The Image of Historic Urban Landscapes: Representation Codes

According to the UNESCO 2011 - Recommendations on the Historic Urban Landscapes, the historic urban landscape (HUL) is the urban area understood as the result of a historic layering of cultural and natural values and attributes, extending the “historic center” concept to include the broader urban context and its geographical setting. Representation of historical environments, documenting their typological components as a pattern book (landscape, architecture, textures, materials, and color), is devised to encourage a strategy of valorization. Explanation of landscapes' values through its benchmarking, consists of several mapping actions and adoption of tools: 3D modelling, environmental mapping, places representation. The chapter presents a strategic process based on local character assessment through a place-visualizing toolkit from documentation and color representation to design coding: visualization of landscape' values and multimedia survey pipelines implementing processes, methods and tools for the narration of tangible values and intangible assets.