Metabolismo urbano e gestione risorse idriche, i principali temi della nuova Summer School di Climate-KIC

La Climate-KIC, che ha in ASTER il suo core partner, ha dato il via alla nuova PhD Summer School dal titolo “Smart solutions for the Urban Metropole” che si svolge dal 4 al 15 luglio tra Amsterdam e Bologna.  Il programma 2016 è svolto in collaborazione tra partner olandesi e Università di Bologna, Comune di Bologna e Urban Center Bologna.

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Amsterdam and Bologna: two climate challenges for one PhD summer school

Working on smart solutions for the peripheral and historical urban areas with Climate-KIC PhD Summer School 2016

The first week of Smart Solutions for the Urban Metropole – PhD summer school on Urban Metabolism and Water Management – is ongoing in Amsterdam. Started on July 4th it will end in Bologna on July 15th 2016.
20 brilliant and motivated PhD students coming from over 10 different countries, Europe and worldwide – from Asia to America – just started to work on new visions and solutions for the cities of Amsterdam and Bologna.

Urban Metabolism and  Urban Water Management are the key challenges through which transition projects will be developed, starting from concrete test beds within the 2 cities.

Buiksloterham, a neighborhood in the north of Amsterdam, is in a unique position to serve as both a living test bed and catalyst for Amsterdam’s broader transition to becoming a circular, smart, and biobased city. Buiksloterham is a comparative blank slate with many empty plots and almost no monumental buildings. This status creates space and flexibility for new developments. Though Buiksloterham is unique in Amsterdam, it also has many features that make it a good case study for the transformation of other post-industrial neighborhoods in cities around the world.

Zamboni District is a quite large area in the historic centre of Bologna, where a number of relevant pieces of the urban fabric are located around Zamboni street defining a dynamic place for events and everyday life rather than a ‘formal neighbourhood’. It mixes resident and student communities with tourists and visitors offering an extraordinary place to experience the city. The place is affected by unbalanced conditions investing the environmental, social and safety issues.

The ambitious challenge is to re-frame the urban metabolism to improve quality of life and create a ‘Sustainable Cultural Campus’ based on the circular economy principles.

The students are now divided into groups and started to work on the cases, introduced by experts of both cities, using data, pictures and videos … of course they will take advantage from site visits and sharing ideas with stakeholders. They are daily engaged and supported by the two coaches, encouraging ideation, discussion and creativity always remembering to maintain feasibility and sustainability.

Innovative and creative ideas are coming!

The next week the group will move to Bologna, where they will complete the site visits and stakeholders’ meetings programme. At the end of the week students will finalize projects and pitch solutions.