The theme of this course is “Adapting Venice to Climate Change”. The extensive damage that human activity has done Venice and the surrounding ecosystems it hosts is increasingly acknowledged by recent events such as floods and heatwaves. To tackle such challenge a specific focus of the course is the creative design of strategies centred on the transformation of urban and building forms.

Because there is a synergistic relationship between form, climate, ecosystems and human life, strategies to address the causes and impacts of climate change will be found in managing local microclimates via the extensive use of simulation tools, as a way to reduce and produce energy, eliminate and absorb emissions, tackle the loss of biodiversity and promote the life of people in outdoor spaces.

This will mean at the same time restoring or creating ecosystem services, thus adding to the overall resilience of the built environment, creating favourable climatic conditions for people to spend more time in public spaces. The course is based on international and national lecturers focusing on climate change, microclimatic design, and urban microclimatic simulation.