Atlas for the Medina

This book proposes an ecological urbanism framework for the Medina of Tunis, approaching it as a complex urban landscape that operates beyond the bounds of formal city-making. Moving beyond preservation-based readings, it draws on Richard T.T. Forman’s theory of land mosaics, in which landscapes are structured through patches and corridors within a matrix, extending it to integrate both tangible and intangible dimensions. In dialogue with Félix Guattari’s concept of the three ecologies, the book introduces additional categories, webs and clouds, to account for social and subjective conditions. The resulting framework provides a tool for analysing other urban landscapes, linking spatial form with social and ecological processes. Through written and photographic essays, interviews with residents and research by the Critical Landscapes Design Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the complexity of the Medina emerges.