How to make a city eco-friendly?

Covid-19 emergency made us face, among the many issues, the one of rethinking our way of living. This includes replanning public and private spaces in order to maintain the new measures of social distancing.

With a view of redesigning cities maybe the time has come to do it sustainably. 

Obicua, since its foundation, has applied the concept of genius loci to architecture in order to take into consideration both the natural origin of the site it was working on and the lifestyle of people living there. In every architectural plan, its main mission was the one of respecting the surrounding environment. How is possible to apply this concept while replanning entire cities?

Architecture plays an important role in planning cities following a sustainable development as it has the power to affect concretely the environment.

Here a list of architectural interventions to make cities more sustainable and to improve the quality of life.

THRIVING CITIES

It has been proven that Introducing green areas and green architecture solutions in  in cities has a positive impact on  change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. City planning and nature are not more enemies but they are integrated together. Co2, issued in the air, is nothing more than a fertilizer for these green spaces in the cities. 

LAND USE PLANNING

Planning proper buildings and land use ones is helpful to improve infrastructures while reducing the impact on the environment. Buildings should be designed taking into consideration the surrounding space to reduce both the impact on the land but also to avoid disaster risks.  This is important in areas which are subjects to earthquakes or floods.

GREEN CHANNELS

Improving public transportation lines is only one of the solution to reduce pollution in cities. This includes both realizing lines for green public transport and cycle paths and pedestrian crossings. It is proven that in cities that give the priority to bicycles on cars, citizens are more likely to use them. An example of this is the city of Copenhagen where bridges reserved to bicycles have been realized.

MATERIALS

Materials have a key role in replanning cities in a sustainable way. Everything starts from them. Forget concrete because there are many solutions which are more green. Grasscrete which allows plants to grow among concrete, bamboo, wood, recycled materials could be the right alternative. Hempcrete is another material commonly used that is a concrete like material created from the woody inner fibers of the hemp plant.

 

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