Hasil untuk "Architectural drawing and design"

Matteo Esposito, Lodovica Marchesi, Roberto Tonelli et al.

Digital sovereignty has emerged as a central concern for modern software-intensive systems, driven by the dominance of non-sovereign cloud infrastructures, the rapid adoption of Generative AI, and increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. While existing initiatives address governance, compliance, and security in isolation, they provide limited guidance on how sovereignty can be operationalized at the architectural level. In this paper, we argue that sovereignty must be treated as a first-class architectural property rather than a purely regulatory objective. We introduce a Sovereign Reference Architecture that integrates self-sovereign identity, blockchain-based trust and auditability, sovereign data governance, and Generative AI deployed under explicit architectural control. The architecture explicitly captures the dual role of Generative AI as both a source of governance risk and an enabler of compliance, accountability, and continuous assurance when properly constrained. By framing sovereignty as an architectural quality attribute, our work bridges regulatory intent and concrete system design, offering a coherent foundation for building auditable, evolvable, and jurisdiction-aware AI-enabled systems. The proposed reference architecture provides a principled starting point for future research and practice at the intersection of software architecture, Generative AI, and digital sovereignty.

Fatih Uzun, Sevgi Altun, Sena Kayasü et al.

Photogrammetry, the process of producing detailed 3D models using photographs, is an indispensable tool in heritage conservation and construction due to its capacity for documentation. It can benefit professionals across various fields of design and computation to efficiently generate digital renditions that can be used for documentation, dissemination, education and entertainment. This paper describes a feasible and cost-effective workflow for creating and processing high-quality photogrammetry-based models and a series of workshops that introduce architecture students and researchers to it. The proposed framework strives to document objects and spatial elements by streamlining the terrestrial photogrammetry process in the face of modern challenges, focusing on the necessity of model optimisation for the longevity of documentation. In this spirit, the workshop seeks to empower participants to actively engage in the preservation of cultural heritage.

