Forest management for urban environment-nature connection

Abstract

In the evolutionary history of the human species, the time spent living in industrialised cities is much less than that spent in almost natural contexts. The concept of promoting the so-called regenerative environments is spreading. These are types of places that promote the well-being of individuals, groups, and communities. The wild natural environment itself is the proper regenerative environment. But people who are not used to spending time in nature cannot have the direct ability to come into contact with it. So, promoting the presence of natural elements in urban contexts would be desirable. The first step is choosing wood as the primary building material. It constitutes a viable answer accepted by the scientific community to the issue of sustainable building as a renewable resource with the ability to store CO2. However, the use of this resource depends on the study of proper forest management, which is the only guarantee for obtaining a certified product to use in construction. South Italy has no managed forest areas, so it cannot have locally certified woods that are usable for structural purposes. In this scenario, this study aims at the dual objective of: (i) analyse and promote the short wood supply chain in South Italy (ii) propose an experimental case study, Euterpe ©, to be realised with wood species of South Italy.

Euterpe© is an island/musical classroom, acoustically adequate and entirely autonomous, usable not only for teaching music in high schools but also to offer the opportunity to listen to natural sounds, recorded even during direct forest therapy practices. It is becoming, in effect, an indirect driving force to approach such practices.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20365/disegnarecon.33.2024.12