L’Infrastruttura che cura : scenari architettonici di trasformazione per gli ecosistemi ai margini della circonvallazione di Palermo

The healing Infrastructure. Architectural scenarios in transforming the ecosystems on the edge of Palermo's ring road. In the circular perspective of production, consuming and regeneration that has now become indispensable, building emerges as one of the acts with the highest environmental impact. For a genuine mutation, architecture must approach design through an interrelated approach, reframing every act of building as an act of co-construction. This means understanding the Earth not as a sum of places, but as an inseparable system of living things and matter that cannot evolve separately or in an unbalanced condition determined by the dominance of one species over others. In this backdrop, the article discusses a pivotal point in the ecological rethinking of anthropized territories, which is transportation infrastructure, and in particular urban highways (ring roads, bypasses, elevated highways). Through the project of some scenarios of transformation of the Palermo ring road, elaborated within an international research, the objectives of the past first season of regeneration are expanded, which aimed to restore the level continuity of the crossings and stimulate the practices of proximity, in order to reverse the conditions of marginality of the peri-urban ecosystems brought about by the first realization of these infrastructures. Addressing the role they may play in landcare, the idea of regeneration should be extended by pointing at the recovery of interconnected habitats, combining the goal of activating new ecological dividends with social and economic ones. In the circular perspective of production, consuming and regeneration that has now become indispensable, building emerges as one of the acts with the highest environmental impact. For a genuine mutation, architecture must approach design through an interrelated approach, reframing every act of building as an act of co-construction. This means understanding the Earth not as a sum of places, but as an inseparable system of living things and matter that cannot evolve separately or in an unbalanced condition determined by the dominance of one species over others. In this backdrop, the article discusses a pivotal point in the ecological rethinking of anthropized territories, which is transportation infrastructure, and in particular urban highways (ring roads, bypasses, elevated highways). Through the project of some scenarios of transformation of the Palermo ring road, elaborated within an international research, the objectives of the past first season of regeneration are expanded, which aimed to restore the level continuity of the crossings and stimulate the practices of proximity, in order to reverse the conditions of marginality of the peri-urban ecosystems brought about by the first realization of these infrastructures. Addressing the role they may play in landcare, the idea of regeneration should be extended by pointing at the recovery of interconnected habitats, combining the goal of activating new ecological dividends with social and economic ones.

Nella prospettiva circolare di produzione, consumo e rigenerazione ormai divenuta indispensabile, costruire si afferma come uno degli atti a più elevato impatto ambientale. Per un’autentica mutazione, l’architettura deve affrontare il progetto attraverso un approccio interrelato e intendere ogni atto di costruzione come un atto di co-costruzione. Ciò significa comprendere la Terra non come somma di luoghi, ma come sistema inscindibile di viventi e materie che non possono evolvere separatamente o in una condizione di squilibrio determinata dal predominio di una specie sulle altre. Su questo sfondo, l’articolo discute un punto nevralgico nel ripensamento in chiave ecologica dei territori antropizzati, che sono le infrastrutture dei trasporti, e in particolare le autostrade urbane (circonvallazioni, tangenziali, sopraelevate). Attraverso il progetto di alcuni scenari di trasformazione della circonvallazione di Palermo, elaborato nell’ambito di una ricerca internazionale, si ampliano gli obiettivi della trascorsa prima stagione di rigenerazione, che mirava a ripristinare la continuità a raso degli attraversamenti e stimolare le pratiche di prossimità, per invertire le condizioni di marginalità degli ecosistemi periurbani determinate dalla prima realizzazione di queste infrastrutture. Affrontando il ruolo che esse potranno avere in un’ottica di cura del territorio, l’idea di rigenerazione va estesa mirando al recupero di habitat interconnessi, unendo l’obiettivo di attivazione di nuovi dividendo ecologici a quelli sociali ed economici.