Fragilities of Historical Settlements Targeted by Heritage Tourism: Comparison and Ex-Post Assessment of Two Water Towns in the Qingpu District of Shanghai

Heritage tourism in Chinese historic sites has gained importance and has become a widely adopted development strategy that uses architecture and urban ensembles to sell cultural experiences. These sites, immersed in heritage settings or traditional ambiences, embody an extraordinary dimension of Chinese tangible and intangible culture, which call for in-depth studies and critical understanding. This paper discusses how a condition of fragility has materialized under the aegis of economic boosts. The impact of cultural tourism on historic sites is assessed by considering two similar water towns expressing exceptional cultural values, Zhujiajiao and Liantang. The methodology envisaged ethnographic tools to highlight how development strategies have altered local communities, discussing the consequences on physical authenticity and sociocultural equilibriums

INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE AND LANDSCAPE: THE ROLE OF WATER IN THE ARCHITECTURAL REACTIVATION DESIGN FOR THE BURGO PAPER MILL IN MANTUA

The paper is part of a research project, carried out within the Polytechnic University of Milan about the Burgo Paper Mill, an industrial settlement involved in the production of paper near the UNESCO World Heritage site of Mantua, on the banks of the Lago di Mezzo lake. The area represents an exceptional case study related to the topics of industrial reconversion, landscape, environmental design, and the valorization of cultural and natural heritage. The recent change in the site ownership fostered a new life cycle, which represents the occasion for the enhancement of its architectural and landscape heritage. The research project focused on a new system of relations between architectural artefacts and open spaces, with a particular consideration about socioeconomic and cultural themes, as well as the role that water can play in the future development of the site. Water plays a key role in the definition of cultural and natural elements in this research project, revealing new possibilities for revitalization of the industrial settlement as well as the whole territorial framework. Between theoretical thought and design experimentation, pursuing to tackle the problem in its whole complexity, the authors understood the necessity of a multi-scalar approach structured within a time-based strategy

Greenways as a New Potential for Shrinking Cities. The Case of Milan (Italy)

The paper aims to illustrate the transformation of Milan, focusing on its relationship with (urban) greenways. At the beginning of XXI century Milan was deeply converted into a mere service industry centre. The change modified also its territory. Brownfields took place of industries and logistic compounds, places without a use dotting its urban fabric. In the 1970s, visionary architects, planners, and landscape architects started to design a series of parks surrounding the town, creating a green crown fading its outskirts. North Park and South Park together with Boscoincittà (Wood-in-town) created a continuous green curtain setting the basis for a circular greenway. In the 1990s some studies, including the PhD thesis ‘Post-industrial Green’ by one of the authors and the academic research ‘Metro-Bosco’ by Stefano Boeri, demonstrated how Milan, while becoming a shrinking town passing from 2 million to 1.6 million inhabitants, could be transformed in a town where districts could be connected through green corridors. These theories, even if they had good dissemination and were widely published, actually didn’t become real as Milanese Administration imposed an anachronistic policy based on the developing of new neighbourhoods, trying to ‘sprawl’ a city that actually was decreasing. This proposal however bore a series of radiant green corridors starting in the centre of Milan (Raggi Verdi -Green Rays, a project by LAND, 2005). In the second decade of the new Millennium, it was clear that Milan had to accept to decrease, enabling at the same time a way to foster the quality of life for its citizens. In the last five years, the new Administration’s policy encouraged the abandoned areas requalification (actions ‘Re-shaping Milan’ 2015, and ‘Re-shaping Milan’, 2018-ongoing, developed with the Politecnico di Milano), and asked Italian Railways (Trenitalia) to ‘give back’ to the town six unused railways-yards encrusted in the city territory. This request, endorsed also by the common people - asking more and more green spaces and slow mobility in the town-, became real with the visionary plan “Fiume Verde” by Studio Boeri Architetti (Green River, 2016). This proposal designed a net of inner green corridors able to increase deeply the city green surface. In 2018, the first international competition to transform two railway-yards has been launched. One will be a linear park, the other will host the widest Milanese public park). The first concrete milestones for a green-way transformation of Milan

Urban Voids After the Pandemic. A New Chance for Greenway

Our proposal deals with the meaning of urban voids in the post-COVID-19 period to suggest new understandings of how urban green corridors can positively affect design for healthier and more sustainable cities. According to Secchi (1986), planning through the void involves a profound revision of the way we think about the city, reversing the points of interest, proposing as polarities the spaces that do not usually emerge. The void thus becomes an opportunity, a chance to improve the structure of our urban landscape (Lopez-Pineiro, 2020). A city is a powerful place, always in motion and transformation. It has an artificial spirit full of surprises and vague limits. It is the scene of remarkable transformations that in their wildness are partially ungovernable by the designers themselves. The desire to control them leaves a series of abandoned and unfinished spaces, “holes” that live from their discontinuity with the surroundings (Labriola, 2021). During a period of crisis, like the one that we are still living with COVID-19 (Fabris et al, 2020), it is common to re-think our cities to create better places for the community. After the long period of forced distance that we lived, an evolution of public space is recommended. During the pandemic, the emptiness of our cities permitted Nature to re-appropriate its spaces. Following this trend and thinking about a new kind of public space where Nature and its inside processes are the protagonists, it is possible to intervene in our cities. The porosity of the urban fabric in towns without humans, blocked at home by the never-ending lockdowns, became a new green corridor that revealed the presence of wildlife (both fauna and flora) as part of a forgotten urban layer that turned visible again. The preservation of this new asset should be possible. The spaces to allow this change can be the abandoned and empty areas present in the contemporary city’s sick body that we can finally heal. The so-called wastelands, voids, or terrain vague, have a significant value independent from the environment in which they are inserted, showing a relationship with the contemporary city extraneous to its rhythms. For this reason, they are the perfect place for experimentation in terms of greenways, a possible starting point to re-think how green can be part of the urban texture and how to conceive public and open spaces after the nowadays crisis. The paper considers the Metropolitan City of Milan as a remarkable case study to understand the pivotal role played by urban voids in the formation of greenways and their capacity of reshaping the environmental, aesthetic and healthy dimensions of urban landscapes

