Operations on Railyard Sites, the Dutch Case: In between Landscape Design and Engineering

The technical landscape of railyard sites brings together a multidisciplinary set of expertise and needs. It entails the union of engineering and landscape design concerns, to redefine these spaces in the way they are maintained and potentially transformed. The paper gives an overview of this interplay, focusing on the Dutch panorama to describe experimental procedures to manage and leverage railyards' green spaces in their transformation. It is presented a specific case study, the design for Amsterdam PHS, where technological advancement allowed to redefine the railyard section, providing a new urban park for the city. Ultimately is explored the potentialities and impact of translating this approach in another territorial context, the Italian one, where abandonment phenomena are widespread. The originality of the contribution lies in correlating aspects usually disconnected, such as technical needs, design, and ecological thinking, to propose an alternative management and redevelopment outlook.