Green camouflage: una nuova identità per le infrastrutture urbane nella città densa

Abstract

The growing demand for more environmentally friendly and sustainable cities requires the rethinking of the artifacts and equipment that we commonly call gray infrastructure. They have become an inevitable physical component of the urban ecosystem and have in fact assumed, in the contemporary city, the involuntary role of witnesses to the contrast between natural and artificial environment. Gray Infrastructures are currently subject to a critical reflection about their environmental compatibility as well as their aesthetic/functional configuration; that is why they can be rethought, by use of vegetation and ecotechgreen, to regenerate the "infraplaces" which they accompany. Beyond the greenwashing, the greening of infrastructure could be an opportunity to make more environmentally consistent parts of the high city, also because of the important benefits that vegetation produces: heat island reduction, control of storm water runoff, reducing air pollution and noise, etc. Intervening in many environmental aspects, ‘ecotechgreen’ becomes the premise for a new environmental planning with which to transform towns into more efficient ecosystems. In this context, the devices of camouflage, practiced by ecotechgreen, can open a new urban aesthetic, facilitating the disguise of these facilities within the city. This paper presents partial results of an ongoing research, about different planning approaches relative to these urban components into the high density city, and it shows how the techniques of camouflage and mimicry may help to improve the role and nature of these urban facilities.