THE TUROLIAN HIPPARIONS FROM CIOBURCIU SITE (REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA): SYSTEMATICS AND PALEODIET

The Cioburciu hipparions, Republic of Moldova, are included in a Turolian assemblage, approximately dated between 9 and 7 million years. We assess herein their taxonomic position, systematics, biogeography and paleodietary habits. We have undertaken standard equid measurements as well as accessing the Vera Eisenmann website for measurements and images and analysed craniodental and postcranial elements. This assemblage has been determined to be of a medium-sized hipparion with an elongated muzzle, well developed preorbital fossa that is dorsoventrally extensive and placed close to the orbit, lacking a caninus fossa and having a prominent and deep buccinator fossa. As such, this assemblage is referable to Cremohipparion moldavicum Gromova 1952 common to the Western Ukraine, Balkans, Romania, Republic of Georgia, Turkey and Iran. We have employed a combination of gross cheek tooth wear morphology utilizing the mesowear method and a microscopic analysis of occlusal enamel scars utilizing the light microscope microwear technique. These complementary paleodietary methods indicate that these hipparions engaged in a mixed feeding dietary behavior and that the Cioburciu sample of C. moldavicum likely alternated its diet between browsing and grazing seasonally and/or regionally. A hierarchical cluster analysis based on average scratch and pit numbers positions this taxon among extant mixed feeding ungulates. Large pitting and gouging assessed through the microwear technique indicates occasional consumption of relatively coarser foods than typical mixed feeders or grazers or grit-laden food just prior to death while mesowear indicates that this was not a lifetime habit

Snap evaporation of droplets on smooth topographies

Droplet evaporation on solid surfaces is important in many applications including printing, micro-patterning and cooling. While seemingly simple, the configuration of evaporating droplets on solids is difficult to predict and control. This is because evaporation typically proceeds as a “stick-slip” sequence—a combination of pinning and de-pinning events dominated by static friction or “pinning”, caused by microscopic surface roughness. Here we show how smooth, pinning-free, solid surfaces of non-planar topography promote a different process called snap evaporation. During snap evaporation a droplet follows a reproducible sequence of configurations, consisting of a quasi-static phase-change controlled by mass diffusion interrupted by out-of-equilibrium snaps. Snaps are triggered by bifurcations of the equilibrium droplet shape mediated by the underlying non-planar solid. Because the evolution of droplets during snap evaporation is controlled by a smooth topography, and not by surface roughness, our ideas can inspire programmable surfaces that manage liquids in heat- and mass-transfer applications

Impact Dynamics of Non-Newtonian Droplets on Superhydrophobic Surfaces

Droplet impact behavior on a solid surface is critical for many industrial applications such as spray coating, food production, printing, and agriculture. For all of these applications, a common challenge is to modify and control the impact regime and contact time of the droplets. This challenge becomes more critical for non-Newtonian liquids with complex rheology. In this research, we explored the impact dynamics of non-Newtonian liquids (by adding different concentrations of Xanthan into water) on superhydrophobic surfaces. Our experimental results show that by increasing the Xanthan concentration in water, the shapes of the bouncing droplet are dramatically altered, e.g., its shape at the separation moment is changed from a conventional vertical jetting into a “mushroom”-like one. As a result, the contact time of the non-Newtonian droplet could be reduced by up to ∼50%. We compare the impact scenarios of Xanthan liquids with those of glycerol solutions having a similar apparent viscosity, and results show that the differences in the elongation viscosity induce different impact dynamics of the droplets. Finally, we show that by increasing the Weber number for all of the liquids, the contact time is reduced, and the maximum spreading radius is increased

Transforming Auxetic Metamaterials into Superhydrophobic Surfaces

Superhydrophobic materials are often inspired by nature, whereas metamaterials are engineered to have properties not usually occurring naturally. In both, the key to their unique properties is structure. Here, it is shown that a negative Poisson's ratio (auxetic) mechanical metamaterial can transform into a unique superhydrophobic material. When stretched, its surface has the counterintuitive property that it also expands in the orthogonal lateral direction. The change in the solid surface fraction as strain is applied is modeled, and it is shown that it decreases as the space between solid elements of the auxetic lattice expands. This results in a unique dependence of the superhydrophobicity on strain. Experimental models are constructed to illustrate the relationship between different states of strain and superhydrophobicity as the lattice transitions from an auxetic to a conventional structure. The findings offer a new approach to designing superhydrophobic materials for self‐cleaning surfaces, droplet transportation, droplet encapsulation, and oil–water separation