infrastructure network and the settlement structure	Socio-economic system
12	Agropedological map	Environmental System
13	Identification of homogeneous territorial zones “A” and “B”	Superordinate Planning System
14	Equipment	Socio-economic system
15	Elements that appear likely to be safeguarded	Superordinate Planning System
16	Identification of squatter cores	Settlement System
17	Planimetry of the municipal territory showing the existing state of affairs	Environmental System
18	Road network and other communication and relationship systems	Settlement System
19	Focus on built-up areas	Socio-economic system

) in such a way as to facilitate their consultation during the process of both composition and approval of the general variant to the GRP and on other occasions.

The Systems into which the CQ analysis tables are thus broken down are the following:

• Environmental System (2, 7, 8, 12 and 17), for a total of 5 documents;
• Settlement System (1, 16 and 18), 3 documents;
• Socio-economic system (9, 11, 14 and 19), 4 documents;
• Superordinate Planning System (3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13 and 15), 7 documents;

Once the Systems were established, they were evaluated according to the level of depth guaranteed by the 19 documents, and consequently, aspects worthy of further study and research were identified; the need thus arises to add further analyses that can ensure a more authentic and ramified restitution of the current state of the Municipality of Fondi.

The documents, from the required 19, increase to reach the a total of 41, which together also make up a new additional System—that of Landscape. Moreover, the framework of the KF is thus being defined, to which a recognizable graphic design has been attributed, capable of better guiding and orienting both the technician and the casual reader (

Table 3. Documents composition of five Systems.

SYSTEMS	MAPS AND DOCUMENTS
Environmental System	1.1 Altimetry 1.2 Slope 1.3 Geology 1.4 Lithology 1.5 Pedology 1.6 Land cover 1.7 Water system 1.8 Forest system 1.9 Permeability 1.10 Plan of the mucipal area 1.11 Aerophotogrammetry 1.12 Environmental structures of the territory
Settlement System	2.1 Territorial framework 2.2 Historicization of building sites 2.3 Abacus of urban fabrics 2.4 Abacus of abusive households 2.5 Mobility network 2.6 Analysis of practicability 2.7 Settlement centralities
Socio-Economic System	3.1 Population distribution 3.2 Services and equipment 3.3 State-owned areas 3.4 Production areas 3.5 Relations between territory, settlements and infrastructures
System of Vigorous Planning	4.1 Landscape constraints 4.2 Civil uses 4.3 Historical–cultural protections 4.4 Landscape–environmental protections 4.5 Hydrogeological constraints 4.6 Hydrogeological risk 4.7 GRP analysis 4.8 Analysis of the 2013 Beach Use Plan 4.9 Analysis of the 2009 Acoustic Zoning Plan 4.10 GRP–PTPR comparison 4.11 GRP–other Plans comparisons 4.12 Map of trasformability
System of Landscape	5.1 Mosaic of macro landscape 5.2 Natural landscapes 5.3 Agricultural landscapes 5.4 Settlement landscapes 5.5 Mosaic of Micro Landscapes

).

The work is completed by the KF Report, which is also structured according to the outline and graphic palettes proposed by the five Systems, of which it serves as a summation.

Each of the five is defined by an almost consequential order of content (from national to local, from the vast area to the single point) or by a sectorial order (natural–anthropic, places–activities) to help those who will interface with the study in the search for the single topic, without, however, ever losing sight of the complexity in which one fits and to which it relates.

Each System—which is proposed as a coherent folder of data—is concluded with System Synthesis [49], that aims to describe the peculiarities of each System in an outline design while also giving value to the intangible elements that define the potentialities and criticalities of singular places. The transcription within the KF of these elements—which may be urbanization trends, incidence of forest fires, or agricultural land abandonments—is intended to serve as a bridge towards the construction of the future GRP, thus providing guidelines and keystones on which to position future territorial political actions.