Mingyang BO, Daixin DAI, Wandi LIAO

ObjectiveUrban areas are increasingly vulnerable to compound rainstorm and heatwave (CRH) disaster risks. Existing research primarily treats rainstorms and heatwaves as isolated risks, resulting in a limited understanding of CRH dynamics and insufficient mitigation strategies. While ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) offers adaptive solutions for multiple disasters, its application to CRH remains underdeveloped. Key challenges include methodological gaps in CRH risk assessment and Eco-DRR application in the planning of disaster risk reduction.MethodsThis research develops a planning framework grounded in Eco-DRR theory to address CRH disaster risks. First, the research employs a risk assessment methodology driven by multi-source data to overcome the constraints of traditional single-disaster assessment approaches. The research utilizes daily precipitation and maximum temperature data from Shanghai meteorological stations (2011–2023) to identify CRH events using a maximum temporal interval criterion. Subsequently, disaster records of rainstorms and heatwaves within the event time window are extracted as target variables, while raster data of climatic, topographic, geomorphic, and hydrological influencing factors are derived using ENVI and ArcGIS tools as explanatory variables, forming CRH disaster datasets for training a random forest model. The datasets are partitioned into training and testing sets at a 7:3 ratio. The probability of disaster event occurrence is calculated on a grid-by-grid basis. Disaster risks are classified into high, medium, and low levels using the natural breaks classification method (Jenks), visualized for CRH risks on the ArcGIS platform, and ultimately integrated into a bivariate spatial distribution map through a compound risk matrix. Second, Eco-DRR principles are systematically integrated into territorial spatial planning systems to transition from reactive single-disaster mitigation to proactive resilience-driven strategies. The systematic integration of Eco-DRR theory into the aforesaid planning framework establishes an implementation logic of “risk assessment – planning objectives – support system – spatial configuration – management measures” across five core components. Based on the above, the research proposes the following specific pathways. 1) Resilience goal setting: Defining township/subdistrict-level risk zoning and Eco-DRR targets based on citywide compound risk assessment results. 2) Support system development: Constructing an Eco-DRR support system incorporating mitigation and adaptation strategies. 3) Spatial configuration optimization: Determining spatial allocation schemes for Eco-DRR support elements guided by risk assessment outcomes. 4) Hierarchical management implementation: Coordinating management needs for transition between routine and emergency states under the “risk types – spatial features – planning objectives – management hierarchy” framework. Third, horizontal coordination between ecological spaces and comprehensive disaster prevention systems mitigates fragmentation in existing planning frameworks, establishing a replicable model for multi-disaster, multi-system planning for disaster risk reduction. The Eco-DRR theoretical framework resolves conflicts between multiple planning systems by enabling horizontal coordination between ecological spaces and comprehensive disaster prevention planning. Specifically, Eco-DRR is deconstructed into “+ ecology” and “+ disaster prevention” strategies, with “+ ecology” integrated into comprehensive disaster prevention planning, while “+ disaster prevention” is embedded within ecological spatial planning. Eco-DRR’s mitigation and adaptation strategies are implemented, with coordinated ecological and disaster prevention plans serving as the basis for detailed planning.ResultsThe research adopts random forest models for analysis to identify CRH events and map their spatial distribution in Shanghai. Results show that CRH disasters predominantly occur between May and September, peaking during the plum rain season and summer months. Annual cumulative durations have increased, exceeding 70 days in the past three years. The high-risk zones for compound risks are concentrated in the central urban areas of Hongqiao, Minhang, and Chuansha districts in Shanghai, as well as surrounding new towns, exhibiting spatial characteristics of “central concentration, peripheral dispersion, and local aggregation”. The spatial distribution patterns of compound risks align with urban development trajectories, with pronounced “rain island” and “heat island” effects. Getis-Ord Gi* analysis reveals that risk hotspots (p<0.05) radiate outward from the urban core to surrounding suburban coldspots. Guided by Eco-DRR theory, dual planning interventions are operationalized: 1) “+ disaster prevention” ecological spatial planning optimization: Eco-DRR constraint indicators embodying the “+ disaster prevention” concept are integrated into Shanghai’s ecological spatial support system. High-risk compound CRH zones are identified as Eco-DRR nodes within the green network, restructuring the outer green belt and suburban green ring. Resilience-compatible zoning is applied based on risk levels. 2) “+ ecology” comprehensive disaster prevention planning optimization: Eco-DRR principles guide “+ ecology” disaster mitigation strategies, including restructuring disaster spaces (shelters, evacuation routes, and zoning) and optimizing safety patterns through risk zoning, route upgrades, and facility improvements. CRH risk zoning informs differentiated construction guidelines, with dual-purpose zoning for normal & emergency states.ConclusionThis research aligns with territorial spatial planning mandates to address CRH risks through Eco-DRR mitigation and adaptation strategies, establishing an integrated territorial spatial planning framework for disaster risk reduction. A random forest-based CRH risk assessment model is developed; empirical analysis is conducted in Shanghai to explore planning pathways under the Eco-DRR theory. District-specific resilience objectives are formulated for subdistricts and structured into “+ ecology” and “+ disaster prevention” strategies. This approach fosters horizontal coordination between ecological spaces and disaster mitigation systems, advancing Eco-DRR integration into territorial spatial planning for disaster risk reduction. The planning methodology provides a replicable framework for CRH mitigation and adaptation in eastern coastal cities. Future research should expand applications to diverse compound climate extremes, incorporate advanced modeling techniques for prediction, and deepen investigations into CRH dynamics and blue – green infrastructure effects.

Haoxiong Ren, Yangu He, Kwunhang Wong et al.

Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) are increasingly favored for deployment on resource-constrained edge devices due to their energy-efficient and event-driven processing capabilities. However, training SNNs remains challenging because of the computational intensity of traditional backpropagation algorithms adapted for spike-based systems. In this paper, we propose a novel software-hardware co-design that introduces a hardware-friendly training algorithm, Spiking Direct Feedback Alignment (SDFA) and implement it on a Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAM)-based In-Memory Computing (IMC) architecture, referred to as PipeSDFA, to accelerate SNN training. Software-wise, the computational complexity of SNN training is reduced by the SDFA through the elimination of sequential error propagation. Hardware-wise, a three-level pipelined dataflow is designed based on IMC architecture to parallelize the training process. Experimental results demonstrate that the PipeSDFA training accelerator incurs less than 2% accuracy loss on five datasets compared to baselines, while achieving 1.1X~10.5X and 1.37X~2.1X reductions in training time and energy consumption, respectively compared to PipeLayer.

Hassan Shapourian, Eneet Kaur, Troy Sewell et al.

This paper presents the design of scalable quantum networks that utilize optical switches to interconnect multiple quantum processors, facilitating large-scale quantum computing. By leveraging these novel architectures, we aim to address the limitations of current quantum processors and explore the potential of quantum data centers. We provide an in-depth analysis of these architectures through the development of simulation tools and performance metrics, offering a detailed comparison of their advantages and trade-offs. We hope this work serves as a foundation for the development of efficient and resilient quantum networks, designed to meet the evolving demands of future quantum computing applications.

Anne Boddington, Gerhard Bruyns

This seventh number Cubic Journal was originally conceived to capture emerging discussions about the contested roles of PhD design and a design PhD and was fuelled by the experiences of COVID-19. On reflection, and in compiling this issue under the title ‘PhD Design and Design PhD: In, Through and About’, it is clear that there are still many valid and important questions about the incremental next steps and the value of the doctoral experience and its outcomes. Through doctoral education and bringing together design researchers and an expanded portfolio of research design opportunities, there is the potential to rebalance and strengthen human capabilities that complement and counteract emerging technologies that can limit our agency and ability to think, wrestle with and give form to ideas as well as balance our capacity to develop both IQ and EQ. This collection of papers is only the beginning of how doctoral studies and design training can evolve, contribute to advancing research and develop the capability, collaboration, compassion, creativity and courage that distinguish and highlight the integrity of research beyond what is invisible, intangible, searchable and discoverable, even if rarely read, understood or impactful.

Antonella Violano, Francesca Muzzillo, Desmond Hui

The comparison between EU cohesion policies on public works as a common good and Hong Kong’s policies on public-private participation to preserve and revitalise architectural heritage highlights cultural and operational differences. While Europe often adopts an inclusive approach, involving the communities mainly in the valorisation of public spaces, Hong Kong implements models more focused on public-private partnership to preserve the public real estate. Thus, the adaptive reuse of public works at the two different scales transforms public works into catalysts of prosperity for the community by preserving historical memory, but has a different impact on shared value generation, social cohesion enhancement, sustainable development promotion, and collective identity valorisation. The contribution analyses the two models (centrifugal and centripetal), focusing on objectives and implementation tools.

Rudra Dhar, Karthik Vaidhyanathan, Vasudeva Varma

Architectural Knowledge Management (AKM) involves the organized handling of information related to architectural decisions and design within a project or organization. An essential artifact of AKM is the Architecture Decision Records (ADR), which documents key design decisions. ADRs are documents that capture decision context, decision made and various aspects related to a design decision, thereby promoting transparency, collaboration, and understanding. Despite their benefits, ADR adoption in software development has been slow due to challenges like time constraints and inconsistent uptake. Recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) may help bridge this adoption gap by facilitating ADR generation. However, the effectiveness of LLM for ADR generation or understanding is something that has not been explored. To this end, in this work, we perform an exploratory study that aims to investigate the feasibility of using LLM for the generation of ADRs given the decision context. In our exploratory study, we utilize GPT and T5-based models with 0-shot, few-shot, and fine-tuning approaches to generate the Decision of an ADR given its Context. Our results indicate that in a 0-shot setting, state-of-the-art models such as GPT-4 generate relevant and accurate Design Decisions, although they fall short of human-level performance. Additionally, we observe that more cost-effective models like GPT-3.5 can achieve similar outcomes in a few-shot setting, and smaller models such as Flan-T5 can yield comparable results after fine-tuning. To conclude, this exploratory study suggests that LLM can generate Design Decisions, but further research is required to attain human-level generation and establish standardized widespread adoption.

