Densità urbana e progettazione ambientale

The concept of urban densification links to the cultural and disciplinary scenarios of the recent debate on housing quality deficits, on the problems of urban infrastructures, on the limits dictated by urban sprawl and land consumption, as well as on the loss of place identity. The relationship between densification and environmental design can be addressed as a troubleshooting factor behind several urban problems related to environmental impacts from the waste of resources and lack of efficiency to mobility congestion, from landscape impact to urban safety. The governance of settlements’ transformation processes is not limited only to the physical-formal aspects, but is attentive to the project intangible determinations and is oriented towards an idea of urban socio-economic and environmental sustainability. The components of environmental design interact from the conceptual setting phase of the urban project onwards, helping to direct the regenerative criteria and contributing to the definition of strategies, goals and urban conformations aimed at setting clear ecosystemic principles. The settlement model in the contemporary metropolis, which constitutes one of the main causes of the lack of environmental, social and economic sustainability, must be overcome as it is necessary to reactivate the interdependencies between urban settlements and the environment by defining the limit of the dimensional, qualitative and relational thresholds of the urban project in relation to the permitted densities. The variables of the limits to growth and to density itself, hitherto little considered, must be reintroduced qualifying the relations of balance between cities, territory and environment.