Therefore, the partition into Systems proposed in this research is divided as follows:

1—The Environmental System consists of all the analyses that are useful for in-depth knowledge of the territory at the morphological and ecological level, studying its specific components and mutual relations. It is structured in analyses relating to soils, their coverage and use, as well as the flows and directories that act on them. The objective is to provide a complete picture of the plots and subplots that have generated the forms of municipal territory, thus being able to identify a hierarchy of functional elements to be safeguarded and protected in a future perspective of resilience and adaptability to natural and anthropogenic changes.

It consists of:

1.1 Altimetry; 1.2 Acclivity; 1.3 Lithology; 1.4 Geology; 1.5 Pedology; 1.6 Land cover; 1.7 Water system; 1.8 Forest system; 1.9 Permeability; 1.10 Planimetry of the municipal territory; 1.11 Comparison of areophotogrammetry; and 1.12 Summary of environmental structures of the territory.

2—The Settlement System addresses the issue of urban settlements and communication networks. This is perhaps one of the most complex systems to recount due to the strong territorial dispersion to which the settlement cores are traced, which in this area take the name of contrade. As for the phenomenon of squatting, this system aims to identify and interpret the morphological nature of the urbanized, collecting it in documents that break it down and recompose it into different formats and scales.

It consists of:

2.1 Spatial framework; 2.2 Historicity of building sites; 2.3 Abacus of urban fabrics; 2.4 Abacus of squatter cores; 2.5 Mobility networks; 2.6 Walkability analysis; and 2.7 Summary of Settlement centralities.

3—The Socio-Economic System is based on the previous systems, which analyse the natural and urbanized territory, respectively, and goes on to study the complex actions in these territories on which they take place and depend. It therefore analyses the value of not only cultivated areas, interpreted as productive, but also state-owned areas, seen as the tools the municipality already has and on which it can relaunch itself.

It consists of:

3.1 Population distribution; 3.2 Services and facilities; 3.3 State-owned areas; 3.4 Productive areas; and 3.5 Summary of the relationship between land, settlements and infrastructure. Part of the socio-economic system is an annex containing studies on the vocations and potential of the Fondi area.

4—The System of Vigorous Planning aims to provide a complete picture of the planning instruments that insist, with their specific regulations, on the municipal territory. The in-depth study of the 2021 PTPR and, in particular, Tables B and C, made it possible, in the first instance, to conduct a reconnaissance of the main constraints and proposed constraints present in the area, and, in parallel, to delve into and locate the numerous prescriptions and directives for the many elements and areas of considerable value present in the Municipality of Fondi. Of great use, among the sources used, were the Hydrogeological Structure Plan (PAI) for the identification of areas at risk of hydraulics and landslides, Beach Uses Plan (PUA, 2013) for the definition of the development lines already established for the coastal area, the Acoustic Zoning Plan, the PTPR, and the 1973 Fondi GRP, which was studied by comparing it with the planning instruments that have emerged in the years since its adoption.

The corresponding summary table has the dual objective of summarizing the main regulatory emergencies, thus defining the invariants of the territory, and clearly understanding which of the current GRP’s predictions are still possible, which is in line with current planning levels.

It consists of:

4.1 Landscape constraints; 4.2 Civic uses; 4.3 Historical–Cultural protection; 4.4 Landscape–Environmental protection; 4.5 Hydrogeological constraints; 4.6 Hydrogeological risks; 4.7 Analysis of the current GRP; 4.8 Analysis of the 2013 Strand Utilization Plan; 4.9 Analysis of the 2009 Acoustic Zoning Plan; 4.10 GRP–PTPR comparison; 4.11 GRP–other Plans comparisons; and 4.12 Validity of the current GRP.

5—The Landscape System lays its foundation on the regional subdivision of Lazio’s landscapes and has the ultimate goal of graphing and making the prescriptions and directives more easily readable and identifiable that are attributed to each landscape by the PTPR. The PTPR’s Norms document made it possible to define the levels of protection for each land component, and a subsequent reconnaissance work placed them on paper, dividing them into elements to be safeguarded from any risks and to be restored. The system consists of one map, called the Macro-Mosaic of Landscapes, in which the landscapes as defined by the PTPR are shown, and three others in which the three macro-groups into which the PTPR divides the landscapes are treated in detail: natural landscapes, agricultural landscapes and settlement landscapes. Finally, as a summary paper, there is the Landscape Micro-Mosaic Map, in which the directives belonging to the three macro-groups are summarized and interpreted at a spatial scale.

