On the Margins of the Anthropocene. Landscape, architecture and sustainability

In the age of Anthropocene, landscapes, which are expression of the human glance of the planet, all too often reflect the galloping of uncontrolled transformations that give rise to continuous anthropised spaces, polarised around increasingly populated urban areas. In these huge extents of continuous human settlements (cities, agricultural and industrial areas), the fragile natural balances are compromised, highlighting the importance of new marginal territories of no current interest to man. They are not only reservoirs of nature and forgotten heritages to be protected, but also, at the same time, opportunities for experimenting with new settlement methods inspired by the principles of ecological transition. In the first phase, the research questions the spatialisation of the Anthropocene, trying to define, by subtraction, all those spaces that escape, to varying degrees, human control, proposing a classification inspired by Gilles Clément’s concept of Tiers Paysage. Subsequently, exploring the condition of margin as an opportunity to recover a dialogue of profitable coexistence and symbiosis between architecture and nature, the contribution focuses on marginal, transitory and/or hybrid spaces in eastern Sicily, in which innovative inter-scalar and inter-disciplinary design strategies based on a landscape approach are able to combine nature, minor or forgotten heritage elements and new human activities, pursuing sustainability objectives referable to the UNSDGs of Agenda 2030.