UPLanD - Journal of Urban Planning, Landscape & environmental Design
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Seismic and energy retrofitting of residential buildings: a simulation-based approach
Full text linkThe topic of the high seismic vulnerability of housing stock in Italy is back again at the center of political, economic, social and scientific-technical debate following the seismic crisis that struck Marche, Umbria and Lazio regions in 2016. These events have once again raised the need for a massive retrofitting program at National and Regional level, addressing the majority of the existing building stock, realized for 60% prior to the adoption of the first seismic code (Law 64/74), in a territory characterized north to south by high levels of seismic hazard. In recent years, different kinds of tools have been implemented to allow the simulation of natural hazards’ impacts on the built environment and to support strategic choices both in the field of emergency management and resilience-based urban design and planning. Nevertheless, an integrated set of instruments for a quantitatively informed decision support is still missing.Within EU-FP7 CRISMA project, an integrated DSS (Decision Support System) application has been developed, with a set of tools and functionalities addressing the main aspects involved in the decision-making processes for natural hazards preparedness and response
RED: hazard, vulnerability, exposure
Full text linkUPLanD intend to promote an interdisciplinary approach to town and regional planning, landscape and environmental design as an effective form of the governance - sustainable and eco-efficient - of processes for the protection, enhancement and development of urban contexts. The first issue, entitled RED, intended to bring attention to the topic of risks in built and natural environment. Risks are a consequence of hazards, but also and above all, of vulnerability and exposure. But, while hazards are usually part of the environment, exposure and vulnerability originate from three main reasons: ignorance or underestimation of hazards; the belief of being able to managing to their effects; the indifference towards a distant and hypothetical risk as compared to an immediate and concrete benefit. Today the development of adequate policies, the improvement and sharing of best practices, and a careful design research are essential to deal with risks. The very recent seismic events in central Italy furthermore demonstrate the need to immediately focus on the topi
The Regeneration of minor historical centres: Neighbourhood Agreement II in San Lorenzo Maggiore (Benevento)
Full text linkoai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/9The contribution shows the methodology and investigation carried out for an intervention of regeneration/valorisation in one minor historical centre within inner Campania Region in Benevento province. These processes occurred during complex programmes and, in particular, during the development of the so-called “Contratto di Quartiere II” (= Neighbourhood Agreement II) (MIT announcement 27/01/2004) in synergy with a PRUSST named as “Calidone” and Benevento Municipality as the lead.The aim of Neighbourhood Agreement II was the revitalisation of a relevant part of the neglected historical centre of San Lorenzo Maggiore Municipality; this was financed by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport in 2004 by means of 5.5 million Euros committed for interventions of experimental regeneration of the historical urban fabric and in conjunction with the acquisition of several buildings by the Council, intending to provide 28 ERP houses and relevant services
Climate change, urban vulnerability and adaptation strategies to pluvial flooding
Full text linkIn the study of impacts that multiple extreme events (natural and human) can produce on ecosystems, phenomena related to weather and climate changes represent a relevant, but not new, threats for human settlements, which have always faced with changing environmental and weather conditions. However, human activity of territorial alteration that took place over the centuries represents a disturbing action to the natural system, which requires new design approaches.The construction of buildings and spaces with impervious surfaces and the introduction of specific activities in urban areas have altered the natural hydrological cycle. The combination of these anthropic features with the increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events determines substantial impacts on built environment and population. In relation to this, it is necessary to work starting from the knowledge of the vulnerability characteristics of the affected systems, in order to implement suitable strategies and measures able to enhance a system's ability to adapt to change
Risk Economy: the effectiveness of urban supportive policies for the safety and resilience in town centres
Full text linkAccording to the theories of Campos Venuti in the 1980s urban planning went from a mainly expansive approach to a new one centered on transformation processes. The 1990s and the first decade of the new century saw the disintegration of disciplinary boundaries with the pairing of urban policies with social, fiscal, environmental and finally ecological ones. Today, with such themes we pair emergency ones that require immediate responses, in as far as they are intimately connected to the safety and quality of urban life. The very recent seismic events in central Italy demonstrate the need to directly involve the built heritage in a securing process. The scarcity of resources and the need to govern such practices in a coordinated way that is also respectful of the values at hand gives the matter a urban planning dimension above all.This article is an account of a research on the subject that was conducted at the Federico II University in Naples. The thesis is that solutions to the unsafety of built environment is to be found in public-private partnerships, in a collaborative approach based on urban policies and concrete incentives
