Medaus and furriadroxius

Tratalias, Medau Cisella - Foto da PNRR Architettura Rurale

Born to guard the soil and dominate water resources, the Medaus have for centuries been the beating heart of an immense and complex territory, which has always been rich in resources, a land of foundations and innovation. Farmhouses whose essential forms are based on the repetition of the elementary building cell from time to time arranged to form low dry stone walls, doubled in depth and width to constitute rural courtyards, semi-open work spaces connected in an absolute mix between housing and production functions. Often founded by transhumant shepherds coming from the mountains, these architectures represent the total adherence of man to the landscape, built using the materials that the

earth offered.

From desolation to recolonization: the origins of the scattered habitat
After the settlement crisis of the 14th century, which had almost eliminated inhabited centers, Sulcis remained an “empty of villages” for centuries. As highlighted by the French geographer Maurice Le Lannou, Sardinia's settlement history has been dominated by the search for security and land control

“The essential concern in the history of Sardinia, the one that in particular has had a decisive influence on the structure of the rural habitat, was, therefore, the concern for security. It was during the 15th and 16th centuries that the peripheral regions of Sardinia experienced maximum desolation. Sulcis is also deserted: the large village of Iglesias and the villages of the sheltered part of Cixerri are the most populated neighboring centers.”

Starting in the eighteenth century, the recolonization of Sulcis started precisely from these dispersed rural habitats, driven by the exploitation of the spaces left free in peripheral regions, by the conditions of internal misery and by the search for an autonomous economic model based on the family cell instead of the traditional community. The story of this dispersion is configured as a socio-cultural redemption in which the only point of reference was the

surrounding landscape.

Settlement types: Medaus, Furriadroxius and Boddeus
The organization of the Sulcitan rural space is divided into different housing models linked to the productive vocation and the progressive growth of the nuclei:

Medaus: Small self-sufficient units of 5-6 building cells with a predominantly pastoral and two-family vocation that, over time, have grown to become villages, sometimes also hosting essential services such as elementary schools (now abandoned due to depopulation). The term derives from the Sardinian madàu, linked to the sheepfold and the shelter of cattle, and often took

the name of the founding family.

Furriadroxius: stable single-family settlements with a peasant and agricultural vocation, based on autonomous cells strongly rooted in the direct management of the fund.

The Boddeus: During the 19th century, the tendency of families residing in the Medaus to congregate around ancient rural churches gradually gave birth to administrative units known at the time as Boddeus.

Morphology and self-sufficiency of spontaneous architecture The inspiring principle of
the medau lies in the model of the self-sufficient nucleus, placed at a distance from others outside of any formal economy of space. The choice of settlement never produces a compact habitat, but it prolongs the dispersion in a form of “fraying” of the center that widens without

ever losing its reticular dimension.

Architecture stems from minimum survival requirements within family relationships, avoiding the strict rules of urban buildings. The Sulcis medaus demonstrate the extraordinary ability to constitute a local system in which goods and services are not simply produced, but the community itself is reproduced, through an architectural idea that enhances economic and social growth linked to the agrarian and pastoral landscape

Update

10/9/2026 - 11:31