Jingxian Wang, Michael Rubenstein

Complexity, cost, and power requirements for the actuation of individual robots can play a large factor in limiting the size of robotic swarms. Here we present PCBot, a minimalist robot that can precisely move on an orbital shake table using a bi-stable solenoid actuator built directly into its PCB. This allows the actuator to be built as part of the automated PCB manufacturing process, greatly reducing the impact it has on manual assembly. Thanks to this novel actuator design, PCBot has merely five major components and can be assembled in under 20 seconds, potentially enabling them to be easily mass-manufactured. Here we present the electro-magnetic and mechanical design of PCBot. Additionally, a prototype robot is used to demonstrate its ability to move in a straight line as well as follow given paths.

Ruisi Zhang, Rachel Selina Rajarathnam, David Z. Pan et al.

Physical design watermarking on contemporary integrated circuit (IC) layout encodes signatures without considering the dense connections and design constraints, which could lead to performance degradation on the watermarked products. This paper presents ICMarks, a quality-preserving and robust watermarking framework for modern IC physical design. ICMarks embeds unique watermark signatures during the physical design's placement stage, thereby authenticating the IC layout ownership. ICMarks's novelty lies in (i) strategically identifying a region of cells to watermark with minimal impact on the layout performance and (ii) a two-level watermarking framework for augmented robustness toward potential removal and forging attacks. Extensive evaluations on benchmarks of different design objectives and sizes validate that ICMarks incurs no wirelength and timing metrics degradation, while successfully proving ownership. Furthermore, we demonstrate ICMarks is robust against two major watermarking attack categories, namely, watermark removal and forging attacks; even if the adversaries have prior knowledge of the watermarking schemes, the signatures cannot be removed without significantly undermining the layout quality.

Dimple Vijay Kochar, Hanrui Wang, Anantha Chandrakasan et al.

Traditional approaches for designing analog circuits are time-consuming and require significant human expertise. Existing automation efforts using methods like Bayesian Optimization (BO) and Reinforcement Learning (RL) are sub-optimal and costly to generalize across different topologies and technology nodes. In our work, we introduce a novel approach, LEDRO, utilizing Large Language Models (LLMs) in conjunction with optimization techniques to iteratively refine the design space for analog circuit sizing. LEDRO is highly generalizable compared to other RL and BO baselines, eliminating the need for design annotation or model training for different topologies or technology nodes. We conduct a comprehensive evaluation of our proposed framework and baseline on 22 different Op-Amp topologies across four FinFET technology nodes. Results demonstrate the superior performance of LEDRO as it outperforms our best baseline by an average of 13% FoM improvement with 2.15x speed-up on low complexity Op-Amps and 48% FoM improvement with 1.7x speed-up on high complexity Op-Amps. This highlights LEDRO's effective performance, efficiency, and generalizability.

Silvia Díaz Parrilla, Antonio Jesús Sánchez Fernández, Manuel Drago Díaz Alemán et al.

Documentar los retablos atendiendo a sus características formales y tridimensionalidad es un reto que a día de hoy podemos abordar mediante el uso de técnicas de documentación ya utilizadas en el ámbito de los bienes inmuebles. Este estudio aborda el proceso de elaboración de un modelo digital de un retablo que, mediante una aproximación a la metodología HBIM, captura su configuración física para convertirlo en contenedor de información relativa a aspectos técnicos, estado de conservación e intervenciones realizadas. Dicho proceso contempla una fase previa de aproximación al objeto de estudio, definición de los usos del modelo, y configuración de un entorno de gestión colaborativa a partir del cual poder añadir e intercambiar información. El uso académico del modelo tridimensional garantizará el conocimiento exhaustivo del retablo, siendo inicialmente modelo de consulta y posteriormente de gestión, al registrar las intervenciones llevadas a cabo por el alumnado, con fines didácticos y de divulgación.

