VIVAI DIFFUSI An initiative to improve the quality of life in cities

VIVAI DIFFUSI, as one of the initiatives aimed at reducing the effects of global warming, was created as an installation project aimed at promoting greenery (trees, in particular) for the redevelopment of urban spaces. The initiative is inspired by examples of tactical urbanism and land art as awareness-raising tools. Thus, by resorting to temporary installations of potted trees, VIVAI DIFFUSI promotes the presence of greenery in public space, allowing not only to give identity to often anonymous areas, but to more easily imagine the improvement in terms of general quality of life that would derive from a wider dissemination of greenery, aimed at at the same time recovering a healthier and more harmonious relationship between man-made and natural environments, too often interrupted by human action.

The project, advised by the  Office for Nature and Landscape of the Canton of Ticino, has obtained the patronage of OTIA (Association of Engineers and Architects of the Canton of Ticino) and the Swiss Pedestrian Mobility Association. In addition, a scientific committee is taking shape to give depth to the initiative through transversal comparison between the disciplines involved.

The name given to the initiative ‘VIVAI DIFFUSI’ encapsulates the very concept of the project: trees temporarily in pots that, as in nurseries, are waiting to be planted in the stableto which they are destined. The simple tree arrangements that VIVAI DIFFUSI proposes are aimed at those urban areas environmentally fragile urban areas, often lacking in spatial quality and own identity. Thus inspired by recent cantonal guidelines aimed at promoting a “development quality settlement development”, VIVAI DIFFUSI, beyond the very rich literature on the climate emergency, wants to start proposing concrete examples to imagine, almost to the truth, sustainable ways through which to reduce the heat island phenomenon and appreciate what is meant by urban quality, transforming anonymous and empty impermeable spaces into more attractive and liveable places.

The concept of urban greenery promoted by VIVAI DIFFUSI moves away from the purely decorative, to support its gradual transformation into a true urban infrastructure capable of building a network of interconnections and favouring slow mobility, biodiversity in the urban environment by conveying a more sustainable city model: 15-minute or proximity cities.

The project aims to reduce the effects of global warming, combat heat islands, absorb CO2 and improve the environmental quality of urban spaces. Creating green spaces in urban settings reduces air temperatures by up to 8°C, provides coolness, reduces the use of air conditioning systems, increases property values and improves soil permeability. The greening of urban spaces has multiple beneficial effects on our general well-being, in particular on our psychophysical health. The presence of urban greenery contributes to reducing stress, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, improving concentration, mood, with beneficial effects on the sociality and inclusiveness of spaces.

VIVAI DIFFUSI interprets one of the possible responses to the increasingly urgent demand to improve the quality of public spaces and in general the quality of life in our urban agglomerations, making them more attractive and in line with both the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the new public space requirements with which the pandemic emergency has confronted us.