Sustainable Green Infrastructure Planning in Greece: Proposal for an Urban Greenway Network in the Greater Athens Metropolitan Area

Athens, the capital of Greece, epitomizes the opportunities and constraints of modern urbanization, sustainable mobility, green infrastructure, greenway planning, and the associated quality of contemporary Greek civic life. Though the country’s economy has been suffering tremendously for the past consecutive eight years with harsh austerity measures holding back any developmental commotion, signs of recovery and appropriate funding are lately emerging. Physically, Athens has overcome its natural containing barriers, the Pikilo and Hemmitos Mountains on east and west borders, the southern waterfront expanding over to the Thriasio and Mesogeia Fields and the island of Aegina respectively. Culturally, contemporary Athens is thriving, living up to her own historical heritage and legacy. Socially, the latest abrupt surge of immigrant and refugees influx has altered both demographical ratios and civic life in the congested downtown and CBD of the city as well as the dispersed residential neighborhoods within a chaotic urban fabric. Economically, foreign and local investors have shown a keen interest in large scale projects (e.g. the former Hellinikon International Airport) but national debts to both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB) have led to governmental hesitation and procrastination of any developmental plans, halting in turn the investors’ much anticipated and crucial momentum. Lastly, clashing stakeholders’ interests within the broader green infrastructure and targeted greenway planning process, provide the fertile basis for a wide spectrum of alternative development scenarios. One of the most discussed and highest-profile projects in Greece today is Hellinikon, an ambitious plan for converting the former Athens airport into an enormous park. The site of Hellinikon lies 8 km southwest of the center of Athens being approximately 1,500 acres and boasting a 3.5 km waterfront, including a marina. Exploiting the Hellinikon site as the main organizing impetus, this paper presents a proposal for an Urban Greenway Network in the Greater Athens Metropolitan Area (GAMA) as a response to prudent city planning, attempting to address the vision, the strategic issues, the governmental and private synergies, the planning criteria, the physical design and standards of greenway planning required for its implementation at the city scale and beyond. At the background, ecological, social, and economic issues weave the sustainability concerns and processes of green infrastructure planning

Edessa Greenways: A Land Use Planning Tool Promoting Sustainable Development in Northern Greece

Known historically as the “City of Water”, Edessa is one of many ancient small hill towns situated in a forested river valley found at the northwest part of Greece\u27s Macedonia region. Bordering with FYROM, Albania and Bulgaria, it sits at the edge of a plateau overlooking the historically rich Plains of Hellas; atop a vast agricultural plain that extends east to Thessalonica, some 120 kilometers. Small rivers run through Edessa boasting an intricate system of waterwayscanals, rivulets, and waterfalls-intertwined with small streets, walking paths and scenic overlooks. The rivers fall spectacularly 70m down from the ledge to the plain below. These waterfalls are a well-known and celebrated natural feature. The new extended municipality includes both towns of Edessa and neighboring town Anissa encompassing a rural “green corridor” agricultural area between them. It comprises the study area which extends in the valley of the River Edesseos, rising in the Agras Nissi Vritta wetlands and Lake Vegoritida. North of Edessa recreational itineraries include abundant ski resorts, ornithological reserves, lakes and archeological sites. Unless the municipality of Edessa generates new economic growth, it will continue to lose a valuable human resource, its youth. The mayor wishes to create new hope and energy for the new municipality through economic investment and physical restructuring. Improvements here could reverberate throughout the region and potentially motivate further investment. Renovated small hotels and lodgings have emerged as outsiders begin to see the potential value of Edessa\u27s future. Egnatia Motorway, the region’s greatest infrastructural project, has already transformed travel times and accessibilities across northern Greece bringing closer the emerging economies of Western and Eastern Europe. Environmental considerations for the region are underway as two transnational agreements, the EU\u27s NATURA Network 2000 and the RAMSAR Convention of 1971, continue to ensure the preservation and protection of sensitive ecosystems and wetlands for the foreseeable future. But this green corridor, however scenic, suffers from inattention and minimal investment. As many regions of great natural beauty dotted with small agricultural towns across Europe continue their dependence upon cultural and ecological tourism, questions that define and frame broader issues of design, sustainability and growth in northern Greece, were considered throughout the planning process: a) How sustainable development and design issues of a region can be sensitively addressed, while developing a strategy that provides socio-cultural, economic and environmental sustainability? b) How can landscape and infrastructure design work synergistically to address the demands of connectivity and increased capacity while also promoting a sense of identity and placeness for a rural region? c) How can issues of sustainability and environmental stewardship be calibrated to the specifics of local culture and geography? d) How can recent shifts in the regional geopolitical sphere be actuated to bolster tourism and economic development? e) How can strategic investments in landscape and infrastructure be leveraged to provide development opportunity for the larger region? f) Can a pronounced shift toward high-end tourism reposition the developmental future of the region? g) Can a new strategy of catalytic rural landscape and infrastructure investments improve the internal structure of the landscape and enhance its connection to the larger region? Like many hill towns across continental Europe impacted by the shift away from small scale agricultural operations and the forces of an increasingly globalized economy, the structural relationship between town and country (in this case, the agrarian hinterlands) has profoundly changed. In the more targeted scope and scale of a municipality, fundamental questions remain: a) What uniquely defining characteristics does Edessa possess? b) What additional attributes does Edessa require? c) What actions can be taken to improve sustainable development and economic growth, while preserving natural resources, promoting cultural resources, and upgrading physical planning integration of Edessa’s urban and rural Mediterranean landscape

Infrastructure Sustainability And Design

You\u27re overseeing a large-scale project, but you\u27re not an engineering or construction specialist, and so you need an overview of the related sustainability concerns and processes. To introduce you to the main issues, experts from the fields of engineering, planning, public health, environmental design, architecture, and landscape architecture review current sustainable large-scale projects, the roles team members hold, and design approaches, including alternative development and financing structures. They also discuss the challenges and opportunities of sustainability within infrastructural systems, such as those for energy, water, and waste, so that you know what\u27s possible. And best of all, they present here for the first time the Zofnass Environmental Evaluation Methodology guidelines, which will help you and your team improve infrastructure design, engineering, and construction

Business Collaborator

authors; it does not necessarily represent the views of the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, or any of its programs or faculty. Book layout and cover designed by David Jason Gerber PREFACE This report summarizes the findings of the research study undertaken at the Harvard Design School by Professor Spiro N. Pollalis and doctoral student Burçin Becerik in the period 2005-2006. The research focused on the benefits of online collaboration and project management (OCPM) technology to the design and construction industry, and identified direct benefits and indirect benefits in providing better service and entering new frontiers, in an effort to justify the investment. The research was based on nine case studies of implementing OCPM in actual projects and on analyzing aggregate data of thousands of projects, provided by the sponsors of the research. The research was supported by a consortium of sponsors consisting of (in alphabetical order)