Towards bicycle infrascapes. Active mobility as an opportunity for urban regeneration and open space redesign

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6093/1970-9870/11178

Keywords:

Bicycle infrastructures, Active Mobility, Multi-modality, Open space, Post-car cities

Abstract

With mounting urban challenges such as climate change, pollution, traffic congestion, and sedentary lifestyles, cities worldwide are rethinking their policies, and two concepts are at the forefront of this transformation: active mobility and green infrastructure. Active mobility prioritizes modes of transportation like walking, cycling, and using micro-mobility solutions (e-scooters, e-bikes), while green infrastructure strategically integrates natural elements into the urban fabric. Remarkably, when active mobility and green infrastructure are coupled, the impacts become amplified, offering a powerful solution to create more liveable, sustainable, and equitable cities. With a particular focus on diversified greening trajectories for cities, this contribution wants to trace a comparative exploration in the frame of Bicycle Infrascapes research developed by the GICLab of Genoa University, aimed at defining a framework of international urban design and landscape projects where the notion of green infrastructure become multi-fold especially when connected to the reorganisation of mobility patterns and open space re-design.

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Author Biographies

Chiara Centanaro, Department of Architecture and Design, University of Genoa

Architect, PhD, Research Fellow of Urban Design and Landscape Planning at University of Genoa UNIGE-DAD since 2023 and member of UniGE GIC-Lab research group. She is part of the UniGe-DAD research group of NRRP founded project RAISE ‘Robotics and AI for Socio-economic Empowerment’ - Innovation Ecosystem. Her research activity and interests focus on the relationship between the use of media technologies in urban design through participatory co-design processes, crowd-sourced mapping tools and urban resilience. Her investigation concerns public space and architecture in a multi-scalar dimension in a transdisciplinary approach. In 2024, she participated as a speaker at the 14th Biennale of European towns and town planners. She will be holder of a RAISE Digital Citizenship Training Course - free, online and interactive – in UNIGE on mapping with media tools, from remote sensing to crowd-sourced maps and AI tools.

Emanuele Sommariva, Department of Architecture and Design, University of Genoa

Architect, PhD, Associate Professor of Urban Design and Landscape Planning at University of Genoa UNIGE-DAD since 2020 and member of UniGE GIC-Lab research group. He has been University Researcher at the Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences, LUH Hannover from 2012-2020. Visiting scholar TU München (2011) and Universiteit Antwerpen (2018) and Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (2020-2021). His research activity and interests focus on urban recycle and active mobility, urban metabolism and resilience, urban-rural strategies, urban coastal regions, public space and landscape infrastructures.

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Published

24-06-2025

How to Cite

Centanaro, C., & Sommariva, E. (2025). Towards bicycle infrascapes. Active mobility as an opportunity for urban regeneration and open space redesign. TeMA - Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, (1), 129–146. https://doi.org/10.6093/1970-9870/11178

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Section

SI 2025. Innovation, Green Infrastructures and Urban Form

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