Costruire la bioregione urbana. Progettare e pianificare il territorio per lo sviluppo locale.

The thesis work aims to construct a scenario for the metropolitan context of Cagliari and its hinterland, through a bioregional approach. The research starts from the historical analysis of the principles that inspired bioregionalism, from the first conceptions in the United States at the end of 60s, to the definition of "urban bioregion" recently proposed by Alberto Magnaghi for an alternative project of urban and metropolitan territories based on self-sustainability. The analysis looks for an integration of the bioregional methodologies within the traditional existing planning tools: the main operative applications in Italy derive from Regional Landscape Plans and some local projects. Afterwards, the research investigates on the most adequate scale for bioregional assessment, seeking a dialogue with tools and methods used in different territorial contexts: the Territorial Coherence Scheme (SCoT) of the French planning system is based on the inter-municipal cooperation and operates at the “living basin” scale of settled communities. A hypothesis of urban bioregion of Cagliari is structured according to seven bioregional “constitutive elements”, which provide the basic knowledge for the definition of a strategic scenario through the representation of 22 bioregional patterns. Finally, the work search for a possible innovative contribution based on the evaluation of cultural ecosystem services (CES), which express the cognitive aspects of human well-being. This integration is inquired through three recent case studies of CES analysis at the neighbourhood scale in Portland (USA) and in Marina’s historical neighbourhood in Cagliari (Italy). The proposed model, adaptable to different contexts and replicable in key points of the bioregional context, could help to integrate the immaterial relations between communities and their living-place in local planning strategies.