1,721,020 research outputs found
Urban hybrid open spaces; a new vision for soil use in Milan
No full textMilan in less than 10 years has doubled its pedestrian areas. The policies that the public administration is adopting are increasingly
heading towards a city that transforms and regenerates around its public space. Public interventions in the existing heritage alternate
with private ones in the transformation areas, designing an increasingly integrated system of collective spaces that contribute to raise
urban quality and respond to contemporary demands. In Milan, in contrast with most of the other large Italian cities, a great deal is
being invested in public mobility in a sustainable way, changing the way we move and redesigning old and new collective places to
accommodate pedestrian, cycle and shared mobility. In many cases it is a real coming back to the historic city of its public spaces, in
others is a creation of new places, suited to the uses that contemporaneity requires in terms of accessibility, security, social inclusion
and sustainability. The milanese case shows a synergy, in some cases an alternation, between the public and private action that in
recent years have pushed the city grow in the same direction. The article intends to address the theme of the design of the milanese
pedestrian public space by reading a series of case studies that can show the different design approaches divided into interventions in
the consolidated city and in those in the transformation areas. The first cases are almost referable to the public intervention, from the
pedestrianization of via Paolo Sarpi to that of the Darsena and the Navigli, to the most recent tactical urban planning actions; in the
transformation areas it is instead the private subject that promotes and manages the collective space thus increasing the overall value
of the interventions and restoring to the city areas of high urban and environmental quality as in the interventions of Porta Nuova,
Portello, CityLife and Symbiosis. The rebirth of Milan’s open spaces, for a more livable, human-friendly, more sustainable and more
inclusive city, passes through dynamics that are typical of the local culture. While on the one hand there are few forms of spontaneous
re-appropriation of spaces, on the other, the participated action of citizens together with public and private subjects is at the center of
the dynamics of redefining the surface of the city
Sustainable and affordable prefabricated construction: Developing a natural, recycled, and recyclable mobile home
Full text linkOutdoor tourism is a form of outdoor holiday that is growing rapidly today, and that stands out from other forms of tourism for its immediate relationship with the landscape which becomes for the tourist the main attraction of the holiday intended as a break from ordinary urban life. Outdoor tourism today represents a growing percentage in the tourism sector, in which mobile homes are the real players. Despite the considerable use of this product in open-air accommodations located in relevant landscapes, there is still no sensitivity in the constructive approach and in the choice of materials in terms of sustainability. In the open-air tourism sector, the lack of ecological sensitivity results from two levels of application: one regarding the whole settlement and the public spaces of outdoor accommodations and one regarding the mobile unit from the design to the production process. This paper will provide some practical strategies to introduce the ecological theme in the mobile home for the tourism sector. The research aims to analyze the production system of mobile homes in order to introduce alternative materials within the existing assembly line. The research demonstrates the possibility of a product being sustainable both economically and environmentally, healthy, and well-integrated with landscape by adopting an approach that makes it possible to use the same assembly line currently in use
The Social, Political, and Environmental Dimensions in Designing Urban Public Space from a Water Management Perspective: Testing European Experiences
No full textUrban areas are increasingly experiencing extreme weather events, especially related to water (e.g., droughts, heatwaves, floods), which are devastatingly impacting infrastructure and human lives. Compact cities, conceived to create more robust, effective, and sustainable environments, are under pressure to increase their resilience by co-producing adaptive strategies mainly focused on the urban public space. However, public space design tends to face environmental challenges without sufficiently exploring their intersection with social issues (citizens living conditions and vulnerability) and political structures (governance). This contribution delves into how urban public space interventions are (not) moving towards achieving urban resilience in an integrated way instead of sectoral. A triple-loop approach has been developed and tested in ten urban public spaces in European compact cities in the last 25 years. The results report how most projects reinforce the social dimension by promoting citizen well-being through new quality standards in public spaces, excluding some citizenry’s vulnerable segments (immigrants, women, and disabled). The political dimension reinforces hard adaptation measures to manage water resources, although increasing attention is put on nature-based solutions, and most projects ensure participation processes. Finally, the environmental dimension is the most transversal by increasing land conversion, ensuring flooding mitigation, and enhancing adaptive capacity
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