Sustainable master planning and urban design for the “buffer zone” of Nicosia

This paper will describe how the urban projects or the new master plans must consider the environmental impactof the proposed intervention and minimise them through a sustainable planning. The Nicosias bi-communalmaster plan project has as development objective the improvement of the existing habitat and the human settlement conditions with a preservation and rehabilitationpolicy in particular way for the walled city (historicalcentre) that is almost abandoned since the Turkishinvasion of 1974. Our contribution consists in the reinterpretation of the previsions of the existing master plan, translating them in sustainable ones. The principal objective of the project is to break down the last Europeanwall and to think Nicosia in the future as a unique city revitalising the historical centre through a sustainablerehabilitation and urban design. In this vision we focused our attention at the buffer-zone of Nicosias walled city considered as the most important gluing area for the functional integration where we have translatethe master plan propose for new open spaces in a network of open green spaces as green islands capable to create a microclimate and to reduce the heat islands.This network of open green spaces is going to be planned after an accurate local monitoring and evaluation of the existing climate conditions.The creation of attractive green spaces for visual and physical relief such as the reduction of psychological stress and external temperature, creating a pleasant local microclimate, becomes ever more important especially for the high summer-temperatures of the Mediterranean climates and in particular way of Cyprus.Creating high quality sustainable and thermic comfort external spaces that are safe and they encourage social interaction and integration is what sustainable landscape and urban design strives to achieve. This paper outlines the proposal for a sustainable master planning and urbandesign through the application of the Project Managementmodel as successful tool for decision maker to define the low energy strategies objectives in buildings and to evaluate different scenarios of sustainable urban design, as well as to implement the cost/benefit analysis of renewable energy integration during all the phases of sustainable urban design.