Shifting Landscapes. Progetto di un archivio territoriale per le pratiche agricole vernacolari della bassa pianura padana

This thesis investigates a section of the contemporary lower Po Valley (near Bologna, Italy) as a deeply transformed landscape, shaped by centuries of hydraulic engineering, agrarian practices, and urbanisation. Through a multiscalar and interdisciplinary methodology, the research reframes this territory not as an empty productive surface, but as a dense palimpsest of ecological, cultural, and technological layers. Starting from the concept of Shifting Baseline Syndrome, it explores how the mechanisation of agriculture since the 1950s has led not only to the material erosion of the cultural landscape, such as piantate, rice fields, and marsh-based economies, but also to the loss of collective memory and identity. The analysis unfolds across three scales: XL, L, and M, eventually identifying La Malvezza estate in Medicina (Bologna) as a site to further explore design research on possible future territorial overwriting, focusing on the documentation and critical mapping of a disappearing landscape. Drawing on archival maps, aerial imagery, fieldwork and iconographic analysis, it traces the erasure of minor ecologies and cultural markers that once structured this landscape. Vernacular elements such as sacred trees, seasonal agricultural rituals, and marshland architectures are interpreted not as nostalgic voids, but as tools for understanding the ecological intelligence embedded in past forms of inhabiting the plain. These mappings aim to reassemble a scattered memory, making visible the historical discontinuities and spatial violence that have shaped the current condition of the territory. Ultimately, the research calls for a renewed alliance between agricultural production, biodiversity, and memory. It reframes the plain not as a finished landscape but as a space of negotiation, where mapping and interpreting become critical tools to reveal what has disappeared, and to reimagine cohabitation across species, temporalities, and vernacular knowledge.