UPLanD - Journal of Urban Planning, Landscape & environmental Design
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107 research outputs found
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Urban growth, regeneration and social inclusion in Porto Alegre: the City Entrance Integrated Programme case study
Full text linkSince 1989 Porto Alegre has become an international reference for planning (UN Habitat, 1996) and regeneration practices associated also with the Participatory Budget process (Pacheco, 2001; Fedozzi, 1998), aiming at poverty reduction and social inclusiveness (Getúlio Vargas Foundation, 2004; UNDP, 2003; UN/UMP, 2003). Within the new city masterplan approved in 1999 the City Entrance Integrated Programme (henceforth PIEC) has been delivered since 2002 (Vargas, 2003; PMPA, 2014). The paper critically analyses the outcomes of the 4th District’s regeneration process and relate them to recent trends in terms of informal rapid urbanisation, social and ecological indicators.The findings highlight how, even though enjoying economic development and positive macro-economic trends, Porto Alegre is facing new or increasing challenges in terms of housing needs, informal urbanisation, social and environmental resilience. Unexpected internal people displacement, together with real estate speculation and the rise of new informal urbanization, provide a worrying picture of increasing inequalities across the city. The paper provides a reflection on the shortcomings and the fragility of the planning process, especially in terms of social and environmental impact, to draw some provisional conclusions and directions for further research activities
Industrial heritage and landscape. The role of water in the architectural reactivation of the Burgo Paper Mill in Mantua
Full text linkThe paper is part of a research project, carried out within the Polytechnic University of Milan about the Burgo Paper Mill, an industrial settlement involved in the production of paper near the UNESCO World Heritage site of Mantua, on the banks of the Lago di Mezzo lake. The area represents an exceptional case study related to the topics of industrial reconversion, landscape, environmental design, and the valorization of cultural and natural heritage. The recent change in the site ownership fostered a new life cycle, which represents the occasion for the enhancement of its architectural and landscape heritage. The research project focused on a new system of relations between architectural artefacts and open spaces, with a particular consideration about socioeconomic and cultural themes, as well as the role that water can play in the future development of the site. Water plays a key role in the definition of cultural and natural elements in this research project, revealing new possibilities for revitalization of the industrial settlement as well as the whole territorial framework. Between theoretical thought and design experimentation, pursuing to tackle the problem in its whole complexity, the authors understood the necessity of a multi-scalar approach structured within a time-based strategy
The regional cycle network for the redevelopment of Calabrian assets
Full text linkThe proposed theme concerns the possibility of integrating a new system of mobility to the enhancement of the historic, environmental heritage and landscape of the Calabria region. This necessity comes from an implicit need, which is to enhance and to promote a cultural and social use for the resources present in the territory and flows from new instances of a quality tourism that in Calabria, as well as in many other southern cities, require a careful search of new cultural desires with new destinations, which led to the discovery of products more rich of meaning and content, of authenticity, of identity. To promote a strategy that seeks the tools to activate the process of valorization of the urban asset of Reggio’s territory seems like a winning project. Today, under the pressure of territory government tools innovative and thanks to a different cultural approach, we are in the condition in which it is possible the recovery and restoration of the territory through the identification of strategies and projects that are able to introduce quality of connective space and cultural kind of services based mainly on soft mobility and the fruition of this asset
Hydroelectric power: architecture, water and landscape
Full text linkThis contribution wants to sum up some of the considerations developed during the research carried out for BIM of Adige - Trento Province Consortium of Municipalities - and ended on April 2016 with the conference “La città dell’Alt(r)o Adige. Esiti di un percorso di ricerca per il BIM Adige”.Research outcomes show a result – not a definite one - of a survey done with an across-the-board point of view of the disciplines that deal with the relationship between watercourses and human settlements. This viewpoint goes through the disciplines’ borders making the architecture and landscape project again a central focus among the most pivotal issues. This reflection begins with a phenomenon that has emerged with some urgency in recent years: the exponential growth of the demands for the creation of new lines and hydroelectric plants, especially small or very small. This new phase coincides with one of the most co) mplex moments of watercourse management due to the overlapping of distinct goals set by two different European Directives that are in conflict with each other: the need to increase the use of renewable energies (Directive 2009/28 / EC) and the need to meet the requirements for classification, protection and improvement of water bodies (Directive 2000/ 60 / EC). This theme becomes an opportunity to make wider reflection on the conflicts generated by the different uses of watercourses and the need to rethink them according to an ecosystem approach.For a wider discussion of the following subjects, please see the volume titled La città dell’altro Adige, of the same author, published by ListLab 2016
Water valued in green infrastructure designs and human behaviours: Ecocentric values and their acceptance by human beings
