A Multi-scalar Design Proposal: S-RGB (Safe—Regenerative Green Blue) Design for Contemporary City

Abstract

The crisis of the contemporary city is mainly related to urban fragility and socio-spatial complexity. The effects of urbanization in the last two centuries produced a lot of abandoned and derelict areas that need to be restored and developed in a more ecological way. The paper starts analyzing the recent scientific studies and design tendencies in urban planning such as landscape ecological urbanism, green infrastructure, regeneration, and urban acupuncture. On these premises, it is developed a design proposal based on the ‘multi-scalar design’, able to integrate the territorial vision linked to the green infrastructures with the small interventions typical of the urban acupuncture. This design approach is applied to open spaces, ecological networks, and green infrastructures but also in order to regenerate the urban organism's neuralgic parts. Moreover, the current urban design practices act mainly on public spaces enlarging their number and size. In the meantime, the safety of public spaces is rising as a focal problem for urban policies. Therefore, the design proposal is completed giving particular attention to guidelines for urban safety design methodologies, such European protocols and so on. The idea of joining these approaches at different levels, from the territorial dimension to the micro-urban one, is defined the ‘s-RGB Design’ (safe-Regenerative Green Blue Design). The multi-scalar ecological approach is generally applied to small, abandoned areas that can trigger virtuous regeneration processes, paying attention to the safety of urban spaces and combining the planning of green infrastructures with a new safe urban acupuncture.