Affected by chronic natural disasters, Italy is a fragile territory by nature. In the last 50 years, eight violent earthquakes hit it, three in the Central Apennines’ diffuse areas in the previous twenty years alone.

The rules, the processes, and the solutions for emergency management in Italy, and the world, have moved architectural design away from standardized solutions and lack attention to the territorial complexities.

All are combined with the slowness of reconstruction processes, often completed within 20 to 30 years of the event. Since the 2016 seismic events in Central Italy and looking at the spatial impact of temporary buildings, this research reflects the relationships between emergency and permanent urban settlements and their effects/transformations in that long time “in-between” on urban and regional reconstruction.

What role does the ‘temporary’ emergency project take on in Italian post-seismic territories, and what geographies does it produce? How is it possible to re-design possible futures for this permanent provisional legacy?

In the absence of consolidated cartographic studies on the issue, an overall, systemic, and national scale phenomenon perspective, the thesis aims to reflect on temporary management. Geospatial analyses support the reflections, and the mapping methods define and decode those “theoretically” provisional processes (from the geographical to the settlement scale). The perspective is overcoming emergency operations, from the concept of protection to the idea of incorporation and coexistence within design practices of long-term risks.

The research proposes the construction of a multi-scale and multi-temporal geographic database supported by a geographic information system (GIS), which allows the interaction between geomatic tools to be explored as urban design tools.

Through a historical diachrony and a critical comparison of Italian and international cases, the research aims to investigate the settlement transformation resulting from temporary solutions to the actions and processes of continuous displacement, re-foundation, and reconstruction.

One of the results is the design of a harmonised geospatial (database) Atlas of “temporary” solutions, giving back an empirical and accurate overview of the current phenomenon in Central Italy, measurement, using stratification of heterogeneous sources and information, often not updated.

From there, focusing on specific territorial case studies in the inner area of Central Italy, the thesis intends to identify potential transformative scenarios for the two half cities, the existing, destroyed one and the legacy of the new, temporary one.

How can they coexist in future possible reconstruction processes in regions and communities affected by endemic emergencies – natural, economic and anthropic – which are increasingly ordinary rather than extraordinary?

The post Permanent temporariness in the post-earthquake appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.

The reduction of energy consumptions in buildings is a fundamental point in the EU policies to achieve energy and climate targets. The aim of this research is to design Urban-Scale Energy Models –using GIS tools– able to explore energy consumption, production and productivity and to evaluate how energy consumption changes according to the urban environment and climate conditions. The goal is to create a platform, such as an urban-energy atlas, to help urban planners and policy makers to plan sustainable cities and smart energy systems. These energy models and tools at territorial scale may be used to:

explore energy consumption, emissions and thermal comfort conditions;

quantitatively assess renovation strategies and their impacts on the territory;

promote smart green solutions with the use of financial mechanisms and incentives;

identify effective energy policies, considering the real characteristics of the buildings, population and urban morphology (e.g. for building codes).

The post Smart Energy Solutions for Sustainable Cities and Policies appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.

In the framework of urban studies analysing the phenomena and transformation processes of today’s city for planning and design purposes, the multi-disciplinary approach is a huge challenge. The possibility of benefitting from a 3D enhanced representation of reality, beyond the traditional 2D maps, provides an advanced spatial analysis on an urban scale for the study of the socio-economic phenomena driving urban regeneration.

In order to analyse and monitor these dynamics, it is essential to have geo-spatial tools that manage geographic data, in the form of numerical cartography and 3D models, allowing the identification and quantification of urban transformations and any area that needs further urban regeneration interventions, in order to implement localised actions, preserving the built heritage of the city. For this reason, acquisition tools, measurement techniques and multi-source and multi-content products derived from geomatics approaches are a valuable support for the analysis and modelling of the urban legacy and built space, as well as the human phenomena that constitute the city.

The geomatics research applied to city modelling is used to investigate issues related to the concept of 3D city models in the last 10 years. The current perspective of this research is the possibility of modelling not only 3D and semantic information of urban objects, but also multi-dimensional information, especially related to past time resolution, in order to simulate future behaviour. In fact, in recent years, 3D city model and Digital Twin concepts have become increasingly relevant, not only in the field of geomatics, but also in various fields of research, such as urban planning, urban regeneration activities in the field of cultural heritage and then in the monitoring of city transformation processes. Currently, the research is still far from being solved and is represented by the integration of standards, formats and modelling techniques adopted by GIS regional analysis systems (focused on the production of regional numerical maps) and BIM and HBIM databases (fundamental for 3D relational parametric modelling on an architectural scale). It will therefore be fundamental to manage and adopt different data sources within platforms able to manage and test their flexibility for possible integration within a unique relational, structured and multi-content/multi-scale geographical database.

The topics that the 3D City Model – Digital Twin research project will progressively cover, in an interdisciplinary analysis related to the design and structure of 3D city models, are: the geometric problem, the semantic problem, the relations problem and the thematic content problem.

Based on these assumptions, starting by analysing the standards (preferably using an open-source approach), structured geospatial data, tools and methodologies available today, the project focuses on defining an urban modelling code for a design and planning tool able to support local decision-making processes, in the form of a 3D geographical database (.gdb) suitable for hosting complex and interconnected thematic data (on built heritage, energy consumption, noise studies, traffic analysis, ground information, etc.). This is conducted with particular consideration of a possible definition, through the support of geo-processing operations, of a model able to detect and identify the different levels of each building entity (derived from structured cartography of spatial data infrastructure implemented and updated).

The research objective is therefore to develop a geometrically and semantically structured 3D city model related to the municipality of Turin, on the basis of parametric spatial rules defined ad hoc and capable of representing urban phenomena, modelling the historical stratifications of the city and evaluating how these layers can interact within a three-dimensional modelling environment in order to replicate past and simulate future transformation and sustainable scenarios through platforms adoption dedicated to urban simulation.

