Nature Positive Buildings: Systemic Approaches and Technological Design Experimentation

"The two crises of climate and biodiversity cannot be treated separately, and nature and biodiversity restoration are essential to absorb and store more carbon" (Fit for 55). The "Carbon Neutral" goal is thus complemented by the "Nature Positive by 2030": a global and social goal introduced to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. The green transition cannot do without the simultaneous achievement of both of these ambitious goals. The approach of "nature-based thinking" (Randrup et al. 2020) and "transformative resilience" (Art.2, reg. 2021/241/EU) diverge from the anthropocentric canons of the traditional sustainable development paradigm, based on design solutions that aim to provide services to limit the damage inflicted on nature by humans. The positive approach to nature aims to reduce the damage that humans might inflict on themselves and their habitats when destroying their intrinsic and extrinsic qualities. Buildings and urban open spaces can make a crucial contribution in this direction, and the role of integrated greenery can take on significant relevance not only for the purposes of urban biodiversity but also with respect to the goal of decarbonization (carbon footprint reduction, negative carbon emissions and embodied carbon neutrality). It is imperative, therefore, that for the built environment, the design approach should be "nature-based thinking." At the building scale, therefore, new design scenarios are opening up with responsive envelope systems that integrate living vegetal organisms. At the urban scale, tools introduced by the EU include a "forestry strategy" to improve the quantity and quality of green space, understood as a "multifunctional organism." Multifunctionality is a valuable resource behind Nature-based Solutions (NbS), which aim to move beyond the concepts of Green Infrastructure and Ecosystem-based Adaptation, just because they are more solution-oriented (Dorst et al. 2019). The paper presents the outcomes of research on new frontiers of green-built-environment integration to help achieve the Nature Positive goal. In particular, the use of NbS at the three scales (Green Building Sites, System and Materials), able to offer a wide range of sustainability benefits (Xing et al. 2017), is analysed both to improve the energy and environmental performance of buildings and to implement an "urban nature" strategy for broader urban regeneration (Bush &Doyon 2019). Intrinsically nature-based solutions have the potential to improve quantitatively and qualitatively biodiversity (Enzi et al 2017). Through critical analysis of best practices, we show that the technological design of NbS, through systemic approaches, can ensure effective improvement of ecosystem quality and achievement of the Nature Positive goal, overcoming the governance risk of fragmented implementation processes (Dorst et al. 2019).