The concept of ‘urban proximity’, which has returned to the limelight with the promotion of the ‘15-min city’ developed and re-proposed for the post-COVID city, cannot simply be associated with the concept of physical proximity to the essential activities of daily life but must concern reinforcement of the social interactions that some places are able to activate better than others. This article focuses on the regeneration of Italian council housing neighbourhoods that lack relational proximity, even when functional proximity has been painstakingly achieved. It describes the fundamental steps of a working method that aims to strengthen the ‘relational performance’ of public spaces, using an interdisciplinary cognitive and assessment process and co-planning with the local community based on the issues of inclusiveness, safety, and climate vulnerability. The experimentation made in an economic and social housing district in a city in Central Italy revealed the need to ‘hook’ the space node onto the node of local capacities and resources, recognizing the local community as the bearer of desires, capacities, and planning will, capable of orienting and prefiguring the complex process of regeneration in the post-COVID city.

This paper presents the results of theoretical and applied research that employs methodological experimentation in a project for the protection and integrated transformation of the downtown area of the city of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. The particular nature of this case relates to two factors: (a) strategies and policies to protect and enhance the cultural heritage as a driver for tourism and the cultural development of the entire Emirate, from archaeological goods to the urban fabrics in historical centres (Sharjah and Korfakkhan), in contrast to the surrounding Emirates; and (b) the client’s request to define guidelines to manage the urban cultural heritage during a time of transition while awaiting the results of UNESCO candidacy. This unique fact denotes a sensitivity and long-term policies regarding the cultural heritage which views the recovery of the urban historical heritage, assuming the cultural component as the fourth dimension of sustainability. The methodological approach, the results of the research, and design are organized on the dual urban and building scale to understand the structure and elements of the historical centre. The actions and interventions are differentiated with respect to urban fabric, building, archaeological good, and landscape, and translate the strategies of the guidelines into short-/mid-/long-term design actions.

This article presents the main contents, methods, and results of the European project EDUSCAPE (Erasmus+) developed by a team of international researchers from four countries, just over a year and a half after its launch with a focus on SAAD/UNICAM contributions. Into the scientific-disciplinary frame of environmental education and climate adaptation, EDUSCAPE aims to integrate the polysemic, transversal, and multidisciplinary concept of landscape and its decline, as a promoter of new forms of knowledge in response to emerging dynamics, within the educational offer of school programs (6–15 years). This paper presents the general structure of the project, the methodology experimented (PBL educational approach), and the qualitative and quantitative intermediate results obtained so far (literature review, curriculum analysis, and needs analysis). To integrate landscape into school curricula and renew them, EDUSCAPE is preparing Didactic Units (DUs) as the final result of the project to provide theoretical foundations and practical solutions supporting teaching which will be tested in the schools of the partnership network. In general, this paper explores the possibility to disseminate the pedagogical and social role of the landscape through a new way of teaching based on a deeper exploration of the theme that can stimulate critical thinking in current and future generations regarding the global/local challenges of the 21st century.

European territories are fragile places in which landslides and flooding have occurred with a high frequency in recent decades, risking the safety of settlements and people and the integrity of the landscape. In many cases, recourse has been made to geotechnical and hydraulic interventions that have been rather non-uniform and partial and which, in prestigious areas, have made intervention after the fact problematic in recovering/mitigating what was done with extreme urgency. This paper reports on theoretical/applied research that implements methodological, multi-system experimentation and interdisciplinary skills for a project to recover the landscape within the Cinque Terre National Park (World Heritage Site, Italy). This recovery is capable of responding to the demand for protection, conservation, transformation and management of this cultural landscape par excellence. The methodological approach, the results of the research and the planning solutions span two scales—territorial and local—thereby highlighting the need for an approach to both micro- and macro-scale knowledge of the cultural landscape system to understand its structure and elements and to intervene with the proper planning sensitivity. Guidelines, masterplans and profiles of the types of intervention constitute the large- and small-scale results of the research, translating the strategies of the guidelines into planning actions.

The paper presents a study on the landscape system, understanding the landscape in the broadest sense of heritage and common good, with a focus on the identification, analysis, and critical evaluation of the coastal Landscape Systems (LSs) of Guinea-Bissau (GB) in north-western Africa. It examines the major spatial and temporal transformations of a rapidly evolving landscape, particularly in recent years, due to socio-economic dynamics and the impacts of climate change, including a specific assessment of climate change effects on coastal landscape quality. The analysis was conducted at the geographical-territorial scale using the traditional landscape approach in order to highlight homogeneous landscape systems and subsystems, and to propose a coastal perimeter for landscape management in at-risk areas of GB. The research aims to protect and enhance the GB landscape, as well as to manage the territory and its botanical-ecological and historical-cultural heritage. Specifically, it supports coastal-landscape planning towards climate resilience and the safety of communities in the coastal area, from the perspective of sustainable development, which in this context is particularly significant given the widespread poverty, administrative-financial and socio-health challenges, as well as the absence of up-to-date data, studies, or projects on the coastal landscape. The study further develops two complementary GIS-based scenarios: one describing socio-cultural and spatial trends in the absence of planning initiatives, and another resilience-oriented scenario focused on coastal safety, the enhancement of natural and cultural heritage, and the improvement of quality of life.

This paper presents the results of theoretical and applied research that employs methodological experimentation in a project for the protection and integrated transformation of the downtown area of the city of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. The particular nature of this case relates to two factors: a) strategies and policies to protect and enhance the cultural heritage as a driver for tourism and the cultural development of the entire Emirate, from archaeological goods to the urban fabrics in historical centres (Sharjah and Korfakkhan), in contrast to the surrounding emirates; and b) the client’s request to define guidelines to manage the urban cultural heritage during a time of transition while awaiting the results of UNESCO candidacy. This unique fact denotes a sensitivity and long-term policies regarding the cultural heritage which view the recovery of the urban historical heritage, assuming the cultural component as the fourth dimension of sustainability. The methodological approach, the results of the research, and design are organized on the dual urban and building scale to understand the structure and elements of the historical centre. The actions and interventions are differentiated with respect to urban fabric, building, archaeological good, and landscape and translate the strategies of the guidelines into short-/mid-/long-term design actions.