Cenlin Duan, Jianlei Yang, Xiaolin He et al.

Processing-in-memory (PIM), as a novel computing paradigm, provides significant performance benefits from the aspect of effective data movement reduction. SRAM-based PIM has been demonstrated as one of the most promising candidates due to its endurance and compatibility. However, the integration density of SRAM-based PIM is much lower than other non-volatile memory-based ones, due to its inherent 6T structure for storing a single bit. Within comparable area constraints, SRAM-based PIM exhibits notably lower capacity. Thus, aiming to unleash its capacity potential, we propose DDC-PIM, an efficient algorithm/architecture co-design methodology that effectively doubles the equivalent data capacity. At the algorithmic level, we propose a filter-wise complementary correlation (FCC) algorithm to obtain a bitwise complementary pair. At the architecture level, we exploit the intrinsic cross-coupled structure of 6T SRAM to store the bitwise complementary pair in their complementary states ($Q/\overline{Q}$), thereby maximizing the data capacity of each SRAM cell. The dual-broadcast input structure and reconfigurable unit support both depthwise and pointwise convolution, adhering to the requirements of various neural networks. Evaluation results show that DDC-PIM yields about $2.84\times$ speedup on MobileNetV2 and $2.69\times$ on EfficientNet-B0 with negligible accuracy loss compared with PIM baseline implementation. Compared with state-of-the-art SRAM-based PIM macros, DDC-PIM achieves up to $8.41\times$ and $2.75\times$ improvement in weight density and area efficiency, respectively.

Theodoros Galanos, Antonios Liapis, Georgios N. Yannakakis

Architectural design is a highly complex practice that involves a wide diversity of disciplines, technologies, proprietary design software, expertise, and an almost infinite number of constraints, across a vast array of design tasks. Enabling intuitive, accessible, and scalable design processes is an important step towards performance-driven and sustainable design for all. To that end, we introduce Architext, a novel semantic generation assistive tool. Architext enables design generation with only natural language prompts, given to large-scale Language Models, as input. We conduct a thorough quantitative evaluation of Architext's downstream task performance, focusing on semantic accuracy and diversity for a number of pre-trained language models ranging from 120 million to 6 billion parameters. Architext models are able to learn the specific design task, generating valid residential layouts at a near 100% rate. Accuracy shows great improvement when scaling the models, with the largest model (GPT-J) yielding impressive accuracy ranging between 25% to over 80% for different prompt categories. We open source the finetuned Architext models and our synthetic dataset, hoping to inspire experimentation in this exciting area of design research.

Lima Najjar, Fatma Aycim Turer Baskaya

<p>Digital technology interventions become non-separable from contemporary urbanscape. This study discusses drone-based spatial video projection (D-SVP) as a digital alternative to revitalize under-valued public open spaces (UVPOSs). Spatial video projection is a projection-based augmented reality technology that enables the projection of visual content over 3-D objects of any scale. D-SVP is an integrated system suggested by this study where the drone will be supported by data collection and projection devices, which means that D-SVP works for both the data collection and showing at once.</p><p>DOI: https://doi.org/10.20365/disegnarecon.29.2022.17</p>

Dongwoo Lew, Kyungchul Lee, Jongsun Park

In this paper, we present an energy-efficient SNN architecture, which can seamlessly run deep spiking neural networks (SNNs) with improved accuracy. First, we propose a conversion aware training (CAT) to reduce ANN-to-SNN conversion loss without hardware implementation overhead. In the proposed CAT, the activation function developed for simulating SNN during ANN training, is efficiently exploited to reduce the data representation error after conversion. Based on the CAT technique, we also present a time-to-first-spike coding that allows lightweight logarithmic computation by utilizing spike time information. The SNN processor design that supports the proposed techniques has been implemented using 28nm CMOS process. The processor achieves the top-1 accuracies of 91.7%, 67.9% and 57.4% with inference energy of 486.7uJ, 503.6uJ, and 1426uJ to process CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, and Tiny-ImageNet, respectively, when running VGG-16 with 5bit logarithmic weights.

