Design of historic urban landscapes. Color as place-identity assessment and visualization

Design for cultural heritage includes theories, methodologies, and design techniques which encompasses the system of cultural heritage in its broadest sense addressing cognitive, social and symbolic meanings of an historical settlement. Documentation, representation and survey are able to converse with the multiple areas of design proposing “interpretative models” for the analysis and representation of historical, cultural, aesthetic and environmental significance of cultural heritage and of its tangible and intangible issues. Representation of historical environments, according to their typological components (landscape, architecture, textures, materials, and colors), is devised to encourage a strategy of valorisation. Explanation of landscapes’ values through its benchmarking, consists of several mapping actions: from 3D modelling to color representation and visualization. This paper presents a strategic process based on local character assessment through a place-visualizing toolkit from color representation to the design coding: visualization of territory values and quality through "acts of disclosure”, in particular, implementing processes, methods and tools of narration of tangible values and intangible assets. The contribution also aims to set a methodological model of reading, interpretation and narrative of a cultural heritage qualities; a visual catalogue that becomes meta-narrative on which to build subsequent pathways of activation and enhancement.