Who knows why, when we talk about landscape, we are unconsciously convinced that it is firm, immutable, almost frozen in a vision that each of us elaborates according to his own self and his own memories. Therefore, speaking of transformation or of a “landscape project” can provoke reactions of rejection or in any case of distrust; while, on the other hand, the landscape is always in motion, it transforms, alone or, as much more frequently, with human intervention. Who, like it or not, intervenes in its process: understanding this is fundamental to understand what its mechanisms are – geological, morphological, climatic, pedological, social, historical, cultural, and all the various possible aspects that generate it – in order to be able to insert it, and operate not “against” it but “with” it.
Certainly the fundamental rule not to be mistaken is sustainability, a word used and also abused inappropriately, but with an ounce of mental honesty we know what it indicates and what it foresees. Sustainability means modifying it with actions that maintain its constitutive characteristics, do not upset its equilibrium, and place themselves in that range in which its resilience guarantees transformations that do not impoverish it, do not pollute it, do not distort its fundamental lines and indeed , enhance it and promote its identity characteristics, placing it as a happy synthesis of nature and culture.
If there is a rule that must be respected and which guarantees the goodness of our actions is that of “circularity”: borrowed from nature, in which all processes are circular, that is, they do not produce scraps or waste that are not themselves part of that immense and continuous production process which is called life. Therefore, referring to circularity and sustainability, we can be sure not to make mistakes and also free ourselves from stereotypes and conditioning that harness our desire to do, sometimes even projected so forward, as to scare the most conservative, those who have seen havoc and destructions by anthropic hands, and precisely for this reason they have acquired an attitude that to say prudent is an euphemism, but which in essence is of rigid immobility on any transformation or action that modifies what in the collective imagination is the landscape. Still, immobile and stale.
We can therefore imagine to intervene on what is a “landscape” par excellence, such as a coastline, a coast, always thinking in terms of circularity and sustainability, to envision actions that can simultaneously solve a problem, respect the place, save energy, re-introduce products and processes in the circularity that nature has taught us and at the same time promote an enhancement of that landscape.
Let’s take the problem for example which occurs constantly, since we are firmly clinging to the earth of the volcano, of the ash of Etna. A natural product, moreover very rich in fertilizing elements, which has qualitative properties suitable for multiple uses, and which, instead, is collected with annoyance and reluctance in plastic bags and then “disposed” in landfills. Now apart from the various uses on which we will not dwell – however, the University is already working on them – we are instead aiming for a quick and immediate idea that does not involve transformations, but only simple operations. The word “sand” already refers to the beach, and we have some examples of lava sand beaches, here in Sicily but also elsewhere.
By moving forward in understanding the processes who supervise the formation of the beach, whose duration is infinitely greater than that of human life, we can hypothesize to “accelerate” the times, intervening as in a very fast sequence. The whole Ionian coast that goes from Riposto to the Catania Cliff is characterized by a lava geomorphology of various kinds, corresponding to the various flows that over the millennia have crossed the territory and stopped in the water, to the processes of disintegration of the rock that due to the erosive and smoothing action of the elements, they have been transformed into rocks, pebbles of various sizes and sizes, gravel and sand. Sand, in fact. The final product of mineral disintegration, of shells and of organic and inorganic materials, of erosion, of transport and sedimentation, which can last even millennia, is sand, whose final appearance and color are precisely determined by the starting constitutive characteristics.
So the black beaches are those formed by the degradation of lava materials, as well as the white ones or the various colors of the golden textures, from sandstones, quartz, limestone materials, organic shells of animals that feed on corals, etc.
Now, hypothesize that the sand / ash of Etna, collected and adequately cleaned of impurities, stored in logistically located sites in the territory, can be used along the Ionian coast, according to a landscape architecture project that obviously is inspired by the natural geomorphological conformation , following its lines and not forcing the skyline, but creating small shores and beaches in lava sand with it, would it be so difficult to pursue? So shocking? Or rather attractive, bringing about an ameliorative change both of the places, for their accessibility, and of sustainability, instead of defacing the roads with plastic bags first and then increasing the flooding of landfills, and also starting an economic induced that would derive from it. ? First of all with the savings achieved due to the fact of not paying the exorbitant tariffs of the landfill, then in environmental terms whose price is difficult to quantify, but it is equally easy to understand, and finally in bare and raw economic terms: a square meter of beach is worth about 2000 euros, (estimate made by companies that deal specifically with this) for the services and the economy that it manages to generate.
In the rendering, this is how a stretch of coast between Acicastello and Aci Trezza would look, but we can also imagine these small beaches as black pearls that dot the lava coast, offering opportunities for use and enhancement compatible with the sustainability and circularity of natural processes. .