Gli eco quartieri. Impegno etico e strategie progettuali nei processi di trasformazione dell'habitat

Eco districts: ethics and designs in evolving habitat The international economic crisis requires to draw the future of construction through new cultural and design attitudes, emphasizing the responsibility of architecture, conceived as worldwide social action that aims at giving answers to actual issues. The debate focuses on architectures which are sensitive to sustainability issues. This topic concerns many aspects of building economic process; it aims at detecting environmental and building policies based on new criteria of quality, of energy consumption to reduce impact. It is also necessary to rethink in a radical way the designer’s role for a new vision of the rights of the next generations, by adopting the principle of responsibility - a design ethics, expressed by evaluating the consequences of intervention. For many years there has been talk of ecological footprint, of HQE (Haute Qualité Environnementale) and other attempts to regulate environmental quality in architecture. But as the two traditions of urban building coexist, complementary to each other and sometimes clashing, – the first one based on objects, the second one based on relations- as the regulation of environmental quality and the designer’s culture are two poles complementary to each other and equally necessary. After the pioneering experiences of the nineties, which established a new cultural frame of reference, today we would like to have a greater awareness of the relation between qualitative and energetic efficiency and social implications. To think and to build eco-districts must be a political and social commitment and it’s possible to give voice to different attitudes only by developing the present debate. In France the “Ministère du Developpement Durable”, unique in Europe, manages competitions for eco-districts and interest-free eco-loans for energy efficiency. At the European level, since 2008 the Covenant of Mayors is another example of political action: an initiative meant to involve the European cities in the effort towards energetic and environmental sustainability, through the improvement of local actions and policies. The sustainable development becomes political action for a new social cohesion.