It is divided into:

5.1 Mosaic of macro landscapes; 5.2 Natural landscapes; 5.3 Agricultural landscapes; 5.4 Settlement landscapes; and 5.5 Mosaic of micro landscapes.

The listed documents, based on their content, the scale of detail chosen as appropriate, and the level of depth achieved can be presented in different formats and representative modes:

-

Cartography on A0, at 20,000 (Figure 2), 10,000 or 5000, for spatial analysis

-

A4 sheets, at detailed scales, for point elements and specific areas

The decision to distribute the papers within these five Systems and the attribution of a specific graphic design for each also allowed for more comprehensible cataloguing of the data, which can better guide and orient both the technician and the casual reader.

The work is completed by the KF Report, which is also structured according to the outline and graphic palettes proposed by the five Systems, of which it serves as a summation.

4.2. The System Synthesis

To bring together and order the results of the analysis of each System, each of them concludes with a synthetic elaboration that follows the aim of capturing the emergencies and anomalies that have emerged.

Each System Synthesis presents its language and goes beyond the analytical value to highlight the subtext behind each information layer, identifying a crucial value therein for the future design phases of the new GRP.

4.2.1. Territorial Environmental Structures

The map after the Environmental System (Figure 3) aims to define the load-bearing characteristics of the municipal territory, that is, those that are to be accumulated [50] and highlighted over the course of the previous analyses belonging to the system. The characteristic and structuring components of the municipality are thus brought out, with the clear definition of the wet, mountainous and hilly environments, compared to that of the system of cultivation that has shaped the land over the centuries, which has adapted it to the needs of the people who have cultivated and exploited it. Through the delimitation of these compartments and networks, future operations on the territory can be conducted with the critical awareness that realities insist on the municipality that can only escape the rigid administrative perimeter and that, therefore, will necessarily have to be studied in dialogue with other neighbouring municipal realities, thus also providing the basis for the stipulation of future pacts, both collective and concerted, of management and transformation, such as River Contracts [51] and forms of associationism [52].

4.2.2. Settlement Centralities

This document aims to close the Settlement System (Figure 4) through the identification of the different identities present in the area. Fondi is a municipality that has historically seen its population, and consequently its built-up area, concentrated exclusively around its main town. With the completion of the reclamation works on the plain, which took place in the years immediately following World War II, the municipality was provided with new and extensive land to devote to agriculture. It was here where, amid these large crops, new nuclei began to spring up and expand, which today define small agglomerations and hamlets, with their own and perceived identity and substantial autonomy, that all bear the vice of unplanned and previously studied building and witness the unbalanced distribution of services and subservices, the ineffective connections offered by the road network, and the very numerous scattered houses.

The elaborate Settlement Centralities, which use a unique language and scale appropriate to each case, bring out the identities that are latent today through excerpts from previous cartographies and interpretive readings, giving the settlements a renewed recognizability and value [53]. In the morphological–interpretive analysis in particular, which is taken as the conclusion of each centrality, the settlements, which are now difficult to delimit and identify (given the processes that generated them), are given a hierarchy of spaces that are identified on the basis of concentrations of services and inhabited cores. The streets that these density peaks face are then labelled as main, distinguishing them from those that have connection value with other external centralities (defined as secondary) and from those defined as “neighborhood” that have the sole purpose of connecting small nuclei and scattered houses. Mineral surfaces, or artificial prevalence in general, are distinguished from cultivated areas, whose relationship with the built-up area in this territory has been decisive in the formation of urban fabrics, while voids (white) are given the task of narrating an absence of anthropisation, which can be translated into uncultivated slopes, forests or grasslands.

The ultimate intention is to make people reflect on the many microidentities formed spontaneously through unconventional fabrics and buildings by employing a conceptual shift [54] that pushes to re-evaluate and integrate them into the overall identity of the municipality. It is also proposed as a fundamental basis of inspiration for future decisions and actions of the future lines of development and areas considered as social centralities, such as parishes and sports fields, but also little walls where it is the habit of locals to sit and meet.

