This article is part of our Local Challenges series for Placemaking Week Europe 2025 in Reggio Emilia, where we explore five urban questions shaping the city’s future.
How can historic squares thrive in the age of climate change?
Piazza della Vittoria is one of the most impressive and significant spaces for the city of Reggio Emilia. It is surrounded by major cultural institutions such as the Valli Theater, Ariosto Theater, and the Civic Museums. Piazza della Vittoria is truly beautiful, yet in the blazing summer sun it becomes a heat desert—fully paved, unshaded, and most of the time empty.
How then to transform this space for the benefit of users’ well-being?
By using a climate-focused approach through introducing nature-based solutions, improving microclimates, and involving local institutions and businesses, the square could become a welcoming, resilient, and socially vibrant hub. This challenge also reflects on how to include cultural institutions, retailers and other stakeholders in daily urban life to imagine a new role for Piazza della Vittoria through the governance of planning and transformation. We want to come closer to find answers on questions like “What does it mean to rethink a space with a climate proof approach? — socially, symbolically, and physically? And “What role should local institutions play?”.
Next in the series: Via Premuda and the promise of proximity-based urban transformation.
