For a long time, the theme of soil – as matter, not as territory – has been the quasi exclusive subject of agriculture, geography and soil science. Only in the last few decades, due to a rapidly growing awareness of climate change, has soil increasingly come into focus in urban design, in particular as a matter that can also provide ecosystem services in urban environments.
The editors of OASE 110 believe that soils, although degraded and fragmented, call to be looked upon with a new gaze. They should be rearticulated in a new project aimed at the construction of a shared, productive and inhabited nature, containing different elements of urbanity and offering – at the same time – a more resilient and sustainable environment for all.
Inspired by Bernardo Secchi’s 1986 text ‘Progetto di Suolo’, this issue of OASE makes a critical analysis of how soil – as an intermediary package that connects surface and subsurface – can further connect to the practices of urbanism and urban design, and how it can guide those practices in exploring new agendas.