Abstract
Pressures arising from agriculture, infrastructures and settlements have gradually reduced natural spaces of European watercourses limiting their self-regulation capacities, environmental and social potentials, resulting in widespread critical anthropic features. Dealing with flood phenomena adds artificiality, as several works for hydraulic protection are necessary. This was the case of Pistoia, a small city in the north of Tuscany, where the Ombrone stream, held in a straight-channeled course since the 18th century, sometimes breaks its embankments and floods the low plain from the southeast of Pistoia to downstream. Complying with the EU Floods Directive (2007/60/EC), the regional authority for flood risks planned some basins in the high plain upstream of Pistoia. A study we developed before this research assumed to shift the design approach from functional separation to full integration of hydraulic works in an area planned as an urban park for several years, but still in waiting. We now carried out a second study that adopts the concept of deep structure as the main design reference to “see” the park in the landscape features. This article concerns the research by the design process just developed to investigate a sustainable layout of the place new hydraulic asset as a basic landscape identity of the future park. Not to split spaces up with regard to their main functions was the general aim the process was focused on to combine an effective hydraulic protection with a full environmental and social enhancement of the urban park.
Highlights
Pressures arising from agriculture, infrastructures and settlements have gradually reduced natural spaces of European watercourses limiting their self-regulation capacities, environmental and social potentials, resulting in widespread critical anthropic features
With regard to all the above-mentioned approaches, we propose a guide for the design process: join functions in spaces, do not split them up! So, three complementary goals were taken into account with the general aim of learning from the landscape how we can meet our changing needs and create sustainability by multifunctional open spaces
Taking advantage of what emerged from the landscape analysis and from the hydro-geomorphological ones, we identified natural or anthropic factors and processes that make up the deep structure
Summary
Pressures arising from agriculture, infrastructures and settlements have gradually reduced natural spaces of European watercourses limiting their self-regulation capacities, environmental and social potentials, resulting in widespread critical anthropic features. A study we developed before this research assumed to shift the design approach from functional separation to full integration of hydraulic works in an area planned as an urban park for several years, but still in waiting. Not to split spaces up with regard to their main functions was the general aim the process was focused on to combine an effective hydraulic protection with a full environmental and social enhancement of the urban park. The evolution process led living beings to observe and understand the manifold properties of environments and their changes in space and time: “(. From an ecological point of view, environment perceptions allow other living beings to understand and select the habitat properties [4]: this matters with regard to the human awareness of landscape importance too. If the landscape perception skills of living beings are powerful means for their lives, landscapes are the essential media of relationships with environments and the different habitats they embrace
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call