Climate-proof urban regeneration and cultural heritage. The case of the “Saxa Rubra” Urban and Metropolitan Centrality in the Municipality of Rome

In order to contribute to the debate on the relationship between climate-proof urban regeneration and cultural heritage, the illustrated study tries to understand how the provision of new multi-scalar and integrated planning tools based on sustainable and resilient strategies can ensure high levels of urban and environmental quality, energy efficiency, and resource circularity, while counteracting the effects resulting from climate change and the degradation of historical, architectural, and identity heritage. Beginning with an analysis of the complex socio-political framework and some design and regulatory references that integrate a new model of an ecologically oriented city into planning, the contribution identifies climate-proof urban regeneration as the approach that can improve biodiversity, foster twin transitions, promote the recovery and reuse of common goods, and restore with natural solutions the quality of the environmental matrices air, water and soil. Through the application of an iterative and interscalar methodology to the Urban and Metropolitan Centrality “Saxa Rubra” falling within the Municipality of Rome and subject to the Urban Project procedure, the contribution proposes design strategies capable of building sustainable energy cycles, within scenarios of morphological reconfiguration of urban fabrics and public spaces. In this perspective it highlights potentials and limitations of the proposed experimentation related, both to the innovativeness of the design solutions and possible evolutionary lines, and to the lack of clear institutional governance that is limiting project implementation.