Endless Articulations, Environmental Benefits and Dynamic Relationships of Sustainable Infrastructures

Comparing critical readings of the concept of density, the paper considers road infrastructures as complex sustainable components, similarly to a dense urban structure containing them. This scalar interpretation prefigures the multiplication of benefits through projects of eco-technological corridors, with networked systems, hybridization of functions, control of the timing of interventions, use of greenery for environmental rebalancing, intensification of social relations. At a closer scale, green streets offer benefits in addition to the storm-water management, as the improvement of the quality of air and run-off, the increase of ground infiltration, the reduction of the urban heat island, the availability of green pedestrian connections. The paper presents first evidences of the ongoing research on these issues at the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, as part of the PRIN 2015 Project "Adaptive Design and Technological Innovations for Resilient Regeneration of Urban Districts in Regime of Climate Change", experimenting research through design along a state road in Southern Italy. Linking up to the research on intensity-performance spaces, the project investigates complex uses and related design methods for the green streets devices, in order to enhance them in different context conditions.