**Author details**

*Design of Cities and Buildings - Sustainability and Resilience in the Built Environment*

seem too much for defense as well as for semantic reasons.

and the Mediterranean Basin.

Inferiore), and a confirmation of the emperor's personal contribution as the leader of the 6th crusade, bringing the Jerusalem holy places under Christian control. The plausible intention of goodwill towards the Muslim world, the probable and significant astrologic input in the design of the castle, and the most probable sacral, social and political message gives this monument a complex and multilayered content, as intriguing as his design mixes the geometric and the arithmetic canons of Europe

The design draws two concentric octagons, with an open courtyard at the center and eight small octagonal towers at each corner of the external perimeter. Based on a possible (but not sure) metric unit of the 'imperial foot' of 0,52 m, the side of the overall circumscribed octagon signs (again) 40 feet and the ca.54,60 m diameter of the circle circumscription is to convert into the number 54,60: 0,52 = 105 feet, which indicates the particular arithmetic sequence of 105 = 1x3x5x7 i.e. the product of the first uneven prime numbers. The plan design is strictly squared in all particularities (**Figure 8b, c**). Each of the two floors is divided in eight trapezium-form rooms, covered by a central cross-rib square vault and two triangular side vaults. The parallel with the 'Dome of the Rock '-temple is evident as also this one is designed as a double concentric octagon signing the same overall diameter of 105 feet or ca. 55 m, what supports the hypothesis about a conscious imitation in Andria. A further connection with Islamic architecture is given by the slim-line corner-towers reminding the typology of the 4th century square towers alongside the byzantine defense wall round Constantinople, although the octagonal towers at the Andria-castle do not

However, any further comment on a probable metric modulation or other design parallels are hindered by sufficiently controllable historic and metric information about the initial composition (this last aspect hampered by the lack of net interior dimensions as all inside decorative marble wall-cladding has disappeared, what makes authentic reliable measuring impossible). Further research is needed.

The above mentioned small selection of architectural and structural characteristics illustrate the impact and extraordinary image building capacity of the ancient design procedures and the role of semantics and symbolisms. The Vitruvian maxims on a.o. ordinatio, analogia, symmetria, euritmia [1], as well as the Pythagorean semantics on quantity, harmonic numbering and arithmetic sequences were the guiding criteria in the historic design; this same criteria became universal quality indicators by which also modern designers can be inspired in the choice and the definition about the form and the geometry of their project. Recent E.U. research programs [25] have proved in several occasions the possible input of heritage building analysis by digital modeling; the application of similar techniques and algorithms might be reversible and be introduced in creative new design.

Sustainable architectural construction means not only an economic or utilitarian driven concern but implies a at least as important social and humanitarian assignment. The quality of contemporary projects, and the long-term guarantee for visual and functional quality in the built environment will certainly be enriched by a design which is not looking for eye-catching artistic effects, as this last ones change with the wind, but by a comprehensive design based on the universal human scaled

modulation of all times, with a simply legible semantic communication.

**168**

**5. Conclusion**

André Frans De Naeyer Faculty Design Sciences, Conservation Built Heritage, University Colleges Antwerpen, Belgium

\*Address all correspondence to: andrefransdenaeyer@gmail.com

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