Within the framework of strategies for the regeneration of urban areas, which, depending on the portion of the city considered, may lack green public spaces, integrated interventions are proposed on large public buildings (health facilities, schools, administrations, public social housing) that, given their relevant extent, overtake the building scale to configure themselves as large blocks or extended rates of urban fabrics. These buildings, which usually show large, uncovered areas, either courtyards and cloisters or more
generally outdoor areas, combined with significant roof surfaces, promote large-scale actions aimed at increasing permeable surfaces, densification of public green spaces and, consequently, adaptation and mitigation to climate change. Greening systems for roofs, possibly including hydroponic techniques, and building facades, as well as replacement of pavements in uncovered areas, have already been extensively assessed in the literature, and the significant benefits in terms of thermal and acoustic comfort, well-being – including the psychophysical one – and microclimate mitigation, at both building and urban scales, are effectively remarked. Nevertheless, such regeneration strategies suffer several operational difficulties, mainly due to economic limitations, shortage of available space, and, especially in very dense contexts with little public space, technical and organizational issues. This implies the need to look at interventions at the building scale as preferable strategies, especially involving large-scale public structures that are common in urban contexts. The replacement of impermeable with permeable pavements and the addition of green walls and roofs can be intended as a valid, sustainable, and widespread strategy if operated with awareness on the considered public estate. The ability to select the buildings that suite the most to undergo greening interventions becomes a useful support tool for decision-makers in defining the most effective interventions. The public buildings that are potentially considered in this analysis,
are mapped, filed, ranked, and assessed based on their typological, constructive, urban, and environmental features to identify their proneness to both undergo greening interventions and define the most effective strategies in terms of increasing permeable surfaces, improving microclimate, botanic, and hydraulic behaviour and the most convenient in durability, economic, and investment terms. A user-friendly platform will be developed for the application of the implemented tools. In addition, greening interventions,
included in broader urban regeneration strategies, would allow the conversion of interior open spaces into public green areas. Using a strategy at the building scale on rooftops and especially on free outdoor areas, a “network of green public pathways” would be created where such spaces are lacking, thus also acting from a human and urban health perspective.