The Transition Between Rural and Urban Spaces in Fragile Peri-Urban Fringes: Water as a Primary Design Tool

Abstract

The focus is on the peri-urban landscape, placed between suburban settlements and the surrounding countryside. It is an “uncertain” area, unable to have crucial urban relationships and convincing rural and agricultural fabric. Different expressions of fragility, both physical and social, coagulate in these places: the reason why they represented a significant object of study for several decades, becoming symbols of problematic urban models. Among the possible regeneration processes, the one that starts from a rural, rather than urban, perspective seems to be the most interesting. Today, what appears essential is considering the peri-urban countryside areas, not as a possibility for the urban fabric to expand, but as the necessary open spaces that complete the suburban fringes’ layout. Actively involving rural areas contributes to a more effective transition between countryside and urban elements and improves a general reinforcement of the open spaces system, thus conceiving as the settlement backbone. The importance of inhabiting countryside as leasure spaces for the citizens, beyond agricultural production settings, became more urgent during pandemic times, in which wide open spaces became the safest areas. Therefore, to imagine a multifunctional countryside to inhabit, one of the crucial design tools to work with is the water. Streams innervating the countryside can represent pivotal devices to rethink transitional open spaces in layout and uses between rural and urban practices. Simultaneously, working with streams allows counteracting or preventing possible water imbalances investing and damaging urban areas due to climate change effects and inadequate ways to anthropize the territories. The more dilatated fabric of the peri-urban landscape allows considering water and its ecological connections as a primary design tool.