Redesigning the Boundary between Land and River. A Technological-Environmental Approach for the Resilience of River Corridors and Health of Inhabitants

Through the regimentation of rivers, water has determined the evolution of anthropic development and settled communities. The extreme climatic events of recent years have transformed the boundary between inhabited lands and bodies of water through an illogical separation between control over river flows (monitoring, safeguarding, regenerating) and the activities-lives of resident populations (moving, recreation, open-air living).On the contrary, this boundary has the potential to become the primary site in which to reactivate resilience capabilities through an innovative design approach that incorporates the randomness and uncertainty triggered by mutated climatic conditions to forecast variable structures of settlement and guarantee a state of adaptive safety and healthy living. This ‘interdimensional process of re-design’ may help define evolutionary scenarios of settlement through a proactive re-composition of strategic, tactical and operational actions. This symbiotic human adaptation to the natural environment permits the implementation of different levels of resilience: the safeguarding of exposed natural/artificial elements (resilience of metabolic flows); the safety and health of inhabitants (resilience of communities/organisations); the integrity of architectural/infrastructural heritage (resilience of the built environment); the social-economic revitalisation (resilience of social dynamics).