This article analyses the effectiveness of circular economy principles applied to the peri-urban territories of Naples, carrying out three integrated “eco-innovative strategies” developed within the H2020 REPAiR project (REsource Management in Peri-urban AReas). The main purpose of the research is to combine the rationalization of waste flows and land recovery. Waste, from scattered materials, turns into new resources for the peri-urban areas. The authors intend to describe how it is possible to create a synergy between urban crisis and technological tools working to improve the metabolism of the peri-urban context. Through the agency of mappings, as holders of knowledge and tools, strategies and scenarios are proposed. Such a process allows the research to create a synergy between two disciplines, one belonging to metabolic rationalization of flows and the other related to urban planning and regeneration of ecologically compromised territories. Thus, the peri-urban space, re-using its waste materials, is re-read and re-designed as a complex and compelling landscape system.

Il paper rilegge criticamente il territorio periurbano e le sue potenzialità a partire da un'intervista rilasciata da François Jullien in merito ad alcuni concetti, pertinenti all'oggetto di riflessione, espressi all'interno del libro "Vivre de paysage ou l'impensé de la raison" (2014) . Scopo del sag¬gio è di mettere in relazione il concetto di paesaggio espresso da Jullien, riferito alla tradizione cinese, ed in particolare le sue condizioni di spazio entre ed ècart, con le caratteristiche tipiche del territorio periurbano. Questa impostazione sembra particolarmente utile per superare i limiti descrittivi e prefigurativi legati alla condizione topologica di questo spazio, frammentario, ibrido, discontinuo, contradditorio. La visione olistica sostenuta dallo studioso francese sembra infatti esaltare le potenzialità del periurbano come "campo di transizione", aiutando ad uscire da alcune secche concettuali persistenti nel dibattito disciplinare. La contaminazione tra questa interpretazione del paesaggio e gli studi provenienti dalla tradizione del landscape ecology possono così contribuire a un nuovo discorso sul paesaggio periurbano e sulle possibilità di una sua risignificazione mediante una rinnovata idea di progetto.

Recent international—UN-Habitat and European Environment Agency—and Italian reports have pointed out that urbanization is incessantly expanding at the expense of biodiversity and of rural lands. The radical growth of land consumption and change of land-use contribute to the increase of territorial risks and vulnerability. In particular, such phenomena are more visible within the peri-urban interface, considered as hybrid and malleable areas straddling between city and countryside realities. Even in the absence of a univocal definition, peri-urban is understood as a space where urban expansion occurs. Moreover, it emerges that such space also lacks local governance. Such uncertainty of form, identity and regulation catches the attention of a new urban agenda, which considers the peri-urban the most suitable place where to enact social, ecological and economic challenging changes. In this light, this paper aims to underline how peri-urban areas, although ecologically, socially and weak from a legislation point of view, constitute challenging territories to enact regenerative design and practices. In particular, new policies in sustainable agriculture are considered as potential solutions for the rapid soil consumption in Europe. Therefore, Campania region has been taken as our case study, because the region has a long history of agricultural practices and currently, it is closely linked to risk dynamics. It also represents an emblematic example for its innate exposure to natural hazards (related to its geological nature and geographical location), and for the ongoing man-made risks as causes of ecological and territorial damages. Moreover, land consumption in the region reached a record level in 2019, with 10% of agricultural land lost in a year (corresponding to 140,033 hectares). More than 70% of the consumed lands coincided with areas already exposed to natural hazards, both seismic and hydrogeological (Munafò, 2020). This paper assesses the results of an experimental application developed as part of the REPAiR (This research has been conducted within the framework of the European Horizon 2020 funded research “REPAiR: REsource Management in Peri-urban AReas: Going Beyond Urban Metabolism” [http://h2020repair.eu/]. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 688920. This article reflects only the author’s view. The Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains). Horizon 2020 European research project. We argue that the project results underline the relationship between the peri-urban interface and the soil regeneration through eco-innovative solutions. This has allowed us to link the spatial condition of the peri-urban with the production of waste and its subsequent recycle. This paper aims to further explore the research field experimented during REPAiR, expanding the materials available on the peri-urban and adding information with respect to the risk to which these places are linked.

The selection of the former NATO Base in Bagnoli as a case study of the Laboratory of Urbanism (Lab), entitled Ex-perience NATO "A", of the MAPA course of the DiARC, University of Naples, Italy, represented an opportunity to investigate sustainable transformations for the western area of Naples, and to reflect on the possible relationships between the consolidated historical fabric and the wider urban context. The former NATO base had various functions over time. The main one was a military one, in the end dismissed, which led to the creation of physical enclosures, social separation and wastefulness generating complex relationships with its broader urban context. The Lab (2020-2021) conducted research through a metabolic and multiscale approach. The regeneration of the former NATO neighbourhood and beyond, started from the definition and mapping of wastescapes, understood as neglected territories within and outside the Base which could became a design opportunity for socio-environmental regeneration. The Lab carried out an integrated design experience keeping together urbanism and landscape, investigating the reciprocal relationships between urban and rural, ecology and landscape protection, also related to water and waste cycles. Results have been student's projects imagining lasting wealth and adaptive spaces over time and focusing on the potential of regenerative approaches in contemporary cities.