Urban Heat Areas (Saturday) & Resilient communities and strategic scenarios (Sunday)
Saturday
Short description
It is well known that urban areas significantly affect local climatic conditions, in particular, due to the development of the urban heat island - i.e. higher temperatures inside cities than in rural areas. The alteration of climatic conditions inside cities can have a significant impact on the thermal comfort of the urban population and on building energy consumption and can represent also a serious hazard for the citizens’ health, especially for the most vulnerable sections of the population. The need for optimizing thermal conditions and energy consumption inside cities has prompted, in recent years, the increasing adoption of different mitigation strategies as a primary measure to mitigate the undesirable effects of urbanization, being able to improve resiliency and maintain livable urban areas.
In this lecture, the causes leading to the urban heat island effect will be first introduced, along with several examples of urban heat island studies in different cities. Mitigation strategies aiming at maximizing the citizens’ thermal comfort and minimizing building energy consumption will be then presented, focusing on various rooftop technologies (photovoltaic panels, green roofs and cool roofs) and urban planning measures. Finally, practical examples of the implementation of different mitigation strategies will be shown.
What to expect
- A general overview of the urban heat island effect
- Examples of urban heat island studies in different cities
- Introduction on the possible mitigation strategies to improve citizens’ thermal comfort and minimize building energy consumption
- Examples of the implementation of different mitigation strategies, mainly involving the use of vegetation inside urban areas
The lecture will be given using slides. Students will be invited to participate actively in the lecture, with short Q&A sessions on the case studies presented.
Sunday
Short Description
Imagining, planning, designing cities - or parts of them - means designing collective futures. The seminar explores those significant questions that communities are facing in the contemporary transformations of their living environment. Whom are the futures designed for? How possible and imaginable futures, and related socio-cultural-economic-ecological conditions, affect contemporary design decisions? What is the temporal horizon of the design perspectives (Short? Medium? Long?). The contamination of disciplinary boundaries between landscape, architecture, urbanism, ecology, and futures studies (a recent branch of social sciences) has forced to expand and redefine the practice of designers and their field of operations. Following this, the seminar will focus on the expansion in approaches and definitions by associating the concept of future-proofing with the assessment of relevant megatrends; the megatrend assessment is considered the starting point to support the definition of future-proof policies or interventions.
We consider climate change as a key factor requiring the development of resilience in addition with other megatrends which might create synergies and reinforcing effects (both positive and negative), depending on the preparedness of social-economic systems and actors. The interaction among participants will consist of a facilitated discussion inspired to the MEGATRENDS IMPLICATIONS ASSESSMENT - A Workshop on Anticipatory Thinking and Foresight for Policy Makers (by the Joint Research Centre, JRC 2017), using the platform MURAL and an original template (created for the event).
Expectations
Students will be actively involved in interactive activities with the aim to achieve new knowledge of theories and practices on climate adaptation and urban resilience, as well as innovative tools for engaging communities. The seminar is specifically designed to address multiple disciplines and enrollment is encouraged for students from the fields of landscape architecture, architecture, urban planning and design, ecological design, as well students from environmental sciences, economics and social sciences interested in the long-term management and design of built environments or territories but it is also opened to other disciplines.
Activity Description
- Short and intensive lectures on design approaches and future studies methodologies.
- Applied exercise where participants work in groups on future-proofing for climate-resilient communities themes in order to test the proposed methodology.
- Collective restitution of the results in groups and to the larger audience.