Wei Wayne Chen, Doksoo Lee, Oluwaseyi Balogun et al.

Deep generative models have demonstrated effectiveness in learning compact and expressive design representations that significantly improve geometric design optimization. However, these models do not consider the uncertainty introduced by manufacturing or fabrication. Past work that quantifies such uncertainty often makes simplifying assumptions on geometric variations, while the "real-world", "free-form" uncertainty and its impact on design performance are difficult to quantify due to the high dimensionality. To address this issue, we propose a Generative Adversarial Network-based Design under Uncertainty Framework (GAN-DUF), which contains a deep generative model that simultaneously learns a compact representation of nominal (ideal) designs and the conditional distribution of fabricated designs given any nominal design. This opens up new possibilities of 1)~building a universal uncertainty quantification model compatible with both shape and topological designs, 2)~modeling free-form geometric uncertainties without the need to make any assumptions on the distribution of geometric variability, and 3)~allowing fast prediction of uncertainties for new nominal designs. We can combine the proposed deep generative model with robust design optimization or reliability-based design optimization for design under uncertainty. We demonstrated the framework on two real-world engineering design examples and showed its capability of finding the solution that possesses better performances after fabrication.

Paola Marrone, Federico Orsini

The traditional ecological and environmentalist thinking that theorised the ‘return to nature’ by contrasting cities and nature seems to be unable to remedy the destructive relationship between city and biosphere. For this reason, it is necessary to rethink the relationship between anthropised and biotic systems, in order to respect the objectives of the Paris Agreement. This rethinking process involves imagining a ‘third space’ with a positive environmental value, much like an intermediate landscape in which buildings and urban realities can be designed - in a backcasting process - as tools capable of incorporating different types of ‘biospheric’ capabilities. The essay investigates urban forestation technologies by evaluating their potential and long-term limitations in extreme climatic scenarios.

Paolo Di Nardo

In this work by Cherubino Gambardella and Simona Ottieri, there is a clear "collision" relationship between the panorama drawn by pictorial views (Castel Nuovo, the port, Vesuvius, the Fort of Sant'Elmo, etc.) and this architectural graft on a nineteenth-century building.

