THE ‘GREEN’ AS ELEMENT OF REGIONAL IDENTITY

A green area, a public park should always represent the genius loci of the locality in which they are located, in many cases they represented the element of change of a place until it became its most important, if not the protagonist, the development engine of that site. This is valid not only for public spaces built in the past, but also in the present, among the ancient examples the transformation of historic walls into important public avenues or coastal walks with palm and other exotic trees, in the contemporary the High Line is the pivot of a new cool neighborhood in New York. In this study we want to demonstrate the importance of using autochthonous ‘plants’ in creating a green area. Based on numerous scientific studies, invasive exotic plants must not be introduced, but rather native ones for an ecologically sustainable project of an open and urban public space. Through examples of successful applications and not, the in-depth analysis will be mainly on herbaceous plants starting from Oudolf theory on the chromatic, formal and dimensional alternation of them. The intent is to provide guidelines, through the two case studies in New York and Rotterdam, for a sustainable architectural composition of herbaceous plants, with the use of native species easily available in situ.