Air pollution was the first environmental phenomenon to emerge as a public issue to be addressed politically and legislatively as early as the middle of the last century. It therefore plays a key role in the complex relationship between anthropogenic transformations of the environment, the environment itself, and our awareness of our role as humans.
Even today, different interests converge and clash around air pollution and, in particular, around the issue of air quality, giving rise to complex political dynamics that directly involve citizens, as well as technological devices, scientific practices and institutions.

Air pollution is therefore an area in which to observe and experiment with ways of monitoring, managing and transforming our environment and our daily practices that may have broader relevance than the issues raised by climate change. This is also because air pollution has complex relationships with the dynamics of climate change and, in particular, global warming.

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Through a teaching program about air quality, developed with high school teachers and the National Association of Science Teachers, students learn about sensor technology, environmental science and the health impacts of pollutants. Students collaborate in collecting data on particulate matter, temperature and monitoring their perceptions, validating air dispersion models and exploring how environmental conditions affect their well-being. By not just observing, but inviting those involved to assemble, measure, analyse and represent, the SCoolAir programme builds a replicable educational model that strengthens the links between schools and universities.

SCoolAir is a project conducted within the framework of the European call HE Impetus.

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FULL is organising a series of thematic meetings as part of its research strands. This first seminar on the subject of air pollution in Turin is part of the ‘Practising Transition’ and ‘City of the Future’ strands. Speakers include Prof. Pietro Salizzoni, professor in Fluid Mechanics at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon and PoliTO (DIATI), Prof. Silvana Dalmazzone, professor in Environmental Economics and Natural Resources Management at UniTO, and Alessandro Bertello, official of the Turin Metropolitan City Department of the Environment and Environmental Supervision. Sofia Fellini for FULL will moderate the meeting.

The topics addressed in this meeting are varied and concern the air situation in Turin with some data, the actions already taken by public administrations and those that could be considered, the economic impacts of pollution that are not always evident, the prospects of research for studying the quality and dynamics of air flows, a comparison with the city of Lyon, and also some indications on what we can all do to improve the situation. Problems and delays will be highlighted, but also opportunities for work at various levels, with the idea of addressing other aspects at a later meeting.

The seminar will be in presence, a recording will be available.

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Challenge@PoliTo by Firms – Azzurra

The Topic

The construction and subsequent management of new treatment plants for industrial waste is a process that challenges the local contexts with a number of environmental, spatial and socio-economic repercussions, including the infrastructural networks, the landscape characters, the relations with the local communities, etc.

The challenge

The purpose of this challenge is planning the future expansion of an existing facility treating hazardous and non-hazardous industrial waste, starting from the company’s current strategic development plan. The new expansion will be specifically devoted to the treatment of sludge. The project must include the logistic plan inside and outside the plant, the selection and design of equipment, taking into account the operations to be carried out on sludge (inertization, drying, thermal treatment), the assessment of the most critical aspects in order to obtain the necessary permits and authorizations, a preliminary calculation of the costs and revenues of the project.

Specific attention will be paid to the urban and landscape outcomes of the operation. The challenge, from this point of view, is to conceive a new model of facility that could be seen not just as an unavoidably downgrading installation for the local territory but, on the contrary, as an opportunity to introduce new models of hybridization and symbiosis between waste treatment plants, agriculture, energy generation and local community.

Key objectives:

• Minimize the potential harm associated with waste treatment;

• Ensure the best integration between the waste treatment plant and the surrounding territory;

• Circular economy, Industrial symbiosis;

