Natural disasters have increasingly threatened human life, infrastructure, and ecosystems, exacerbated by climate change, urbanization, and deforestation. Effective disaster risk management is crucial to mitigate these impacts. Traditionally, Geographic Information Systems (GISs) have provided spatial data analysis capabilities, but the advent of Web-GIS applications has revolutionized this field. Web-GIS platforms enable real-time data access and facilitate enhanced stakeholder collaboration. This paper details the development of a Web-GIS application tailored for hydrogeological risk management in Cervo Valley, part of the NODES—Nord Ovest Digitale e Sostenibile project under Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP). The application integrates both static and dynamic geospatial data to create an interactive interface for evaluating and planning responses to hydrogeological hazards, specifically floods, landslides, and debris flow cones. By utilizing advanced Web-GIS capabilities, the project aims to refine the risk management practices and decision-making processes, thereby bolstering territorial resilience and addressing contemporary spatial challenges with enhanced precision and efficiency.

The growing integration of sustainability into university curricula requires teaching models capable of addressing social and environmental complexity through interdisciplinary and human-centered approaches. In this context, this research investigates the role of Virtual Reality as a pedagogical infrastructure to support sustainability-oriented learning, with a particular focus on conditions of frailty and the role of green spaces—areas that remain under-explored in the literature. The study adopts a research-through-design and design-based research approach, developed within a university course in which students design immersive environments using Extended Reality technologies and a shared metaverse hub. The methodological framework is structured in six iterative phases and is supported by a multi-level evaluation strategy based on project criteria and maturity indicators, applied to three learning domains. The results suggest the potential of Virtual Reality as a learning environment when technological, spatial, and design dimensions are coherently integrated. They also show different degrees of integration between frailty-oriented design approaches and spatial configurations, indicating how human-centered principles can be operationalized through design choices. In addition, the findings point to the role of green elements in contributing to the perceived quality of the experience when configured as active spatial components. Overall, the study proposes a replicable framework for integrating Virtual Reality into SDG-oriented curricula, providing evidence of design integration rather than a direct measurement of learning outcomes, and contributing to the connection between pedagogical, design, and environmental dimensions in higher education.

Soil remediation is a key requirement to sustainable urban regeneration, but planning is hampered by poor integration of geological, environmental and construction data. This study evaluates GeoBIM as an operational framework to integrate subsurface information in BIM for the Parco della Salute redevelopment (Turin, Italy). Four workflows, each representing a distinct subsurface modelling methodology, were developed to convert borehole stratigraphy and laboratory pollutant concentrations into BIM-compatible models. Workflows were ranked through an Analytical Hierarchy Process based (AHP) multi-criteria decision analysis using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for reliability, automation, interoperability and usability; KPI weights followed a hybrid 70/30 expert-literature scheme. Results reveal a clear trade-off across KPI groups. Voxel-based GIS pipelines achieved the highest performance for reliability-related KPIs, preserving spatial heterogeneity and depth-continuous concentration patterns while maintaining traceability to sampling intervals and enabling rapid querying for risk screening. Parametric BIM-centered pipelines scored higher on automation and BIM integration, leveraging scripting to reduce manual steps and supporting faster iterations within federated models. Interoperability was the main limiting factor across all workflows: loss of georeferencing and weak environmental semantics reduced downstream reuse. Across downstream use scenarios, voxel outputs were more effective for remediation decision-support, whereas parametric outputs better supported clash detection and construction planning. Overall, results support phase-specific workflow selection: voxel models for investigation and remediation design, and parametric BIM models for construction coordination and delivery.

This paper presents a BIM-based virtual reality (VR) framework for the immersive visualization of hydraulic transients in pressurized hydropower systems. The approach integrates three-dimensional geometries derived from BIM models with hydraulic simulations based on the Method of Characteristics. The hydraulic model is implemented in an external computational environment and accounts for key boundary conditions, including upstream reservoir levels, surge tank oscillations, and turbine-related orifice flow at the downstream boundary. Simulation outputs are exported as time-dependent datasets and mapped onto discretized pipeline segments within a game engine platform. Dynamic visualization is achieved through real-time modification of textures and color encoding driven by custom scripts, enabling the representation of pressure wave propagation and flow variations. The framework is applied to a real hydropower plant case study, where users can simulate valve closure maneuvers within an immersive VR environment accessed through head-mounted displays. Results derived from a user study involving 29 participants with diverse backgrounds suggest a high level of perceived usefulness, highlighting how the integration of BIM models, numerical simulations, and immersive VR can support the understanding and visualization of complex hydraulic phenomena in engineering contexts.

The article reads the Cinque Terre as a landscape-architecture laboratory for rethinking tourism in fragile mountain and coastal territories. Focusing on the Via dell’Amore, a former construction path turned iconic cliffside promenade, it reconstructs the trail’s transformation through infrastructural works, safety regulations, and controlled-access devices. The path is interpreted as a “showcase” infrastructure within a wider system of terraces, villages, and minor trails, where design choices and management tools operate as spatial filters that can either amplify overtourism or redistribute flows in space and time. Shifting from the cliff path to the “sea of dry-stone walls”, the article addresses issues of material authenticity, maintenance economies, and emerging forms of participatory and regenerative tourism. By comparing Cinque Terre with selected Alpine landscapes, it argues for an architecture of care in which landscape projects, agricultural practices, and tourism policies are conceived together to sustain the everyday work that keeps mountain territories inhabited.