Alessandro Claudi de St. Mihiel

A zero-emission Europe by 2050, this is the objective declared by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen during the plenary of the EU Parliament last January. The European “green deal” is based on a thousand billion investment plan for the next ten years in which Europe will have to play a leading role in achieving zero climate impact by investing in technological and innovative solutions, involving citizens and harmonizing interventions in key sectors, such as industrial policy and scientific research. In Italy, issues relating to climate change and the related environmental implications are today at the center of a public and media debate like never before. Tackling the climate crisis and relaunching the country’s sustainable development based on the green economy jointly appears to be the only unavoidable way forward. The future of our metropolitan areas therefore depends on the ability to encourage adaptation to the major changes taking place through a general rethinking of the city theme, in which interest is concentrated on the value of public space and on the resilience of urban contexts that present conditions of natural or anthropogenic vulnerability. The urban public space project therefore appears to be a strategic area of intervention as a device to protect the city from environmental emergencies, an ecological resource for improving the quality of urban life and fighting pollution and – indirectly – for promoting social cohesion and collective identity actions. The programmatic and planning responses that try to face this emergency situation must necessarily and consciously recognize the ecological and environmental value of open spaces. «An evolutionary step that brings to the center of future design reflections – which interpret the city as a complex organism – the decisive contributions of environmental and landscape culture, of environmental functioning in terms of usability, comfort, safety, use of resources, integrability, environmental protection and welfare» (Clemente, 2017). In this direction “CLEVER Cities” (Project financed with Horizon 2020 funds and with an experiment on the city of Milan) with the motto “Regenerating cities with nature” focuses attention on the decisive role that nature can play in improving environmental quality, biodiversity and the welfare of citizens in a process of urban regeneration through Nature-Based Solutions1. Downstream of these preliminary considerations, this issue of the Rubric has identified Bonifico Group Srl as a qualified interlocutor, a historical reality operating in the landscape development sector with settled botanical knowledge and agronomic practices that expresses a high rate of innovation in naturalistic engineering interventions, design and construction of roof gardens, irrigation systems and water management, maintenance of urban and infrastructure greenery. In the following pages, through a dialogue with Dr. Eduardo Bonifico, General Manager of the Bonifico Group, some arguments are developed on very topical issues and related to the company’s know-how through some exemplary projects carried out.   1. Recent urban redevelopment projects and interventions, related to the public space project and the vegetation system, have radically changed the face of some European cities, creating real “new landscapes”; I think of the “Madrid + Natural” program, developed through a collaboration between the Municipality of Madrid and Studio Arup Associates, consisting of guidelines to tackle the global problem of climate change through multiple local solutions that include green projects for buildings, green infrastructures and open spaces in the city of Madrid What skills and innovations does the Bonifico Group use for urban redevelopment projects? The Bonifico Group provides, among others, planning and construction services for green spaces in urban areas for both public and private clients. To deal with the growing complexity of the projects and the requisites required, the company uses an interdisciplinary approach that intertwines different skills; from the architectural, landscape and engineering ones of the project to those related to the evaluation of economic, financial and environmental sustainability. The experiments that we carry out and constantly develop are divided into two main categories: application, with the development of the most effective and efficient design solutions in the specific urban contexts where the Bonifico Group carries out the redevelopment of public open spaces; methodology, with the construction of a system of appropriate technologies in relation to the variation of the combined data of the environmental context and the biophysical and microclimatic characteristics. Our expertise aims to increase the accessibility and environmental quality of urban public space, thanks also to the ecological and intelligent management of the water and to the green enhancement in bioclimatic terms. I refer, for example, to Dominique Perrault’s project for Piazza Garibaldi in Naples in which the role of the Bonifico Group was to reconstruct spaces of “nature” in the anthropized context. Twenty thousand square meters of greenery, the first urban “urban forest”, with 130 trees of various essences, equipped with basketball courts, five-a-side football, skateboard track, playground for children and a cavea for open-air cinema and shows. The surface arrangement is configured as an Urban Green Infrastracture (UGI) to underline the scalar dimension of investigation referred to the urban context. The presence of widespread vegetation in the square offers another great advantage: the reduction of the heat island effect, a persistent problem in urban centres; green and soil permeability are one of the possible solutions, because the heat absorbed by solar radiation does not accumulate.   