Full text linkDesigners are anthropocentric in their processes and final products; green infrastructure in cities expresses people’s relationship to the environment in terms of resource management primarily. The natural world is transformed into urban green arrangement for the economic and cultural benefit of humans. Most experts believe that by offering people the opportunity to participate in running and preserving certain ecosystems could have a very positive impact to human health and wellbeing. Environmental psychology suggests that we can provoke heightened experiences in people’s minds by designing dynamic flowing water patterns and deep ponds. Designed landscapes have always blended with built manmade environment in a dynamic way. Natural and artificial landscapes interweave with built marvels of human creativity; historic places and urban areas develop and blend in harmony with natural habitat. Most historical cities emerged along water sources as dynamic ecosystems. The authors of this paper discuss the importance of water changing culture and behaviours in both urban and rural areas with reference to some noteworthy case studies and instances across Europe and, in particular, in recent cases of renaturation of rivers
Indexing the Human-Nature Relationship in Cities
Full text linkSince the globalization of the world’s economy, there has been a surge in studies ranking international cities by quantitative indices. This paper examines various city indices and identifies the transition from an economy-centric approach towards a sustainability-oriented approach through the lens of those contributing variables used in different indices. The paper then introduces a new Biophilic City Index as a way to examine the human-nature relationship, i.e. biophilia, in cities. It is structured at three different levels: from nature service to ecological integrity to human-nature interaction. This index enriches existing city indices and encourages city planners and policy-makers to make cities more biophilic
Sharing Sustainability
Full text linkThe paper reports the results of a phase of the research Project “Sharing Mobility” developed by the authors at the Department of Architecture of the University of Naples "Federico II". The thesis is that sharing mobility can positively affect sustainability of Mediterranean metropolitan areas if implemented on a multiscale-multimodal approach strongly linked with the existing public transport facilities.In order to verify the results and the applicability of the proposed procedural model to the Mediterranean cities, after a review of literature and best practices on sharing mobility, it was also envisaged the preparation of a pilot project for the Metropolitan Area of Naples.The results, in confirming the thesis, show that the Metropolitan Cities, recently implemented in Italian institutional framework, can efficiently implement and manage sharing mobility better than any other well established public authority or little municipality
Cyanobacterial mats from the Carrizal, a geothermal spring pool in Mexico
Full text linkCyanobacterial microflora is very diverse in different habitats over the world and closely connected with the ecology of the habitat. In particular, extreme habitats are colonised by numerous specialised morpho- and ecotypes which are unique to these ecologically specialised environments. A variety of methods are needed to characterize cyanobacterial assemblages in thermal water environments. We report here on the community structure of the cyanobaterial mats at the hot spring of the alkaline ad low sulphide artificial pool of “Carrizal” (Villa Emiliano Zapata, Mexico). The most common organisms were Anabaena sp., Phormidium sp. and Pseudoanabaena sp. Some filamentous cyanobacteria showed a 98%-95% 16S rDNA gene similarity with Oscillatoria sp. and cluster together with other filamentous cyanobacteria from the thermal environments
Mediterranean Waterscapes. Identifying challenges and visions for the future of Campania coastal port-cities
Full text linkThe new challenges that port-cities are facing in the context of global recession, together with a sensible view towards sustainable development, offer the opportunity to reconsider the role of ports in urban areas. If the direct impact of port-related activities has measured a strong weakening, the presence of large port areas still produces strong repercussions on the urban compound.The paper aims to analyse the port-city relation in the Southern Mediterranean context, focusing on the highlight of valuable research-for-design characters. The restricted focus on the Mediterranean city is essential to consider common pre-existent natural conditions and evince the shared historical heritage of urban maritime identity.The selected case study is the metropolitan urbanization of Campania Region, analysed considering a multi-scale paradigm: the region’s Sistema Integrato Portuale, implying effects on the local-territorial scale, need an integrated view, especially considering the updated legislation of Port Authorities.The result will help to identify a set of tools and good practices for the design and planning of port areas, promoting the definition of an efficient infrastructural model, more respectful of the places’ identity and urban maritime landscapes uniqueness
The Spatial Politics of Diversity Discourses: Regenerating Croydon Metropolitan Centre
Full text linkDiscourses on diversity are increasingly criticised in many fields of public policy. This study draws on the example of regeneration in the Centre of Croydon, a diverse outer-London borough, in order to explore the role of diversity discourses in the imagination and creation of new urban spaces. A framework put forward by Fincher and Iveson (2008) is utilised, who contend that any local effort to plan for diversity should follow the norms recognition, redistribution and encounter. It is argued that questions on recognition are largely absent in the regeneration of Croydon Metropolitan Centre, and redistribution is discursively substituted by an individualised focus on economic opportunities. As such, discourses provide particular sets of rationalities about the influence and scope of planning as well as the imagination of new urban spaces. Nevertheless, counter common criticism, discussions and contestations about inequality are clearly on the agenda in Croydon. Top-down framings of diversity are contested and especially the strong politicisation of encounters between socio-economic groups provides the potential to develop alternative forms of socially oriented planning.