Il contributo delle pavimentazioni all'identità locale dei nuclei rurali

In the rural villages on the hills and on the mountains of Liguria and lower Piedmont the paths, the open spaces, the courtyards, often derived from a patient human work to use a hard territory, represent – even from the perceptive point of view – the inseparable legacy between the human settlement and the landscape. Besides the apparent homogeneity of constructive techniques of the pavements, every kind of stones – depending also on the unique context – is linked to different kind of work, has various “behaviour” in relation to external agents and, overall, is positioned on specific soil, following the local tradition. The paper aims to offer a view of the different external pavements of the rural villages, with particular attention to: geometry and morphology, materials and ways to treat the stones and their surfaces, disposal to gutter the rainwater; current conditions of decay and structural disease and analysis of their causes, guidelines for the maintenance, repair, integration and new interventions, especially in cases of new demands for use. stone pavement, rural villages, constructive techniques, maintenance, repair.