• Safe handling, storage and disposal

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Research summary

An increasing number of brownfield remediation interventions are taking place in urban contexts and related challenges are posed by the combination of reclamation processes, building reuse and adaptation. Following the real estate crisis of 2007-2008 and the consequent reduction in the demand for buildings, abandoned industrial sites have increasingly become an environmental, social and financial burden for urban communities. Compared to those sites located in active industrial areas outside cities, brownfield site regeneration in an urban context poses additional constraints, e.g. restrictions on site morphology variations – even temporary ones – and restrictions in use of the area, also connected to landscape characterisation and the overall perception of the place. Nevertheless, these areas patently represent a potential resource, since they are often embedded in the urban fabric, generally well-connected through infrastructure and equipped with a dense network of sub-services. In addition to environmental restoration and human health protection, transforming contaminated urban brownfield sites can offer significant advantages, including exploiting the existing infrastructure, preserving greenfield sites, producing positive social and economic effects for nearby communities, including higher property values and reduced crime rate and all in all contributing to environmental, economic and social sustainability. In such situations, urban regeneration and the planning of remediation projects are two potentially very interconnected practices, but still today they struggle to interact with one another.

The critical issues related to remediation, when it occurs in a dense and complex urban fabric, are numerous. Reclamation operations usually produce large quantities of waste, sometimes hazardous waste, with disposal costs that often lead the cost of the works to exceed the real estate value of the area. In addition, sound interaction between the professionals managing the recovery of the area, i.e. the engineer with regard to remediation operations and the architect with regard to architectural restoration, is not easily accomplished, resulting in a fragmented design process and knowledge, as well as potential dispersion. On the one hand there is the need to redevelop and reuse large former industrial areas, now incorporated into the city fabric, which have been gradually abandoned as a result of the progressive development of the tertiary sector to the detriment of the manufacturing sector. On the other hand, the past presence of manufacturing activities has led to an alteration and, most of the time, a contamination of environmental matrices due to the release of contaminants of various origins and nature compromising the free reuse of sites, exposing subsequent users and, more generally, those living in the vicinity of the old plant to potential risks.

Un processo di bonifica, necessario e imposto dalla legge per il riutilizzo di queste aree, è comunemente inteso come una “transizione tra due fasi regolate da regolamenti urbanistici ed edilizi”, isolata dalle azioni precedenti e successive, il cui obiettivo è “ripulire completamente il sito dai residui dell’uso passato, per consegnarlo come sito pulito per un uso futuro” (Robiglio et al., 2014). L’alternativa proposta coinvolge concetti di bonifica adattiva, che definiscono due diversi approcci che dovrebbero essere inclusi nella pratica operativa. La grande complessità nella gestione della procedura di bonifica e le potenzialità offerte dal sito nell’ambito del riuso adattivo pongono la necessità di creare uno strumento che metta in relazione le diverse esigenze dei professionisti coinvolti presentando una gamma di possibili alternative, confrontandole con tutte le opzioni potenzialmente efficaci al fine di generare un ventaglio di opzioni realizzabili tra cui il professionista può scegliere.

È stato quindi definito l’approccio AdRem (Adaptive Remediation), volto a integrare le diverse discipline (in particolare, ingegneria ambientale e architettura) coinvolte nella progettazione del riuso di aree industriali dismesse, specificamente applicato ai contesti urbani. Nell’ambito del progetto, è in fase di sviluppo un prototipo di toolkit di supporto alle decisioni per aiutare a selezionare quantitativamente e prioritizzare le alternative progettuali praticabili. Il toolkit è coinvolto nella fase di progettazione interdisciplinare elaborando insiemi di tecniche di bonifica e soluzioni architettoniche/urbane, sulla base dei dati raccolti e dei vincoli definiti dall’utente. Gli scenari di bonifica/riutilizzo vengono generati al computer e selezionati confrontando le alternative di bonifica e le esigenze progettuali. Gli scenari praticabili vengono quindi prioritizzati in base a costi e tempi. I risultati del toolkit orientano l’ultima fase di progettazione nel framework AdRem, quando i progettisti ambientali e architettonici identificano il progetto integrato ottimale, utilizzando infine il toolkit in modo ricorrente modificando i parametri di input e i vincoli, sulla base di nuove soluzioni progettuali.

Future developments of the toolkit will aim at a better interoperability, in input and output, with existing software and formats used in risk analysis, architectural design and geographic information (GIS).

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