Research model for farm building design: General structure and physiognomic characterization phase

Abstract

The design of contemporary farm buildings often subordinates architectural quality and aesthetic features to economic aspects, thus leading to poor landscape consistency and compatibility.  The research presented in this paper is based on the theoretical principle that historic rural buildings, being expression of an accumulation of empirical knowledge broadly associated with high architectural quality, have remarkable potentials to contribute with useful elements to the design of contemporary buildings, and on the awareness that the design process is also necessarily and substantially determined by technological, economic and functional variables.  The paper presents the FarmBuiLD model (Farm Building Landscape Design), a research model proposed by the authors as a tool for the analysis of the architectural characteristics of both historical and contemporary rural buildings, as well as the meta-design of new construction and transformation of contemporary rural buildings.  In particular, the work focuses on the general structure of this model and a synthesis of the main results of the critical analysis of the scientific literature aimed at identifying a set of synthetic architectural parameters suitable for its implementation, through the interpretation of the main physiognomical characteristics of rural buildings.  These parameters are not meant as a tool to obtain quantitative data to be translated into design constraints automatically; on the contrary, they are mainly considered as an interpretive-analytical tool, part of a broader knowledge framework aimed at supporting, stimulating and suggesting the design choices.

Keywords: Rural building design, historical-typological consistency, landscape compatibility, architectural quality, analytical and meta-design criteria, Italian rural building heritage

Citation: Tassinari P, D. Torreggiani, S. Benni, and E. Dall’Ara.  Research model for farm building design: General structure and physiognomic characterization phase.  Agric Eng Int: CIGR Journal, 2010; 12(1): 47-54.