Promoting urban and enviromental regeneration: a summary and comparison of two water projects
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Abstract
This paper is a summary of two design projects, awarded to and carried out by a research group within the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano (Scientific Director, Professor Michele Ugolini), following a Call for Tenders in the territory of the Lombardy region, financed by the Cariplo Foundation.
Starting from different perspectives and contexts, the projects find a common matrix in enhancing the environmental potential of a territory through the recognition of ecological corridors, rivers, parks and protected areas as a new connective system of territorial relations, in the containment of land consumption, in proposing and redesigning a sustainable mobility network, and in emphasizing the historical characteristics of the landscape as essential elements of identity.
Multifunctionality, interdisciplinarity and transcalarity are the keys to understanding the two projects that revolve around the theme of water.
The watercourse which, due to its intrinsic nature, develops linearly, is ultimately perceived as an opportunity to interpret a vast territory. The two-fold project, which bases its strategy on a conspicuous cognitive framework of the territory, does not limit itself to following the prevailing direction of a river’s length, but extends the area of intervention to the portions of territory with which it interacts, directly or indirectly.
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