Urban natures for urban resilience. Time phases design for Changing Cities

Within the research on urban nature, takes on an important role the issues related to geo-morphological changes of territories due to climate change, and the way in which the built environment is able to interact with them. More specifically it should be emphasized how the strong connection that binds architecture and nature, in some cases, can present itself with a clear predominance of one component over the other.This is forcing some reflections about design approaches which must be taken in specific areas, so that to restore the right systemic balance. In particular aims to be analyzed the case of coastal areas at risk of flooding due to the constant sea level rise predicted between fifty and onehundred years. These areas require a long-term management, going beyond the characterization of urban spaces; specifically we could define them as urban spaces changing. It is clearhow the design of these spaces can not disregard from a design parameter often overlooked in land-use planning, the one at issue is time.To date, this component, is often inserted in the maintenance phase of the project, but still too rarely it is joined to the space component during the preliminary design phase, thus suggesting a clear predominance of the spatial parameter over the temporal one. Nevertheless, the landscape designer is comparing with a space that change over time. Therefore, the urban environment needs to be reinterpreted, passing by a changeless scenario to an element subject to the time action, just like a living organism.Accordingly, atime-phases design, could be a valid methodological response to geo-morphological city changes. Phenomena such as flooding can not be avoided, they represent objective data with which confront, so there is a need to adopt urban resilience strategies which are able to transform a traumatic event in a landscapingand economical resources. First of all, this operation, requires an analytical approach in order to analyze the different systemic components of the city: the natural one, the infrastructure and the buildings settlement, and consequently the connections existing between eachothers. After identifying the project guide-lines, the first step will be geared to a geo-morphological adaptation of the ground that allows a safe development of the area, identifying three phases of the project (which correspond to the floodingones): the current one, in fifty years, and in onehundred years, at this point it can take targeted design choices that will allow to counter the advance of water in certain areas, follow the natural course of flooding in others, and join the water within the project in still others, with specific design interventions; so as to give a sustainable shape to the area.Thisapproachis not related just to a specific time phase, but to all of them at the same time, allowing the project to absorb the natural changes of the territory and consequently lead the city to change harmonically along with them.