Changing Cities for Resilience against Climate Changes: Architectural, Engineering and Human Health Implications The H2020 Project HARMONIA

Climate changes are inducing big variations in the “actions” that are normally considered in design of buildings and more in general in Risk Analysis for Urban environments. Extreme Winds, Heat Islands, Instant Floodings are natural phenomena that become more and more frequent, causing large economical damages as well as human lives losses. The Architects & Engineering Community response, in order to try to improve the Cities’ resilience toward such “Extreme Actions” is inducing a global “re-thinking” of Urban Environments, introducing a number of more or less innovative solutions to increase the inhabitants’ well-being. One of these strategies is the introduction of Green Vertical Walls as façades of buildings, a technology that, most probably, will in the next future at least partially replace the technology of the curtain-wall façades made of steel and glass. However, a massive introduction of this very promising technology is, at present, partially prevented by a number of uncertainties related to some problems of different nature: Technological (e.g. interaction of the green wall with the building façade), Structural (e.g. how to consider the drag forces due to the wind, as a function of the greeneries used in the wall), Health&Safety (e.g. increment of PMs during the blooming season). This paper (based on experimental results of some pilot study carried out at Politecnico di Milano) tries to summarize the main advantages and disadvantages of this technology, while introducing the H2020 European Research Project HARMONIA, which is dealing with Climate Changes and, in accordance with the approach of Vulnerability Assessment and Risk Management, aims at providing hazard indicators that can help policy makers and also increase citizens