- Rethinking urban Morphology through urban Forestry (case Rome)    1177 kb by    Malusardi, Federico & Scoppetta, Cecilia | federico.malusardi@uniroma1.it    Short Outline Urban forestry implies an idea of adaptation in the biologic sense, a possible relationship (natural/artificial), expressed in the image of environmental infrastructure as a living machine producing energy; a different kind of development. Abstract The city is generally considered the result of a complex process of stratification of land use and re-use made by human forces and societies. It isn't easy to recognize the meaning/sense of the continuous process of transformations (in history) of the urban areas hit today by the globalization process. The result is a fragmented morphology of compounds, defined into visible and invisible borders, that appear as an incomprehensible mixture of objects recalling human facts and actions of great different nature and times. Some of these fragments clearly belong to planning tradition: they tell us about different cities, societies, ideas through forms, architectural languages. Or they are connected to something immaterial, such as sense of belonging, memory, existence of a community. Exclusion and shutting seem to be characterizing elements. In these cases wasted or waiting areas are related to an uncertain condition: the whole of territory is seen as something uncertain because life-projects themselves appear as uncertain, temporary, flexible, changeable, waiting for new use or abuse. How the society, the governments, the decision makers must act when called to decide the land use transformations in the great metropolises? Which are the determinant criteria for planning options, taking into deep consideration the existential demand for environmental sustainability against the massive urban sprawl tendency? Can forestry help the cities? Connecting a shared tale (fabric and sewing metaphor) the urban forestry allows to link the tale to the challenge of climate changes. It allows responsibly to re-think urban morphology linking together a large scale design with the needs emerging at the local level. It changes the planners' traditional approaches. Urban forestry, in fact, implies an idea of adaptation in the biologic sense, a possible, innovative relationship between natural and artificial which is expressed in the image of environmental infrastructure as a living machine producing energy, the perspective of a different kind of development... Keywords urban forestry Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2008: Urban Growth without Sprawl   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper