Abstract
The simultaneous involvement of aesthetic variables and economic, social and environmental objectives in urban design and planning is quite rare, and difficult to be implemented and interpreted within a local context. The top-down approach has been the most common strategy employed in urban planning, whereas sustainability principles call for more participatory methods. This study presents a design approach to the unification of archaeological sites in the town of Didimoticho, Greece, based on public participation and sustainability criteria. A fully structured questionnaire was used to define aesthetic parameters. Six options were designed and then evaluated by the local community. Thus, taking into account the local conditions, a list of Must and a list of Wants were established according to selected sustainability criteria, which are significant tools for the Kepner-Tregoe model application. The proposed methodology revealed the optimal design solution. This systemic participatory approach applicable to urban design and planning can be implemented in other cases as well.
Highlights
Being an integral part of a place’s natural and cultural heritage, landscapes play an important role at cultural, environmental, economic and social level
The aforementioned actions of the town residents related to the need of both safeguarding and upgrading the town’s historic and natural landscapes; on the other hand, the traffic problems caused by the narrow streets of the historic centre, lack of parking lots and the pedestrianization of the main commercial street without prior meticulous planning (Patsuridis, 2014; Sinapidis, 2006) made us have our research focused on the sustainable design of a pavement along the river as the best option for unifying the archaeological sites, namely the Roman town “Plotinopolis” and the “Kales” castle
The exploratory research aimed to identify the distinctive character of local landscapes as these were perceived by the town residents; in particular, it looked into the relationship of space and time through the collective and individual memory, and the interaction between people and historical and natural landscapes
Summary
Being an integral part of a place’s natural and cultural heritage, landscapes play an important role at cultural, environmental, economic and social level. These developments gave rise to the need to conserve and protect the holistic and complex character of landscapes; as a result questions are raised in relation to the concept of sustainability such as what should be preserved and protected, at what level and what the time span should be. This might pose a problem which local communities should resolve
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