Green Fragments. Urban courtyards contribution to the Green Infrastructure of historic centres

Considering the fragility of cities in the face of extreme weather events and Climate Change, one of the key issues in recent decades has been the adaptation of urban structures to achieve improved resilience. The integration of Green Infrastructures (GI) into the built environment plays a key role in this process as natural components are able to provide a more flexible and integrated answer to many stresses affecting urban areas. However, existing GI strategies are mostly base on large-scale interventions which have major limitations when interfacing with the compactness and the scarcity of transformable public space of historic centres. Focusing on the case study of Milano and its historic centre, this contribution aims at demonstrating the potential of inner urban courtyards to the densification, strenghtening and integration of the existing green network.