The Metabolism of Changes - Urban Landscapes: Environmental Networks and Quality of Life - page 45

Umbrian territory flanks contemporary urban expansions; the quick routes of
logistics, commerce, and finance face the slow trends of tourism, teaching, and
recreational fruition. The research raises different questions regarding some
synergies or conflicting combinations between old landscapes and places
undergoing change. What is the relationship between the population and these
new scenarios? One glimpses a region in search for contact between old archi-
tectural and landscape figures and settlement, infrastructure, and technological
innovations. It is the task of the territorial, landscape, and environmental proj-
ect to investigate, in accordance with the common feeling of the interested
population, new correlations between urban pre-existence and its recent dis-
persion.
Another interesting experience is taking place in Italy through the project
of the Marche Regional Ecological Network (REM) 4 . Particular attention is
being placed on the contact between network and city [8], whether for ecolog-
ical needs (the need to favor permeability), or for returning a sense, through
environmental infrastructure, to the splintered city that is dispersed and lack-
ing in strategic visions. There are many project themes for territorial regen-
eration that spring up in these new visions. In particular, in the Marche case
study, some clichés, looking at governance choices linked to the development
of the sea and mountains as recreational landscapes, are coming into play. In
facing these themes, important interaction and cooperation with the regional
plan 5 is being activated. It is once again through the landscape, containing the
collective perception, that the project for ecological regeneration, and conse-
quently the transformation of the Adriatic city, is metabolized.

References

1. Cattaneo C (1845) Industria e morale. In: Proceedings of the Società d'incoraggiamento

d'arti e mestieri. Milan

2. Magnaghi A (2000) Il progetto locale. Verso la coscienza di luogo. Bollati Boringhieri, Turin

3. Mazza L (2008) Il contenuto strutturale del nuovo piano, Il nuovo Piano. In: Proceedings from

the 26th National INU Congress, Ancona (published in Urbanistica Dossier, 111/ 2009)

4 The University of Camerino (UNICAM) spin-off “Terre.it” and the Marche region have just
completed a search for the design of the Marche REM (Rete Ecologica delle Marche). The inter-
disciplinary working group, coordinated by Massimo Sargolini, was composed of researchers
from the Universities of Urbino and Macerata, the Marche Polytechnic University (Università
Politecnica delle Marche), and the Polytechnic of Turin (Politecnico di Torino).
5 The School of Architecture and Design (SAD), UNICAM, and the Marche Region are complet-
ing research on “Landscape and biodiversity”, in support of the revision of the landscape plan for
the Marche Region, adapting to the ELC and the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape (prin-
cipal investigator: Massimo Sargolini).