Wild and the City. Landscape Architecture for Lush Urbanism

Unspoilt ecosystems and wildlife are becoming increasingly common in contemporary European cities. Untamed lands are growing, often inhabited by animals and insects that threaten us and by invasive species that disturb our ethnobotanical souverainism, while dense pieces of jungle take possession of the parks, as well as the roofs and facades of the most fashionable buildings. Cities tend to get wild for a variety of reasons, sometimes as a result of a lack of care and design, sometimes intentionally, translating a more mutualistic relationship between post-industrial societies and what we insist on calling 'nature'. In this scenario, design uses the wild to respond to a number of different issues: regenerating abandoned areas, designing sustainable infrastructures, revitalizing valuable public spaces, improving the ecological footprint of new settlements, suggesting new practices and social rituals, fighting climate change, satisfying the inhabitants' 'desire for nature', and so on. This book offers clues to read the current relationship between Wild and City from a critical perspective. On the one hand, we explore the proactive value of wild landscapes to improve urban quality, in contemporary terms of beauty, healthiness, livability; on the other hand, we question the risks of wild as a buzzword that renews anti-urban positions or feeds practices and policies of consensual and cheap-plaudit 'greenery'. The aim is to account for the variety of readings raised by the urban wilderness, which continue to find their discriminating element in the restless relationship between city and nature. The contributors to this book include Eleonora Ambrosio, Paolo Camilletti, Gianni Celestini, Daniela Colafranceschi, Isotta Cortesi, Fabio Di Carlo, Andrea Filpa, Teresa Galì-Izard, Mathieu Gontier, Luca Molinari, Lucia Nucci, Franco Panzini, Gabriele Paolinelli, and Laura Zampieri.