There is a growing debate on whether agricultural land in urban fringe should be maintained or converted to other uses. While ‘pro-ruralists’ believe agricultural land conversion can threaten food security and cause rural-urban migration, ‘pro-urbanists’ find it a necessary change for transition from a primitive agricultural-based community to an advanced industrialbased society which has the c...

1 Functional Reuse and Intensification of Rural-Urban Context: Rural Architectural Urbanism Tiziano Cattaneo, Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy Roberto De Lotto, Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy Elisabetta Maria Venco, Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Pavia, Pavia,...

The rapid growth of the built environment has been pointed out as one of the major challenges to sustainability in the US. Low density “sprawling” neighborhoods represent the most undesired form of urban growth both for the waste of land and energy they cause, as well as for the lack of a “sense of place” they promote among their inhabitants. Several critiques to such type of urbanization have ...