A Multi-functional Design Approach to Deal with New Urban Challenges

Abstract The chapter addresses the urban regeneration of an area starting from multi-step interventions in a small square. These interventions consider a multifaceted point of view which respects local ecological processes while ensuring that transit and other economic and social functions take place. This approach encompasses solutions that respond to city scale needs in terms of stormwater management and the local conditions of thermal comfort and livability at the neighborhood scale. The benefits of urban liveability are now well recognized internationally, and among them increased city attractiveness to avoid abandonment is at the table of several local governments. Municipalities worldwide have pushed for the development of new pedestrian spaces or the regeneration of existing ones to foster liveability through a strategy known as Tactical Urbanism. The paper focuses on the first square in the south part of Milan-Italy to receive such intervention. Beyond Tactical Urbanism, but starting from it, this proposal is a preliminary assessment that aims to evaluate permanent and structural interventions in a square that can also contribute to the environmental resilience of the city. Two different software were used to estimate the environmental benefits of the proposal. The software SWMM (US-EPA) was used to evaluate strategies that guarantee the hydraulic invariance of the intervention area. Second, RayMan Pro was used to assess the contribution of the proposed solution to the microclimate by comparing scenarios in terms of the UTCI index, taking as input local climatic data and data present in the literature.