Andrea Bortolotti

Wasteland rehabilitation in rural landscape: a design project in the Verona plain

This contribution presents a design exploration for the rehabilitation of a dumpsite in the mu-nicipality of Isola Rizza, Verona (Italy). In the Verona plain, a former district of brick production left in its wake a cluster of water basins and wastelands that are today distinctive of the land-scape and object of a territorial dispute among landowners, public administrations, and the lo-cal community. A project for the rehabilitation of one of those wastelands, converted into a dumpsite, has been recently developed. It considers the idea of re-organizing the circulation of waste materials and soil involved in the remediation to implement a public park. Although the project has been facing the little consideration given by local regulations to integrated design, it clearly shows the capacity of systemic design to tackle rehabilitation challengering potential spaces integrated with the local ecological and slow mobility networks.

Forestazione urbana integrata

The processes of rapid and uneven urbanisation found in the diffusely inhabited areas of the Upper Po Plain have left a dense deposit of residual outdoor spaces, which if reinterpreted appropriately could become a resource to restore balance to the urban ecosystem. The paper discusses strategies for the reorganisation of urban metabolism by means of forms of integrated urban forestation (Fui). The description of a scenario and of some prototype models of integrated urban forestation highlights not only the production capacities but also the numerous environmental services which forestation can offer in a diffuse urban area.