Landscape as Strategy for Environmental Multi-functionality

The urban landscape is the result of both public and private choices stratified over the time, which involve material, immaterial, socio-economic, cultural, functional and aesthetic aspects. The territory is as a complex set of resources, in which elements of the different capitals (economic, social, natural, etc.) coexist. The ecosystems included in the natural capital provide essential goods and services, such as the fertile land, productive seas, drinking water, climate regulation, etc. The environmental question has opened up to new interpretations of the landscape. Innovative ex-ante and ex-post evaluation tools of the ecosystemic dimension of projects offer new ways of designing and representing the space. The article aims at deepening the models of landscape design and representation that contemplate the ecosystem value, overcoming the consolidated sectorial modalities. The landscape is conceived as a synthesis of the ecosystem services. The environmental design is combined with the representation through the introduction of new analytical, cognitive and predictive tools.