Living Corridor of Bologna: Integrated NbS Regeneration along Bologna's Canal System

Bologna faces two opposing climate pressures rooted in the same urban fabric: intensifying rainfall that sealed canals and impervious surfaces turn into flooding, and summer heatwaves that the same dense fabric traps as a persistent urban heat island. This thesis asks how Nature-based Solutions, guided by Water Sensitive Urban Design, can address this paired water-and-heat challenge along the city's canal system while delivering co-benefits for mobility and livability. The intervention follows a three-phase, three-scale framework, from urban planning to urban design to landscape intervention, supported by a layered reading of the territory across green/blue/brown, livability and mobility conditions; on this basis, bundles of measures are assigned to five urban typologies along the corridor. The results are the Living Corridor strategy, a master plan for the Via Lame segment, and a detailed design for Piazza dei Martiri. On a simulated heatwave day, the design lowers air temperature by about 1 °C and improves thermal comfort (PET) by more than 2 °C, while the Bologna RIE index rises from 0.79 to 6.35, exceeding the regulatory minimum. The thesis contributes a replicable, typology-based method for daylighting-oriented canal regeneration; its main limit remains the feasibility of daylighting itself.