Urban Simulation, Strategic Planning and Projects Evaluation

Research focus

The Peer review has evaluated this group as Good

The research program has focussed on assessing multifacets techniques and criteria for effectively selecting project proposals and for negotiating with the promoters suitable modifications in order to assure a better adaptation to the site and to share the public costs of development. In view of this, urban and environmental simulation, strategic planning, and project review play a key-role along the public/private implementation process. Moreover, as the compatibility judgment is basically not technical but negotiated, urban projects evaluation requires more accountability and public participation than computation, and ask for a comprehensive display of visual, morphological, environmental, comfort, and socio-economic impacts of the proposed alternatives. Exploiting the diverse disciplinary perspectives of the researchers adhering to the research group (town planning, comparative territorial policies, applied economics, environmental simulation and assessment, representation), the programmes complement each other within the shared goal of defining guidelines and operational tools appropriate to: - the project scale, to guide negotiation for mitigating and compensating local impacts; - the municipal scale, to ease co-financing the public works scheduled in the public investments program; - the inter-municipal scale, to design externality/revenue compensation instruments, to sustain multi-jurisdictional agreements among local governments affected by the impacts of territorial projects and policies. The convergent research lines and inter-disciplinary knowledge developed during these years has been recently merged in a joint Laboratory for Urban Simulation and Projects Evaluation, aimed to Integrate various three-dimensional modelizing techniques and constantly upgrade representational skills by inventing combinations of new and proven techniques. Based on the different expertises of the researchers involved, the group has been working on the following Specific research topics: Landscape Representation and Morphological and Visual Simulation - nowadays the different levels of spatial analysis and design can rely on a varied toolbox Cad, Gis, solid modelling - able to display full representations and visualize the crossing between the contiguous scales of the building, the urban space and the wide area landscape; - then we can consider simultaneously the zenith vision and the ‘view from the road’, going farther the traditional opposition between centre and periphery, and better understanding and monitoring the environmental change at the metropolitan fringe. Environmental, Energy and Micro-climatic Simulation and Assessment Urban sustainability and the development of quantitative methods and simulations for evaluation and prediction of the system dynamics has been developed in different directions: - urban sprawl: models of prediction based on different planning tools regimen. The model of Milan metropolitan area, which is based on a cellular automata and neural 20 8 Nets, allows to investigate the spatial logic of the new settlements and to build possible scenario of evolution. A side result of the model is the identification the areas more “under pressure” for urbanisation; - impact of urbanisation and new infrastructures on landscape. A model based on landscape ecology allows to quantify the impacts in terms of metabolism of the natural or seminatural systems; - real estate dynamics, population turn over and gentrification through a Multi agent dynamic model. Strategic Spatial Planning for the Urban Regions - another relevant purpose is to put in evidence the innovations in spatial strategic planning aimed at facing the emerging spatial problems of urban regions in Europe, with special reference to the new forms of communicative and argumentative rationality structuring the decision making processes, to inclusionary local planning practices and to new prescriptive tools and norms introduced by national laws and guidances for the implementation of framework planning; - and to analyse Good Practices of strategic spatial planning in a comparative perspective. Projects feasibility assessment and negotiated management of economic, urban, and fiscal impacts. - with regard to large urban renovation projects careful consideration has been given not only to socio-economic, morphological, and environmental impacts, but also to institutional learning and organising capacity - special care has been given on the relationship between the residual urban carrying capacity and the impacts induced by the project on environmental and congestion thresholds. The intent is to justify planning gain, impact fees, and exactions on developers and property owners; - case studies comparison has been used to highlight pros and cons of different fiscal policies (negotiated or enacted) and show how they can be reckoned with (and legitimized with) a general plan, validated through standard evaluation procedures, and jointly implemented through p/p agreement and/or competitive bids

Dipartimento di afferenza

Dipartimento di Architettura e Pianificazione (DIAP)

Docenti afferenti

Full Professor
Fausto Curti
Associate Professors
Lidia Diappi
Maria Cristina Gibelli
Rossella Salerno