What the Ground Says…

Underground-built heritage (UBH) serves as a 'threshold' between visible and invisible worlds, offering a unique lens to understand collective memories, practices, and values that shape territorial development. The study proposes that UBH can rebuild common links in fragmented environments by reviving the imagination of populations and fostering physical and mental perceptions of place. It explores how the cavities of geo-parks and underground mining architectures—fragments of a vocabulary yet to be relearned by communities—can emerge from shared stories, becoming vectors for new territorial coherence. The research emphasizes the need for a perceptual commitment to ground complexity, challenging traditional environmental sciences while offering hypotheses to reconstitute forgotten narratives.

Occhiuto, R. (2021). What the Ground Says…. Sustainability, 13(23), 13420. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132313420