UPLanD - Journal of Urban Planning, Landscape & environmental Design
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Recycling disused railways. Towards a new integration between mountains and cities in the Bergamo territory
No full textBetween the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the "Seriana" and "Brembana" valleys territories were affected by the construction of two railway lines which ensured a strong interaction with Bergamo and supported the economic and social development of the city. After decades of intense activity, these mobility services have been interrupted and the railway structures abandoned, producing two extensive "linear voids" in the territory and in the local economic system. A different role for this abandoned infrastructure emerged in the 1980s after the increase in private mobility and the rise of new institutional debate about alternative transport models.
This contribution aims at presenting the case of the Bergamo Valleys Railways and will deal with both the reuse of a particular category of unused spaces and with the international debate from which the concept of greenway emerged as a possible approach for the enhancement of the disused railways.
The case is significant both for its aptitude to show a strong synergy between mobility systems and territories, and in witnessing an approach to the "recycle" of disused railways typical for the Italian context
The intelligibility of the drawing: still on the territorial machine
No full textThe territorial machine is conceived as a drawing that represents a geographical system regulated by the forces of nature: the currents of water, the path of the icy winter wind and the spring breeze. The machine is the repository of history consisting of permanence and immanence, as well as reminiscences of architecture’s past. It allows us to recognize and value places, and to understand their signs and relationships, without the authority or formality expressed by considering them through the specifications determined by the scale-based representations based on the sequence of the design outputs. The reproduction of the lines, in proportion, of the drawings that intend to observe every single part as related and connoting all the others is considered as an unfolding, a reading of a set of tracings, of facts that are repositories of knowledge, coming from territorial, morphological and architectural experiences that are different, yet still similar. This takes place in the tables of a topographical manual in which the geometric-graphic categories of the countryside, the meaning of the agricultural and agrarian program, and the historical urban settlement that responds to the forming structure are represented, as well as the natural hydraulic works and the temporary architectural constructions. The territorial machine is a text, a place of inscription, of prescription, of erosion of the signs and therefore of values for which the community itself is responsible
Towards a climate proof redevelopment of Naples waterfront
No full textThis work proposes a reflection on one of the emerging themes of spatial planning: the redevelopment of waterfronts, outlining, in its approach, the need for extreme sensibility to the impacts of climate change.The analysis introduces a temporal reconstruction of the practices and principles that have oriented the city and its relationship with water, as well as the management in government activities of the territory, related with this relationship.Starting from the case study represented by the waterfront of Naples, the work aims to define an exportable and replicable approach. The final goal is to implement a requalification able to re-updating the relationship between waterfront and territory and, at the same time, to consider the issue of climate change in relation to the impacts produced in these areas. This new approach can generate redevelopment and become an opportunity to regain a lost relationship between urban fabric and sea. Furthermore it’s an opportunity for an overall economic and managerial reorganization of the urban- metropolitan areas. The work, aware of the complexity of the theme, present the case of Naples as emblematic of the contemporary challenge for innovative planning based on an integrated and climate proof approach, able to combine synergistically the reality of the city, the coast and the sea in a framework of territorial sustainability and climate resilience
Soils’ tales, recycling beyond death. The Parco Cimiteriale di Poggioreale towards possible extensions
No full textThis paper presents the results of a research carried out in Belgium, France, Holland and United States about the destiny – foreseeable or possible – of heterotopias, a huge 19th and 20th centuries architectonic and cultural estate heritage.The twentieth-century city was built through the addition of different settlements, which were strongly functionally defined and laid out. The heterotopias of deviation were built among the elements composing a “city of enclosures”. The earth, beginning and ending of each thing, is saturated: even its underground is saturated and its layers have absorbed dross and wastes of all kinds. In metropolitan territories, there is a continuous production of waste. To the larger and larger production of waste an answer is given by previsions that tend to consider re-cycling phases of different kind, flexible and long-lasting times and procedures, possibly first temporary and then permanent.This research has helped defining a project proposed as an alternative to the II Stralcio Funzionale of the P.U.A. for the cemetery system of Poggioreale in Naples. The proposed alternative consists in extending the Parco Cimiteriale di Poggioreale into the former psychiatric asylum Leonardo Bianchi in Naples. By adopting densifying, recycling, mixing functions as main criteria for a project related to a huge legacy of both material and immaterial kind of heritage, the “T’era Park” proposal aims to enhance the “notes from underground”
The impact of climate change on local water management strategies. Learning from Rotterdam and Copenhagen
Full text linkCities around the world, as highly anthropized areas, are negatively suffering the impact of climate change. The awareness of intergovernmental and national institutions, has allowed the development in recent decades of policies and strategies for the reduction of climate-changing gas emissions in the environment, through the implementation of adaptation and mitigation actions, in order to implement local actions aimed at managing the different problems arising from the effects of climate change in the cities. The characteristics of the urban environment amplify the effects of climate change, sometimes with disastrous consequences, especially on people. Among the phenomena that have most direct effects on the population, extreme rainfall and pluvial flooding put the safety of people at risk. Water management has thus become one of the most addressed topics in local adaptation policies and strategies. The objective is to investigate policies, strategies and plans for adapting to climate change by the cities of Copenhagen and Rotterdam, in order to understand the implementation processes and identify environmental climate adaptive design actions as best practices to be replicated in others urban contexts relating to the water management issues, to define an urban system of spreaded actions on the surface of cities to make them climate proof
Organic waste management through anaerobic digester technologies in urban areas. A multicriterial predesign tool to support urban strategies