For a territorial organization with variable geometry
Full text linkMotivated primarily by the need to control public spending, law 56/14 Measures for metropolitan cities, provinces, unifications and mergers of communes, led to a new institutional architecture of the State, but also to non-negligible impacts on governing territories of a large area.It is obvious that regions, provinces and municipalities intersect in their spatial and demographic dimensions. However, when one wants to review a layout for general reasons, and — perhaps — for the sake of simplification, one cannot exempt it from an assessment of the geographical and demographic realities of the real Italian territories. Investigating territorial planning functions for the coordination of the Provinces is of crucial importance. The reform, for now incomplete, does not seem to have solved the historical weakness on the planning level for boundaries that are not yet well defined. The ability of new institutional architectures to grasp the dynamics of large areas remains to be proven
Ghost towns and housing discomfort: the landscapes of risk in Italy
Full text linkMany reasons can lead people to abandon their roots, the places they inhabit. When the abandonment of a place turns out to be a mass phenomenon, the reasons are related, in most of cases, to the concept of risk, a term that has different specificities depending on the context.The risks, whether of natural origin or related to human factors, are therefore the determining factor of the configuration of the landscapes of abandonment.The study of the ghost town phenomenon, an extreme phase of the housing discomfort phenomenon, or an effect of a hazard occurred, helps to better understand the scenarios of the risk to a territory, departing from the facts on the ground rather than from hypothetical scenarios, and by relating the hazard contexts with the values actually lost.The landscapes of abandonment in Italy constitute an objective and widespread condition of lost assets, of risks that have happened. Their comparison with the probabilistic hazard maps (anthropic and structural), through a new perspective
Community-Based initiatives in post catastrophe scenarios: potentials and limitations to academic involvement and “Learning by Doing”
Full text linkCurrently the disaster risk management framework is overcoming the purely technical and financial dimension in order to include the social, cultural and environmental spheres. This shifting towards a more holistic perspective calls to develop strategies of emergency and reconstruction management that consider the social acceptance of the interventions respecting the identity of the affected community and their material and immaterial heritage. Ten years of experience in “design-build” initiatives dealing with emergency and reconstruction after catastrophes, is investigated in this article as a good practice of inclusion of population needs in post-disaster process. These range from good-will volunteer reaction turned spontaneously into disciplinary work due to lacking institutional capabilities, to scaling-up of teaching formats to non-profit, community related intervention. The experience underlines the pedagogic and research potentials, as well as the logistic hurdles, the limitations of prototype escalation and the barriers posed by lack in public policies or adequate institutional frameworks. The practices are discussed to support a prospective development of the proposed approach to outline a possible integration of the design-build methodology and the service learning as a bottom up practices in the current framework of emergency and reconstruction
Antropic origin of diffusion of phitopatogen agents. Some best practices to counter the fallout in economic-productive, social and cultural scope
Full text linkMan has always tried to control nature and to take possession of its resources; at first he did it in a prudent way, taking care only of his maintenance, but then he did it in a wrong way because of the insistent requests of global market.The upheaval of the old and respectful relationship between man and land has caused serious and irreparable consequences.This article wants to analyze and to understand some causes of this break, and the effects of the diffusion of phitopathogen agents in agriculture: the Xylella fastidiosa bacteria in the vineyards of California before, and then in the olive groves in Puglia (Italy) the insect Dryocosmus Kuriphilus which has damaged the chestnut trees in Italy, the cedar apple rust, which attacked the apple trees in Virginia, the Moniliophthore roreri which attacked the cocoa production in Latin America.The most important matter is that these threats and their effects are unforeseeable and they can’t be solved through isolated actions, but only with the integration of different strategies, using the instruments of the scientific research and the Knowledge, with a traditional planning