This first phase of the research worked in three specific directions:

• 1- DATA. The collection, harmonisation and updating of geographical datasets and thematic data available on the city of Turin (FULL metadata index) for the structuring of a multi-scale and multi-content geographical database. The experimentation of data acquisition and processing of data from mobile mapping systems on an urban scale. The collection and use of multi-temporal datasets on the city of Turin by means of historical aerial photogrammetric datasets and consequent correlation of multi-temporal DSMs for the detection and assessment of urban transformations (Abate et al., 2019).
• 2- 3D MODELS. The treatment of aerial Lidar/photogrammetric data in the form of raster/vector DSMs for the integration of information related to roof shape and trend. The investigation of GIS-BIM tools capable of managing multi-scale modelling and able to ensure increasing interoperability between the two systems and corresponding languages and standards. The generation of simplified 3D models with semantic content and with ground-level optimised information structure (see the ROCK project and Technical Report).
• 3- VISUALISATION. The development and optimisation of spatial analysis tools and data representation strategies through 2D, 2.5D and 3D spatial visualisation (ROCK project).

Publications

• Abbate, E., Sammartano, G., & Spanò, A. (2019). Prospective upon multi-source urban scale data for 3D documentation and monitoring of urban legacies. ISPRS – International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XLII-2/W11, 11–19. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W11-11-2019
• Colucci, E.; Mantello, F.; Spanò, A.; Sammartano, G.; Abbate, E. (2019). Approcci GIS ed HBIM integrati per l’analisi del patrimonio paesaggistico. 23a Conferenza nazionale ASITA, 12-14 November 2019, Trieste (Italy)
• Technical Report “Which digital tools for the creation of a Digital Open Urban Twin?”, progetto di ricerca DOUT (Digital Open Urban Twin) resp. Antonio Vetrò
• Technical Report Progetto ROCK “Mappatura e analisi di proprietà e aree dismesse a Torino nell’ambito del progetto europeo ROCK – Regeneration and Optimization of Cultural Heritage in Creative and Knowledge cities (GA 730280)  finanziato dal programma Horizon2020 – CIG: Z78280839F”. Intermedio 26/11/2019. Finale 06/2020

The post Digital Open Urban Twin appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.

Publications

• Using Betweenness metrics to investigate the geographical distribution of retailers in Turin; L. Buzzacchi, P. Leveque, R. Taramino, G. Zotteri; presented at Oxford Retail Futures Conference, Dec 10-12, 2018 – submitted to Environment and Planning B
• Stores closures generate a ripple effect: an investigation of exit dynamics in the retailing market; L. Buzzacchi, A. De Marco, R. Taramino, G. Zotteri; to be presented at 30th European Conference on Operational Research (EURO 30th), June 23-26, 2019
• Competitive dynamics between online and offline retailing; L. Buzzacchi, R. Taramino, G. Zotteri

The post Urban Retail appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.

The aim of the research is to detect structures or indications of buried structures ascribable to buildings or artefacts belonging to the pre-existing Bergoglio district under the present-day Cittadella of Alessandria. In order to achieve this aim, a ground-penetrating radar survey was conducted, covering the area of the parade ground, including the surrounding inner tree line. According to a reconstruction proposed by E. Piccoli et al. (E. Piccoli, C. Tocci et al., Cittadella di Alessandria. Storia dell’architettura e della costruzione. Relazione intermedia, July 2018), beneath the scanned area there should be traces of external and internal walls of some of the Bergoglio buildings (Figure 1).

The extent of the areas to be investigated and the equipment chosen meant access to the site was required on different days. Changes in physical ground conditions due to weather events between one session and the next varied the ground-penetrating radar response. This condition, despite making the areas acquired in each survey readable, does not allow for a uniform representation and examination of all the data from all the surveys. For this reason, a final survey was conducted in October 2020 with special equipment that would allow data to be acquired over the entire area in a single day, limiting the variability of ground conditions as much as possible.

A total of seven measurement sessions were conducted over a period from May 2018 to October 2020. Apart from the first one, which involved segments of wall considered significant in some of the Cittadella’s buildings, the research focused on the parade ground (rectangle bordered in red) and an area adjacent to the playground (rectangle bordered in blue), as shown in Figure 2.

After a first partial measurement survey, conducted on 24 May 2018, activity resumed, planning the data acquisition for the entire eastern part of the central corridor of the parade ground. The acquisitions were conducted by sub-area, the vertices of which are shown in Figure 3.

After the surveys in the eastern area, conducted from November 2019 to February 2020, all radar profiles (468 profiles for about 17,000 m of radar tracks) were processed following the same procedure. The processing of all the profiles had an additional aim compared to the usual processing: to make the volume of the final data as uniform as possible, i.e. to eliminate as much as possible the differences, due to different soil conditions, between areas scanned at different times. The processed profiles were assembled in space, according to the acquisition coordinates, to obtain the data volumes below the eastern area. The volumes were sectioned at constant times to obtain ‘horizontal’ (timeslice) sections, in depth, of the reflection intensity.

The analysis of the timeslices allowed some reflective structures to be recognised, for example, in Figure 4, three well-defined although discontinuous reflective objects are highlighted. The equalisation of the radargrams obtained in the various surveys, however, is only partially successful. In fact, in order to minimise the effects due to acquisitions on different dates and to obtain more comparable information over the whole area, a further definitive survey was planned and conducted using a multi-channel radar over two days (21 and 22 October 2020), the data from which are still being processed.

The post Geophysical surveys and preventive archaeology appeared first on FULL | the Future Urban Legacy Lab.