Microclimatic monitoring as basis of a project process. An experimentation in Rome

1. Introduction The monitoring and analysis of outdoor climatic factors is one of the basic operations for a correct design intervention at different scales. A careful intervention cannot ignore this type of anamnesis which is added to the investigations and assessments already more consolidated at an operational leve! in the design process. The thing that frights in undertaking monitoring operations is very often the time factor, which hardly fits in with the client's requests. Although it is true that to obtain a stable climatic data it is necessary to carry out monitoring in extended temperature ranges, the time factor must be read in a long-term planning perspective, which means abandoning the incorrect practice of emergency intervention in favor of scheduled maintenance at different scales. This is more mandatory in complex fabrics such as historical ones where the time factor takes on an even more important value. A further cognitive and methodological step is then necessary: the understanding of climatic or rather microclimatic factors must not be the exclusive prerogative of 'other' disciplines than that of the designer, but must become part of his training path, so that the professional knows how to correctly communicate with the specialists in the sector and draw out from this dialogue a planning reading of the problem. Therefore, the intervention here presented aims to analyze these problems, starting from the shortcomings and deficiencies emerged from an in-depth investigation of the state of the art and experimenting in the field the problems and potentialities of these surveys applied to the historical fabric of the city: as case study the historical city of Rome. 2. The importance of field research for the understanding of climatic factors in the complex systems of the historic city. The case of the historical city of Rome The research here briefly presented aims to emphasize the importance of environmental monitoring in the urban context as a basis for the correct planning operations, especially in complex areas such as historical ones, that must be protected [8]. The topic of climate monitoring has been analyzed from two different points of view, a theoretical one - to acquire an adequate knowledge base - and operational-experimental one, different approaches necessary for a criticai-propositive action of microclimatically sustainable and integrable transformation ofurban space. Thus, in the first part we analyze what the literature reports by extending the field of investigation to the city as a whole, with attention mainly to urban adaptation and mitigation policies, considered the most effective tool to actively act on causes and effects determined by climatic changes in piace. Given the multiplicity of possible actions, both top-down and bottom-up, those carried out in the Mediterranean area, and specifically national ones, were selected, selecting strategies, plans, guidelines, and projects useful to understand 'if and 'how' the theme is dealt with in interaction with other elements of the urban fabric, identifying any problems and/or negativity that have emerged and any gaps for further studies. [1-2-3]. The second part of the research, on the other hand, deals operationally with the topic using the analysis tools most suited to the area of investigation analyzed in the field, carrying out a calibration of direct and analytical instruments, in scale, parametric and computational. The transition from the first to the second macro­ phase of research, however, would not be possible if not thanks to an intermediate experimental phase addressed to the heart of the problem: understanding the trend of climatic parameters within a real urban center, by evaluating its concrete limitations and potentials, and by touching the operational difficulties of approaching this type of analysis in complex areas. This fundamental phase involves two types of data collection, which we will define as 'direct data': a data above the canopy layer - collected by meteorologica! stations located in urban areas which, on Rome, are located within the 'perimeter' of the historic city - and one below, that is, at the pedestrian leve!, to understand how and to what extent the conformation of the urban space affects climatic factors and their consequent interpretation. [4] A real database was therefore built that combines the data of the main urban weather stations with those collected in the field at the pedestrian level recorded through measurement campaigns carried out for the research purposes. Therefore, 'expeditious measurement campaigns' were tested, defined as they were carried out with manual instrumentation, easier to find, with optimal immediacy in reading the results, developed over five months, and conducted in ten selected areas in the historic city of Rome. This database, in addition to providing in itself an important source of information on the specific case of the capita!, is also a useful tool for the calibration of models, in particular simulation models [6-7], which increasingly build the basis of the operations of intervention on a urban scale, but that must be managed correctly in order to intervene in complex spaces to be protected, such as those of the historic city. 3. Conclusion The work carried out has wanted to reread the bases of urban meteorology and climatology in an architectural key, read in a multidisciplinary vision that aims to extract a common thread from this 'collaboration' and define a synthetic epistemology, useful not only for specialists, but potentially basic for a re-discussion of the theme with a view for educating and training the designer. Considering the characteristics of both resilience and invariance of fabrics that characterize a city, a systematization and calibration of the positive elements was sought, minimizing the problems of existing methodologies and tools, and aiming to define possible answers at the methodological-operational level for the analysis of climatic factors in the context of the transformations of the open space of the historic city, so as to provide an evaluation tool that allows to acquire greater operational awareness and that supports the selection of one or more intervention methods.