InfrastructureProjectsandNewTerritorialSustainabilityBetweenProductiveLandscapesandCoastalTourismintheGulfofSalerno

Within the GRINS project, the DiARC UNINA research unit has investigated territories—focusing on territorial sustainability, infrastructures and tourism—that can be defined as part of the Intermediate Italy. These are neither metropolitan cities nor inner areas but rather landscapes where a fragmented urban fabric gives way to an agricultural landscape, dominated by farms, greenhouses and dotted with industrial and hospitality structures. Within this context, the Gulf of Salerno proves a particularly significant landscape. Bounded to the north by the Sorrento Peninsula and to the south by the Cilentan Coast, the gulf lies between two of the most tourism-affected coastlines in Campania. The in-between area features a low-lying shoreline, beyond which stretches a dense system of greenhouses. As such, mass tourism coexists with intensive agricultural production. Amidst this productive terrain, the project for the new Salerno-Costa D’Amalfi airport emerges as an eco-sustainable infrastructure whose architectural form draws inspiration from the surrounding greenhouses: this open, landscape-oriented design offers a new territorial hub. Within this framework, the study reinterprets a series of ongoing territorial projects highlighting potential development trajectories for the Sele Plain, aiming to integrate infrastructures, productive landscapes and tourism into a framework of relational connectivity rather than mere functional connection.