1,721,087 research outputs found
"La mobilità sostenibile:un toolbox per la valutazione dei progetti - Sustainable mobility: a toolbox for design assessment"
No full textThe increasing demand of the more and more complex mobility system cannot be met by a greater offer of space for private motorized transport. This stresses the need to make choices fostering the best match between different requirements for rapid and comfortable movements and chances of living in a healthy, pleasant and friendly environment. The real benefit in terms of “change of citizens’ quality of life”, due to interventions in the mobility system, seems a good parameter for evaluating their expediency first and efficacy later.
The European research “ASI – Assess implementations in the frame of the Cities of tomorrow” aimed at finding ways to make such evaluation. This volume, characterized by cognitive, theoretical and applicative aspects, deals with the phase the author was responsible for, devoted to develop a toolbox to assess QoL effects of various measures. In particular it describes, starting from the outcomes of the research previous phases, the methodology used and the criteria chosen for defining such toolbox, its structure and the indications for applying it, its test in a pilot study and finally the achieved results.
The innovative slant, highly interdisciplinary, reflects some angles proper of the Technology of Architecture sector: the design alternatives assessment, the quality control, the experimentation in terms of social and environmental sustainability, the requirement/performance approach and the consideration of specialization and participation together, in facing actual urban complexity.
The toolbox contains a set of instruments and methods, of quantitative and qualitative type, to consider, measure and evaluate properly several aspects of urban environment and life quality, in relation to mobility. The assessment is made on two parallel tracks, “measuring” objective aspects, that concern the evident life conditions, and subjective aspects, that represent the individual appraisal of such conditions, and then confronting them to depict a comprehensive, and then more reliable, evaluation.
The toolbox is formalized in enquiry fields, considering main requirement classes and foreshadowing a set of performances to be offered by the urban environment (accessibility, safety, security, comfort, cleanliness, appeal, "business" and liveliness), and in tools for looking into, measuring and evaluating the related main key indicators. To enable comparison, such tools are strictly related: guidelines, to survey and evaluate the urban environment objective aspects, and a questionnaire, aimed at finding out users’, and experts’, subjective perception and evaluation referred to such aspects. Specific methods have been defined for both evaluations and for confronting their results, reported to ranges, adjustable according to the reference values used for defining the thresholds. The analysis of the collected data is a key component of the process.
The detailed description of the key indicators, and of the related operational aspects, enables technical staff of the government offices and professionals: architects, engineers, urban planners, environmental psychologists, sociologists etc. to apply the toolbox directly in different local situations, in one, or more, of the three envisaged ways: before the devising and realization of a project, in order to target it properly, to know the priorities of action and to choose the right solutions; before and after the implementation, in order to guarantee and confirm its suitableness; after the implementation, for the validation of the prefixed goals.
The outlined toolbox was tested in the town of Umbertide, in the province of Perugia (I) before and after the construction of a cycle path. The data collected with the experimentation are illustrated by drawings, tables, graphics and schemes and are matched with descriptions and considerations on the used methods and the achieved results. A final in depth analysis of the results of the application demonstrates the potentialities of such operative tool
"Progettare un ambiente fruibile dalle persone anziane, senza difficoltà e con piacere: suggerimenti per linee guida dalla ricerca europea SIZE"
No full textLife span is greatly increased and therefore urban textures host more and more older adults; unluckily outdoor spaces are not conformed for their exigencies. In particular, when performing their everyday activities by walking, senior citizens have to cope with mobility conditions endangering their possibility to participate in outdoor activities and to lead an autonomous, independent life. This situation can make difficult integrating in society, can eliminate a stimulus to remain active and thence lead to a passivity that can affect health and induce greater isolation. Thus keeping older adults mobile is a goal of European policy. The European research “SIZE - Life Quality of Senior Citizens in relation to Mobility Conditions” analyses what enhances and what limits the mobility of senior citizens, which strategies are successful for improving the situation, how cities have to be designed for easing walking around.
The research is strongly interdisciplinary: architects, urban planners and traffic engineers worked together with psychologists and sociologists, being flanked by seniors’ national associations. The central part of the research was dedicated to individuate opinions of users and experts by various enquiry means (focus groups, qualitative and quantitative interviews). The recurrence of fears, barriers and quality of life indicators together with the importance of the solutions, were detected, with the aim of depicting a clear picture of the situation, more or less shared by the sample, in the eight involved countries, and of motivating action by responsible authorities.
This article deals more in particular with some results of WP12-Working out solutions, of which the author was responsible.
Such work package was aimed at defining guidelines and recommendations for devising and carrying out policies and implementations appropriate to fulfil the goal of keeping senior citizens mobile, and in particular of designing an agreeable walking environment also for them. The requirement/performance approach was fundamental; by the satisfaction index it is possible to define the prior areas of intervention. Safety, security and sociability seem to be the most important unmet requirements or missing performances; by comparison, comfort and accessibility seem less important.
A specific methodology was applied to represent the problems and to interrelate problems and solutions, to rank, evaluate and select them. To solve the detected problems a collection of technical and non-technical solutions and measures, that can be considered more or less trans-national, is defined according to partners’ suggestions and partners’ and senior associations’ evaluations. Each measure is described and assessed in a form in order to help the choice, depending on the case, of the most appropriate one for solving the specific detected problem and for each specific local situation.
In the article, a selection of most recurrent problems and urgent solutions is briefly presented. The selected solutions and measures pertain to different fields of action and can to be applied at different scale; in particular the ones pertaining to the infrastructural field of action concern the environmental design, from the district, to the street and the detail level. The research outcomes highlight a set of more targeted, alternative measures that, having received a high evaluation also by the representatives of the participating Seniors’ National Associations, are considered not only as more appropriate for solving seniors’ problems but also more agreeable to them. They indeed meet specific requirements and offer the requested performances
“Improving urban quality for pedestrians: the potentialities of an integrated design for mobility in outdoor spaces”
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"Contributo alla definizione di standards organizzativi e qualitativi per l'utilizzazione del territorio"
No full text"Metodologia di recupero ed esemplificazione applicativa: il caso del S. Michele a Roma"
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"Modalità operative e tecnologie ipotizzabili nella ristrutturazione degli edifici urbani contemporanei"
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