2. This century has opened under the banner of awareness that the Earth is fragile and must be defended. The energy crisis and the protection of the environment are global emergencies, and the challenge is to create architectures with zero consumption and zero emissions, gentle machines to explore the relationship between building and nature in which, paraphrasing Renzo Piano «the roofing of buildings is metaphorically a roof that breathes to the rhythm of nature, or rather a portion of park that flies». Over the years, the Bonifico Group has dealt with important projects relating to green roof; what were the benefits brought to the structures and the surrounding environment? In an industrialized society subjected to the pressures of continuous economic development, the territory undergoes rapid and profound transformations. Our goal is to help manage these processes by interpreting the community’s environmental demands. For this reason, thanks to the long evolutionary path in terms of acquiring new skills, we have been engaged for years in the promotion of the most advanced technologies for environmental sustainability, for the reduction of pollution and for the exploitation of renewable energies. In this field, projects relating to roof gardens and the benefits that these structures bring with reference to the mitigation of the microclimate, energy saving, the reduction of atmospheric and sound pollution, the reduction of the flow rate of the water, the growth of the biodiversity and the best performance of the photovoltaic panels on the roof. The spread of green roofs has increased in relation to the growing interest in sustainable architecture and green building. Their classifications (intensive or extensive) depend on several factors: the amount of land, maintenance work, weight and accessibility. For example, for the project of the “Vulcano Buono” shopping centre, a work carried out by Renzo Piano in the province of Naples, a green roof system2 of approximately 80.000 square meters (one of the largest in Europe) was designed and targeted for the Mediterranean climate, able to confer various benefits to the building including: - an improvement of the thermal performance of the roof both in winter and in summer; - an energy saving favoured by the insulating and draining culture layer; - the reduction of noise pollution and its improvement in terms of insulation; - greater surface absorption capacity in rainfall and relative regulation of water runoff; - an ability to originate natural ventilation by promoting the reduction of surface humidity values; - the ability of the vegetation on the roof to retain harmful substances suspended in the air, which are thus absorbed through the photosynthesis process; - a faunistic improvement with an increase in biodiversity; - an improvement of the aesthetic and environmental impact also through specific tree species of Mediterranean area. I think all these performances go in the direction of “a roof that breathes to the rhythm of nature” mentioned by Piano. 3. As is known, green facades act on the microclimate and influence the physical and technical behavior of a building, contributing on a large scale to stem climate change and atmospheric pollution. The Citicape House, a building designed by the architectural firm Sheppard Robson, will see the largest green wall in Europe consisting of about 400.000 plants with an extension of about 4.000 square meters capable of absorbing over eight tons of carbon every year, producing six of oxygen and lowering the local temperature from three to five degrees Celsius within a few years. What are the experiences of the Bank Transfer Group in this sense? There is no doubt that the design of a green facade introduces a series of aesthetic-formal and environmental advantages in the context in which it fits. In the first few days of 2020, we are in the process of formalizing some projects concerning the use of greenery for building envelopes. From the data in our possession, through the use of greening systems with green walls, various benefits are obtained: a decrease in temperature of 4.5 degrees centigrade and energy savings for cooling by 43% and from 4 to 6.3% for heating. Another benefit of the green wall concerns the lowering of the air temperature of the environment surrounding the building; some estimates calculate a reduction in air temperature between 0.5 and 4.1 degrees centigrade, measured at a distance of two meters from the wall. More specifically, some studies have shown that broad-leaved species could provide better performance in capturing the fraction of fine particulate matter, PM1, which is particularly harmful to health, while those with leaves characterized by the presence of epicuticular wax and a particular surface morphology can trap all fractions of particulate matter. In general, the positive effects of a Living wall on the PMx concentration depend on the specific characteristics of the plants: the shape of the epidermis, the roughness or the level of air pollution in the area. Vegetation also affects its thermal regulation of the building system, with advantages in both winter and summer. During the cold season it helps to limit heat losses and increase the insulation of the building, also protecting the wall from the wind. Although it is almost impossible to calculate precisely the amount of energy savings guaranteed by a live system and therefore variable, it has been estimated that the layer of foliage is able to increase the thermal resistance of the wall by about 6%. During the summer, the green layer through shading ensures the reduction of the surface temperature of the building wall. The solar load on the surface can be reduced by up to 30% and the surface temperature of the facade can also drop by 10°C. Furthermore, in cases where the green wall is a few centimetres away from the building, an air gap is formed which offers the advantages of a ventilated wall, increasing the thermal resistance of the wall. Finally, the performance also in terms of acoustic insulation is amplified since the layer of foliage reduces the transmission of noise inside the building, absorbing the sound waves coming from outside. Certainly in the next few years’ part of the company’s business will be oriented towards the study of innovative solutions and products to achieve the European standards mentioned above.