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Today’s urban environment features several critical issues related to what in Italy is called ‘cementification’: among the main ones, the phenomenon of heat islands, the cause of several problems related to citizens’ health, especially for the weaker population groups such as children and elderly people. This paper presents the results of a research focused on identifying a combination of nature-based solutions, offering good benefits both from the point of view of improving microclimate comfort and from the point of view of psychological comfort for the people who will use the regenerated areas.

This paper presents a design for a district of the city of Iquitos, developed based on research by the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and supported by the Centro Interuniveristario de Desarollo Academico exchange programme. The case study’s interest is in the conditions of environmental stress to which the district is subject due to seasonal variations in the water level of the river that runs through it. Under these circumstances, the inhabitants have spontaneously developed resilient settlement strategies which, however, are not sufficient to deal with the serious health and sanitary problems that exist there. The paper demonstrates how, in such situations, it is possible to propose adaptive design solutions which are in keeping with local practices and therefore easily reproducible.

The educational experiments mentioned below are aimed at demonstrating how matter, technique and technology can play their role in the architectural design as main elements of inspiration and development. These elements do not constitute a feared limitation to the designer’s creative freedom, also favoring the integration of scientific and technical training (at least for what learned in the early years) with design idea. The focus on materials as possible generators of ideas seems to be a good method to acquire the awareness of the responsibility for design action, since this is a problem-solving activity and not a free, ‘creative’ and uncontrolled activity.