Design Resilient sOlutions for People. Technologies for rainwater management in urban areas.

Climate change and the frequency of extreme weather phenomena are forcing planners to try to create a more balanced relationship between the built-up environment and the natural one. Architecture and urban planning must design open spaces that can help to mitigate the effects of climate change. DROP project is a study of the technologies that are already available and explores which other technologies could be made available to assist these projects. The objective of the DROP project is the development of advanced technological systems that integrate the various climate damage mitigation solutions and strategies available and which, when calibrated, would also be suitable for the planning and redevelopment of public and private spaces in the urban environment. These spaces will be harmonised with the natural water cycle to mitigate the effects of extreme rainfall. Rainwater will be harvested for use in periods of drought, to reduce the heat island effect, to reduce air pollution, interact with the people who use them, and be home to a wide variety of flora and fauna. The research covers a wide-ranging and complex topic, starting with the simplest technologies. The full-scale prototyping of building solutions, the analysis of case studies, and the comparison between data sets will make it possible to measure the impact of any particular technology and the way the different technologies are used together in architectural and urban planning projects. The knowledge obtained will be published in a manual with technical drawings, measurements, data, documentation relating to the experiments, and an analysis of case studies and simulations. DROP will be in a position to correlate data that would otherwise be impossible to manage in standard planning processes. DROP will introduce genuine innovative techniques to projects for the sustainable redevelopment of urban spaces. DROP will also become a benchmark for the development of new planning practices and research.