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Abstract

When it speaks about suburbs, small towns nestled in the mountains, villages among the fields, it thinks about the elders, taking for granted that the young people have gone away, as if modernity brought immediately the idea of movement; but it is upon staying that we need to reflect, and upon coming back. With a different practice of places we must begin, making a new imagination effort to consider on one hand the people being there, staying, the young people ready to make great sacrifices to remain, on the other hand imagining a new architecture for ancient places, triggering a positive chain through a territorial project, apt to generate modernity, sustainability and a better life. The work here described is the result of an agreement between the Department of architecture, University of Naples “Federico II”, and the Gal Partenio for an investigation pointed at drafting Guidelines for the development and the enhancement of the Gal villages. In this on site experience there has been a close confrontation with the communities, with young people living here and not meaning to go away, enthusiastic and desirous to struggle for the future of their country. The actions that are identified and proposed are the result of a mixture of endogenous and external factors. All of this is essential to understand the enormous potentialities contained in a project aiming for new forms of networked territoriality, through a reflection about the relationships between nature and culture, modernisation and protection.