4.2.3. Relationship between Territory, Settlements and Infrastructure

As a synthesis of the Socio-Economic System, this map brings together within it the relational subplots between the spheres of inhabitants and workers, and how these are interwoven in the network proposed by the local road system and the distribution of services and work areas. What emerges is a map capable of telling the gaps and potentialities of specific areas, their degree of reachability and traversability according to the concentration of areas on which different interests gravitate.

The resulting mosaic, in its objective restitution of data, is intended to assist in the design of the general variance through the identification of those areas in need of increased services or means to reach them, by their substantial population or concentration of work and trade areas.

4.2.4. Transformability Map

In order to close one of the most crucial systems in the facilitation of the strategic phase and transformations, this map intends to convey, more than the others, the possible directions that future spatial decision-makers can take [55].

By carefully analysing the current Plan, with its variants realized or only planned in the last 50 years, and the standards indicated by superordinate plans, among which the PTPR stands out as one of importance, the map gives each area its gradient of transformability. The reflections from which the specific gradient is generated take the forecasts of the GRP as a reference base, focusing in particular on those that have not yet been realized and that, today, must necessarily be confronted with the new indications on the use of landscapes, with the presence of new constrained areas or areas that are now built up illegally. Thanks to these parameters, it has also been possible to locate some areas that, although outside the original forecasts of the Plan, lend themselves to possible transformations, both in terms of regulatory compliance but also by a possible future process of redevelopment of the territory, through acupunctural and strategic designs [56]. The map, in contrast to the areas of great transformability, also inserts the element of enduring structures [57], interpreted as those parts of the territory that over the centuries have remained mostly unchanged, which has aided in determining the general structure that gradually formed and transformed around them.

Thus, the result is a map with a dual language; on the one hand, it identifies and incentivizes the transformation of the territory, recognizing in dynamism an essential key to vitality and habitability, and on the other hand, it fixes other areas with the force of immutability, which instead can guarantee value to the area in which they arise only thanks to their static presence. The transformability map also takes into account the socio-economic analysis of the area and the study of its vocations and potentialities.

4.2.5. Micro-Landscape Mosaic

In an overall image, the summary map of the Landscape System encapsulates the graphic transposition of the Norms that the PTPR defines for the landscapes, into which it divides the regional territory. The previous maps of this system break down the areas analysed based on the three landscape types (natural, agrarian and settlement) and study them by comparing the prescriptions for use and transformation, which the GRP establishes, with the actual land use and land cover of the municipality. Thus emerges a classification of areas based on their compliance with regulatory principles, in which the new colouring given to the lots—from green to red—and distinctions in groups—Elements to be safeguarded, Areas to be restored, Risk elements—returns the actual adherence to the superordinate plans (summarized in Figure 5).

The need to produce these cartographies stems precisely cause difficulty in making two urban planning instruments, the GRP in force and the PTPR, which are born almost fifty years apart, communicate with each other, in a municipality where, moreover, the study of the territory is approached through documents that, although meticulous, poorly communicate with each other. The PTPR itself, because of the limits imposed by the vast scale in which it necessarily sets its studies, cannot claim to have studied the individual peculiarities of each area within the municipality, which has meanwhile addressed and absorbed the natural flows that traverse and transform every landscape (Figure 6). Intangible flows, bundles of tensions through which the landscape, including the anthropogenic landscape, are shaped and interrelated; though intangible, they establish margins with which human and ecological processes relate continuously.

Given the previous considerations, the Mosaic of Micro-Landscapes intends to shape, together with the Regional Norms regarding area management, the flows that, with uncertain margins and continuous overlaps, form the overall picture of the relationships that exist between landscapes, thus seeking to bring out and giving dignity to each ecosystem. The Charter does not have critical attitudes, but exclusively interpretive ones, in which flows are analysed from the aspect of disturbance, are seen as the level of relationship with other landscape types, the density of these relationships and diversification. Thus, through this process of graphic simplification and the interpretation of spaces, the identities of the territory are to be highlighted, making recognizable the patchwork of landscapes and, above all, the margins of contact between the different components (agricultural, natural, settlement), which are all the more jagged the more the patches are small and distributed. This reading aims to direct future planning policies in adhering to those processes that, though intangible, have defined and will define the conformation of the landscapes of Fondi.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

The research work has produced the Knowledge Framework of the Municipality of Fondi, which traces the complexity of the territory from which to draw future decisions.