No full textThe daily production of waste within urban areas represents an opportunity to transform its organic fraction in biogas through anaerobic digestion, but until now it has not been studied and considered as an applicable urban solution. This paper presents a part of the results achieved in the research named “Smart Biogas Grid”, study conducted with the aim to investigate the perspective for the realization of small-scale anaerobic digesters to produce biogas exploiting bio-waste produced in urban areas. While the scientific technical literature on biogas is deeply investigated, experiences and literature for urban context are poor with only few cases and prototypes. Starting with the presentation of a case pilot of anaerobic digester realized in Camley Street Park in London, UK, the paper goes beyond the only technical and technological aspects, considering the role of non-technical features of anaerobic digester installation and providing a transversal analysis to focus on the architectural and urban planning consequences. It emerges the need for a multi and inter-disciplinary approach that can find in the support of early design tool and useful instrument to help in organizing and managing the contents proper of different disciplines; the tool presented in the paper has this purpose. Through a multi-criteria decision analysis, statistical data, features of the urban areas object of intervention, the tool defines a set of solutions, which can contribute in the activation of strategies of waste prevention, energy utilization and community awareness thanks to people/stakeholders engagement at different scales. The result is a decision-making tool useful to direct pathways for socio-technical transition from a district to the city scale, supporting the definition of urban local strategy to the creation of anaerobic digesters in urban areas, in existing as well as in new settlements
Addressing Italy’s urban flooding problems through the holistic watershed approach by using blue/green infrastructure
No full textWater resources have been neglected and stressed for many years, as anthropogenic changes in watersheds have increased runoff, decreased infiltration and aquifer recharge, caused stream incision and streambank erosion and degraded water quality and water resources. The watershed is the management unit to begin to solve stormwater problems and flooding issues. Reversing the mismanagement from the past is a complicated process and must consider a holistic approach factoring in all the processes that cause the aforementioned problems. There are many technological tools such as GIS and hydrologic, hydraulic and water quality models that help pinpoint the sources of problems in the watershed and help derive at a comprehensive solution. The objective of this paper is to provide researchers and practitioners a systematic, methodical and proven approach to documenting and solving water management issues cause by unmanaged anthropogenic changes that have occurred in rural and urban watersheds. There are many regulations and literature about flooding and watershed plans with very detailed guidelines composed by state authorities, however, there are few that completely address the comprehensive, inclusive approach to watershed management to solve a variety of problems. For example, the State of Pennsylvania, USA has separate flood plain management, stormwater management, erosion and sediment pollution control and nonpoint discharge and elimination system (NPDES), and water supply / wellhead protection programs and regulations as opposed to one single “water resources management” regulatory program. This paper defines an innovative approach to overcome some of the restrictions placed on engineers and planners by regulatory programs
The use of rainwater in Alicante (southeast Spain). A new urban approach to urban water management
Full text linkThe Mediterranean Spanish coastal has witnessed since the 1960s a spectacular increase in residential construction and beach tourism. This process has led to an increase in water consumption and greater risk of flooding. This is related, on the one hand, to the increase in population and housing and, on the other, to the occupation of risk areas. The aim of this research is to show and examine the importance and potential that rainwater has in the hydro-social cycle in the city of Alicante for increasing water supply for certain uses (watering gardens, street cleaning, etc.) and mitigating flooding. Databases from the local water company (Aguas Municipalizadas de Alicante Empresa Mixta SA - AMAEM) have been analysed as part of this research. Interviews have also been carried out with the technical staff of the water company to collect data and qualitative information. The analysis highlights the interest in the city of Alicante for the adoption of green infrastructure to, on the one hand, reduce the risk of flooding and, on the other, increase the available water resources. Using rainwater would enable a reduction in the use of drinking water for certain municipal water uses, and reduce pollution and flood risk during storms
LANDSUPPORT, a decision support system for territorial government
No full textThe objective of LANDSUPPORT is the construction of a smart geoSpatial Decision Support System (S-DSS) , providing a powerful set of decision supporting tools – that will be open and freely accessible through the web – devoted to (i) support sustainable agriculture/forestry, (ii) evaluate their interaction and trade-off with other land uses, including spatial planning and (iii) support the achievement of selected land policies of both EU and UN agenda, with special emphasis to the key, “achieving a land degradation-neutral world” and climate change mitigation goals. By doing that, LANDSUPPORT will reconcile urban regeneration policy ambitions with operational reality addressing the often overlooked support for planning/management actions at the very local scale. In fact, only by this approach incorporating the local dimension it is possible to produce DSS tools to simultaneously fulfil all high demand ing specific challenges such as the evaluation of “land use trade-offs“, “incentivising real actions / behaviour / investments” contributing to “sustainable management of land resource” and considering societal needs. This is exactly what the high performing LANDSUPPORT integrated scientific approach promise to do, unlike the aggregated Territorial Modelling Platform already in use for the ex-ante evaluation of EC policies
Common Stocks: Intelligent Communities Enabling Platforms for peripheries regeneration
No full textThe huge stock of properties and territorial infrastructures that we have built in recent years, convinced that it was the most important development asset, capable of generating value, is today largely degraded, underused or dismissed. In Sicily, as in many other parts of Italy, some practices have allowed new spaces for public use and/or semi-public, and most cities have opened new development perspectives. This process of recycling seems to indicate a tendency to shift the development asset from real estate capitalization to a knowledge economy, in which abandoned assets offer themselves as enabling platforms for collective actions, space devices in which to channel innovation through recycling.This paper studies the process of common-stocks projects as part of sustainable strategies for peripheries regeneration. The study describes an empirical research conducted on the Sicilian case study of Periferica in Mazara del Vallo and investigates how overcoming the fragmentation of initiatives, guiding processes, recognizing, enabling and involving the subjects that bring innovation