Recognising landscape transformations: a minor historic centre as a palimpsest to investigate for enhancement strategies

Reflection on the built landscape, as a stratified palimpsest in which natural, anthropic and cultural elements are interwoven, represents an essential key to interpreting the historical, social and environmental dynamics that shape territories. Within this framework, small historic centres offer a privileged test-bed for investigating the interaction between the natural environment, the built fabric and the daily life of communities, revealing sensitive balances and relations that have settled over time and are now often undermine by increasingly rapid transformations. The paper describes a research developed within the iNEST (Interconnected Nord-Est Innovation Ecosystem) project, focusing on the historic centre of Piazzola sul Brenta, in the Veneto landscape, as an exemplary case of integrated reading of the built landscape. The centre, known for the monumental presence of Villa Contarini but also for a minor urban fabric rich in memory and stratifications, is analysed as an expression of the continuous dialogue between natural and artificial elements, with particular attention to the relationship between settlement forms and territorial transformations. Combining data on community’s perception and integrated surveying methodologies, a three-dimensional virtual space is modeled, integrating in one tool quantitative and qualitative information. The research approach - based on an integrated reading of the territory, historical knowledge, direct observation and community involvement - is therefore intended to offer a methodology that can also be replicated in other similar contexts, promoting multidisciplinary and analysis of historical traces as key for future actions