Rural Buildings and their Integration in Landscape Management

If we accept that any project which brings about a change within a given area can--at least potentially--produce an alteration of its landscape, then it is clear that redevelopment and even more so the construction of new buildings can, both singly and jointly, result in significant transformations. It is therefore necessary to preventively evaluate how any building project will affect the appearance of the locality in question, i.e. whether it will enhance or detract from its landscape. The general problem of landscape quality must be taken into account at multiple stages and levels of the rural building design process. This means that considerations relating to the architectural quality of the rural built environment, and its interactions with the landscape, are complexly interwoven with the theoretical and practical scientific research in this field, and with the disciplines of land management planning and statutory regulations. The paper suggests a conceptual model about the relations among such domains, underlining their strengths and weaknesses and quoting current and ongoing methodological approaches. The paper performs thus a critical analysis of the role played by scientific research in rural building design, also by means of a critical review of the state of the art in the field, and discusses the main fields of research activity pertaining to the analysis of the landscape structure and to the formulation of design models of rural buildings satisfying requirements of landscape quality. The theoretical analysis of the above-mentioned relations, supported by specific closer examinations, also considers their effects on the final outcomes of the design process.