Abstract:

Sharing the idea that the link between research and education is strategic not only for directing teaching activities but also for verifying the strengths and weaknesses of the research actions, the authors will illustrate an educational experience currently ongoing that well exemplifies this synergy. The proposed work collects the advances of a didactic-research activity concerning the proposal of design solutions for the reuse of collective spaces in critical climatic contexts with reference to urban areas in the north-east of Brazil. This study, conducted in collaboration between Italian and Brazilian universities, has also involved management bodies and associations of inhabitants.

The educational experience refers to the cities of Petrolina and Juazeiro in the northeast of Brazil, which are highly urbanized and which, despite belonging to two different regions, are neighboring and conceived by the inhabitants themselves as a single macro-system that shares critical issues but above all opportunities to build possible scenarios of application and experimentation of the circular urban model principles. From the study of the structural hierarchy of the two urbanizations comes the transformation hypothesis of the collective spaces, appropriately identified, in a network of interconnected natural environments that use all the environmental resources present with particular attention to those green + blue. This hypothesis aims to employ the principles of nature as a model of sustainable management by stimulating all the potential 'natural intrinsic to these resources and not developed due to massive anthropization. The interconnection also allows the creation of real corridors that cross the urban environment and help to connect the existing natural systems creating a balance and a closer coexistence between the two complexities of the urban and natural dimensions.

The collective spaces, upgraded according to the described approach, create a real urban infrastructure with a strong eco-systemic connotation that can provide advantages both in terms of technological-environmental performance and in social terms, guaranteeing safety, identifiability, and manageability. The promotion of innovative technological strategies aimed at reinforcing the eco-systemic value of anthropised contexts, in addition to the considerable benefits that are now recognised and shared, has the objective of raising the awareness of public administrations to a more conscious design and, therefore, management of the city, favouring the accessibility of the inhabitants to goods/services. All in accordance with the objectives set out in Agenda 2030 for sustainable development.

In conclusion, the educational experience has shown that collective spaces constitute an element of potentially flexible management of the city, in relation to the uses and activities that take place in it and to the influences generated by the temporal and climatic factor, as well as represent a strategic element of the city organism in which it is evident that functional balances are broken due to the loss of "environmental knowledge" and the abandonment of care by the settled communities.

Keywords:

Adaptive reuse, regenerative cycles, social issues, urban eco-system, interconnection