The visualization of the multifaceted identities of places thus becomes, through this research lens, the ultimate goal that an instrument that undertakes to manage the life of a community, such as a new planning tool, will have to aspire; therefore, by detaching itself from the static forms of representation of the old instruments, it will have to try to embrace and identify that dynamism proper to each environment.

In summary, through this research work, the research work the “unpacking” of territorial knowledge into specific themes and sub-themes can be recognized to guarantee a non-trivial deepening of the interweaving of stratifications and interrelationships that the Italian territory proves to have today as a result of the millenary action of man and nature, that cannot be recounted with general choices of analysis, and that do not consider the intrinsic components of the study area, even if they were found in the individual interpretations of its inhabitants. The descent and ascent of the scale, the subdivision into parts, the definition of the lines of tension that animate the land and the actions that take place there, and the search for the margins are tools used to provide the municipality with a total picture of the territory, made up of not only material but also immaterial components, that is interdependent and, for this reason, worthy of taking part in future decisions of territorial government and management.

Based on the research experience, a summary of the principles around which study and elaboration were structured, is proposed:

• Consistency with regulations, which must be sought both in relation to the tools already adopted and on which the research is based, and in consideration of the process in which a tool, such as the KF, fits;
• Homogeneous restitution, in order to homogenize layers of information that, although open source or easily accessible, can be found in different forms (scale, source, format, restitution mode, sources) and, consequently, do not have immediate mutual communicability;
• General approach based on the systematization of the territory, which, now compartmentalized, is easier to study and allows for more in-depth study, facilitating the next two points;
• Communicability, to be entrusted to a language and representation capable of involving even non-technical readers and to be sought in a recognizable graphic format that is also useful to distinguish the Systems;
• Insight, as a constant and always expandable goal;
• Interpretation, also expandable in countless forms, crucial both for providing inspiration and fields of debate for future decisions on the territory, and also during the research itself, which saw an opportunity to reformulate or deepen other analyses in the interpretive process.

While the first four points can be said to be finished in their definition (coherent/inconsistent, homogeneous/inhomogeneous, etc.), the last two, on the other hand, are fields that can always be considered open to new elaborations and research. From this consideration, we see both the main criticality of the research described and an important potential of it. It is necessarily true, in fact, that a paper that relies on the interpretation of nonquantifiable data can never confidently say that it is definitive, complete or right, but, on the other hand, it is also true that merely highlighting certain aspects that have never been previously studied can produce opportunities for debate and corrective adjustments that, within an ongoing process, can contribute to the increasingly clear narrative of the territory under study.

With the ultimate goal of reducing the criticality of this approach while at the same time enhancing its potential value, the KF could be structured even considering the point of view of various stakeholders in the study area. Several techniques have been discussed in the literature to include stakeholders’ points of view. Among those supporting experts (expert panels, Delphi Method), and in general citizen participation (Stakeholders analysis, beneficiary analysis, workshops, focus groups). Another focus is placed on the questionnaire method, which can be effectively integrated with the abovementioned techniques [58]. Through the abovementioned techniques implemented, e.g., social surveys, questionnaires or workshops that focus on the individual perceptions of citizens, it will be possible to further visualize the relational substructures and thus be able to either channel and exploit them, if possible, or rest on them so as not to come into conflict—in either case, to the benefit of the overall integrity and identity of the territory. In short, participatory processes, typical of the planning stage, can be also activated in the process of forming the KF, which, in this key, are no longer seen as a deterministic and exclusionary tool, but rather as a means of collecting, amalgamating and interpreting the multifaceted identities to which each territory has bore witness, both today and in the past.