Design Opportunities Towards the Ecological Transition of Villages, Cities, Buildings and Dwellings

Abstract

The environmental quality of cities is a central issue in the contemporary debate, due to multiple factors related to the technological and energy obsolescence of buildings, spaces and urban infrastructures, the dynamics of resource consumption and the production of harmful emissions and waste. Principles of environmental quality can be found in national and supranational strategies, defining the directions and perspectives towards which orient solutions and actions for transforming the built environment. This contribution analyses the wide range of design solutions - formal, technological, energetic - that can be adopted to improve the environmental quality of cities and residential districts, acting on the quality of life of communities and the quality of socio-spatial dynamics. The different contexts — the village, the city, the neighbourhood, the building and the dwelling — will be investigated considering the vulnerability of the functional arrangement of the indoor and outdoor spaces of everyday life and according to the new modes of use imposed by the circumstances of the pandemic. Will be eventually considered the goals and target for the most recent and relevant national and international strategies in the matter of sustainability: the UN Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, the New European Green Deal and the Recovery and Resilience Plan.