Urban Morphology, Environmental Performance and Energy Use: Holistic Transformation of Porto di Mare as Eco-District Via IMM

Abstract

The impact of urban development on climate change is now evident, threatening the living conditions of a growing number of people in developed and developing countries. On the one hand, there is the need to limit soil consumption and urbanisation rates, whereas, on the other hand, the presence of slums and brownfields within formal urban contexts compromises the living conditions in the neighbouring areas. Given the complexity of the topic, a holistic, multi-scale and multi-disciplinary approach is required. This article presents a case study of integrated actions applied at the neighbourhood scale, using the Integrated Modification Methodology (IMM) conceived at Politecnico di Milano, which refers to the built environment as a complex adaptive system (CAS). The IMM is an iterative multi-stage and multi-layer process applied to urban CASs to improve their metabolism and environmental performance. The IMM approach to sustainability is aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 as a systemic methodological interpretation of the SDG11, which suggests local-based actions firmly linked with targets and indicators. Inside IMM, this role is played by the Design Ordering Principles (DOPs), a system of integrated actions and evaluation measures for simultaneous improvements in environmental performance, social inclusion and urban metabolism. The study case is the area of Porto di Mare, located on the south-eastern border of the city of Milan, bounded by important infrastructures, between the city centre and the rural belt surrounding the Milanese metropolitan area. The proposal of an Eco-District for the Porto di Mare area is an opportunity to demonstrate the potential implications of a sustainable regeneration process on territorial low-carbon energy planning strategies, with a significant impact on a larger part of the city. This article presents the process of local optimisation of the Eco-District masterplan by acting on morphological and typological parameters to simulate alternative design scenarios and evaluate their performance using the visual programming interface of a BIM software. The main performance aspects that are considered are thermal loads of buildings, outdoor comfort and energy use intensity. This challenge raised some relevant research questions: is there a plausible amount of the Gross Floor Area (GFA) value which can be considered coherent from an energy and environmental point of view? Which could be the connection between this parameter, the morphological volume and the energy performance at a district scale? How can the Eco-District be evaluated from a sustainable point of view? The presented strategy for the exploration of alternatives, based on existing energy modelling tools, gave an answer to most of the open questions presented here, showing a replicable approach for similar problems and contexts.