A Greenways System for an Historical Urban Landscapes/projects for Boboli garden

The Laboratory in Restoration of historic parks and gardens is aimed at developing in young landscape architects skills and capacities to face challenges proposed by planning, design and management  of layered landscapes and heritage sites.

Within this framework and integrating the support of different disciplinary teachings (Active conservation of historic parks and garden; Garden and landscape architecture history; Integrated plant disease management) in the 2019/2020 edition, climate changes issues have been considered as a crucial task in reinterpreting Florence urban landscape system on the left riverside.

Historic gardens beyond their value as heritage places, can also be seen as evolving micro-landscapes: climate changes have already affected in a severe way the preservation of landscape features in Florentine gardens. In particular the system of Medici’s gardens (UNESCO World heritage from 2013) since the second half of the XVI century has seen a completely altered climatic situation with a consequent loss of the originary biodiversity. Deciduous and less resisting species have almost disappeared in favour of the progressive incoming of thermopile trees and shrubs with the irreversible damage for an essential part of the historic gardens’ softscape. 

In this sense, aiming at active/inventive conservation of these places, it seems crucial to define strategies to maintain historic vegetation patterns and at the same time, preserve/increase biodiversity.  These ambitious goals can be reached through a more aware maintenance and also by the integration of new species and varieties, compatible from a historical and ecological point of view, but more resilient and tolerant to drought.