Acqua e vegetazione nella sperimentazione progettuale

In the brief course of studies on research applied to project-based experimentation which have been presented at this meeting, carried out by lecturers of TECA – part of the ITACA Department of the “La Sapienza” University of Rome – the focus has been on ascribing to nature and its laws the task of contributing to the process of urban growth in terms of being both vital elements as much as structural forces of social and local climatic conditions. In the course of this project-based research where the natural qualities of the sites have been elected as the basis for the work, a political choice as much as a technical one has been made which operates over different timeperiods and at different levels - methodological, technological and dimensional. In this way the pursuit of ambient quality is rendered in terms of the use of green spaces and water within the architectural project as “living technologies” which influence the change of microclimates through physicalorganic interaction and through performance-based interaction with the environment in relation to: - the micro scale of the individual building ; - the medium scale of the neighbourhood/urban area; - the macro scale. The underlying approach of the research group rests, with a degree of schematism, on three main aspects upon which the project has been developed. The first aspect pertains to the morphological configuration of the so-called open urban spaces, and it relates to the image of the plan, to the specific physiognomy which comes from the vegetation, to the design of the sequences of natural elements and to the design of the water areas. The second aspect pertains to the metabolic activity of the vegetation that can be planted on a site for its bioecological redevelopment and the direct modification of the microclimatic conditions of the open, intermediate and enclosed spaces. The third aspect pertains to the potential that the use of vegetation and water offers both in terms of rediscovery of the tradition and of using in an innovative way the acknowledgement of the specificity of the sites.