Architecture, the guardian of nature. The project of the ground within the transformation of urban highways, 1962-2018

Abstract

An unstoppable shift in the paradigm underlying mankind’s conception of its species’ building modalities is at the root of the interest in embedding greenery in Architecture. The most capable heuristic statute of such a new course is the progressive substitution of Environment for Nature among Design drivers. Within this frame, this paper investigates the hybridisation of greenery and the built environment in the contemporary transformation of large urban highways through a diachronic and comparative approach, referencing international research and expanding its main hypothesis. With this purpose, it reconstructs the hermeneutic reference frame by progressively discussing the theoretical arguments, deepening approaches, and design cases, among which the applicative one elaborated for the transformation of Palermo’s ring road. Article info Received: 25/03/2023; Revised: 30/04/2023; Accepted: 14/05/2023

Keywords

• green infrastructure
• regeneration
• soil design
• urban highways
• ring road