Mitigating the impact of factories on the landscape: An assessment and design support tool

Abstract

Being widely responsible for environmental degradation, industry represents a key asset to manage for a more sustainable and healthier living environment. However, factories affect more than just the physical sphere of the landscape, also impacting social and economic spheres as their intense perceptual-aesthetic interferences with the scenery can disturb neighbors and damage corporate images. In the recent past, policy-makers, practitioners and communities have demonstrated that the harmonization of industry with the landscape can produce several positive effects. In this framework, multicriteria systems to assess the impact have been developed, but they are mainly focused on reducing negative environmental effects rather than perceptual ones, while a holistic approach appears to be needed. Therefore, a method of analyzing how facilities interfere with the landscape is proposed, along with the development of a set of strategies to lessen detrimental effects on the physical, perceptual-aesthetic and social/cultural dimensions of the landscape. This paper presents the main outputs of the research, including the structure of the assessment system and a catalog of case studies selected for good design practices, from which general mitigation tactics have been retrieved. The result is a protocol composed of an assessment system and a design support tool available to companies and designers to be inspired by.