The Street and the Block: Reading the Transition in Rimini, Italy.

“An urban block is defined as that part of the city formed by three half counties with a marginal building on each street and typical hierarchies between the formative routes (matrix route, building layout route and connecting route)”. Starting from Gianfranco Caniggia and Gianluigi Maffei in Lettura dell’edilizia di base, it is possible to define the object of the study in the context of the Italian historical centre urban regeneration: four urban blocks in Rimini’s compact fabric. The main formal character that defines this urban structure is the buildings’ conformation and road network surrounding and crossing the block. The study’s sample selection belongs to the four blocks’ narrative capacity with the rest of the town for their stratification and mixture of different urban typologies. For these reasons, it is possible to reflect on the logical expressive complementarity of two orders of characters: open/closed and compact/porous. Building/road relationships define the block within the urban environment and the hierarchy of the paths. The specific problems of the block in the urban context emerge as these relationships change. Subsequently, the permanences and permutations of this particular morpho-typological structure become evident. This research aims to analyse the transition of four blocks to trigger urban regeneration mechanisms.