Regenerative Territories : Dimensions of Circularity for Healthy Metabolisms

This open access book provides new perspectives on circular economy and space, explored towards the definition of regenerative territories characterised by healthy metabolisms. Going beyond the mere reuse/recycle of material waste as resources, this work aims to understand how to apply circularity principles to, among others, the regeneration of wastescapes. The main focus is the development over time, and in particular the way how spatial planning and strategies respond to new unpredictable urgencies and opportunities related with territorial metabolisms. The book specifically focuses on living labs environments, where it is possible to tackle complex problems through a multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach - including the use of digital spatial decision support environment – which could be able to include all the involved stakeholders. Through a spatial scope of circularity, this book describes several examples including among others ideas from different contexts such as Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and Vietnam. Through including reflections on methodology and representation, as well as on solutions for circular and healthy metabolisms, the book provides an excellent resource to researchers and students.

Libera Amenta is Postdoc Researcher in the Department of Architecture at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, where she teaches Urbanism at the Laboratory of Urbanism at the master level of the MAPA Course “Laurea Magistrale in Architettura Progettazione Architettonica”. She has been, until recently, Postdoc Researcher in the Department of Urbanism at TU Delft, The Netherlands, where she has been also Guest Researcher. Since 2016, she has been carrying out research on topics regarding the circular regeneration of wastescapes as a member of the EU-funded Horizon 2020 REPAiR project. Her latest book is “Beyond WASTESCAPES. Opportunities for sustainable urban and territorial regeneration”.

Arjan van Timmeren is Full Professor Environmental Technology & Design, within the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment and Department of Urbanism at Delft University of Technology (TUD). Besides of the TUD chair, he has also been (co-)founding scientific director and, as of September 2020, Principal Investigator at AMS Institute, a joint initiative by TUD, MIT and WUR - Institute for ‘Advanced Metropolitan Solutions’ - in Amsterdam, together with public and private stakeholders and citizen(platforms). He is the Academic Portfolio Director (APD) Sustainable Cities for TUD and has seats in several (inter)national steering groups, quality teams, scientific boards, special issue editorships and is lecturing all over the globe as expert and keynote speaker.

Michelangelo Russo is the Dean of the Department of Architecture, University of Naples Federico II, Italy, where he is Full Professor of Urbanism. He coordinated―from 2013 until recently―the Doctorate School in Architecture in the same Department. He has been carrying out several funded research of national and international interest. From 2014 until 2018 he was the head of the Italian Society of Urbanists (SIU). He was the leader of the Neapolitan Team of the European project Horizon 2020 entitled: “REPAiR―Resource Management in Peri-urban Areas: Going Beyond Urban Metabolism’’.