Ricerc@Sapienza

Contemporary urban planning is nowadays getting involved into thematics related with the slow and unceasing city
transformations. This circumstance, highlights the need for overcoming the sectoral approach to urban complexity, in favor of a
more integrated one (Macciocco, 2015), but at the same time it also shows the great opportunity of making a sustainable change,
from a polysemic point of view, in the urban transformation and regeneration strategies which involve contemporary cities and
territories.
The territorial context to which reference is made is the urban area; the challenge is about the adaptation to the physical, social
and economic transformations that characterize the contemporary city; the methodology applied is the Urban Project. In this
regard, particular relevance is given to the design of public space and its relevant role for the construction of urban quality (Mariano,
2012; Mariano, 2015). The contribution focuses on urban transformations induced by the effects of climate change, with specific
reference to the increasingly frequent floods: highlighting their effects, in terms of design, on public space, and analyzing some
good practices that have managed to transform the calamitous event into an urban development engine (Mariano; Marino, 2018
a, b).
The paper proposes a critical reflection on two case studies: the "Water Square" in Benthemplein (Rotterdam), and the "Climate
tiles" project in Copenhagen. These represent two different ways of intervening on public space, in which urban regeneration
becomes a tool for ecological reconversion of city areas compromised by the effects of climate change. This analysis, through an
inductive process, aims to identify some theoretical-methodological and operational references to be tested in urban contexts
affected by calamitous events, through an ecological approach of the Urban Project procedure.