Keywords
Urban regeneration
Architectural integration
Urban Void
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper addresses the challenges and opportunities of integrating Nature-based Solutions (NbS) within the architectural design process, focusing on the regeneration of urban voids and periods of construction suspension. Moving beyond the conventional understanding of urban “downtime” as merely wasted time or empty space, the research reconsiders these intervals as critical design moments that can be strategically activated for ecological transformation. Drawing on both international and European case studies—ranging from peri-urban forests to post-industrial infrastructure and large metropolitan brownfields—the article analyses how architects can harness waiting periods and urban residual spaces as laboratories for ecological experimentation, soil regeneration, and the incremental construction of green infrastructure.
The methodological approach blends comparative analysis of emblematic projects with speculative design hypotheses, illustrating how vegetation and natural processes can be integrated into architectural workflows from the earliest stages of site preparation. The discussion foregrounds the architect’s agency not only as a form-giver but as an orchestrator of dynamic, adaptive, and processual landscapes—capable of anticipating, accompanying, and enhancing the multiple temporalities of urban transformation. The proposed framework demonstrates how the architect’s intervention, by aligning with the rhythms of ecological succession and integrating Nature-based Solutions, can generate measurable environmental benefits and open up new directions for sustainable urban development.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Francesca La Monaca (Author)