Maria Bottero Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy 303
B. Agriculture as input to bio-industry
In the last years of XX century a very interesting theory called “Progetto Zeri” was
described by Gunter Pauli. As a consultant engineer in different agricultural planta-
tions in Asia and in Latin America, he promoted integrated systems of combined
agricultural-industrial production.
The leading idea of all these productive systems was the use of biomass on site,
saving the cost of transports to factories located far away and, even more important,
building on site a network of industries (food industries as well as chemical and
pharmaceutical) using the wastes or outputs of one line of production as inputs to
other lines of production, - in so far reaching the result of having no wastes at the
end of the matter/energy transformation cycles of the network.
C. Agriculture and landscape for creating biodiversity
Europe policy for agriculture is more and more interested to landscape, encourag-
ing and subsidizing a new kind of agriculture aimed at producing biodiversification
through a variety of vegetal and animal species, both for the sake of species con-
servation and for improving the humus fertility of soils, spoiled by the up to now
practiced technique of monoculture.
Conclusions
The teaching program of “Environmental design” above illustrated spans from envi-
ronment theories, to building design, to landscape design. The students’ work can
be a theory study or a project, and the amount and deepness of students’ elaborates
depend on their capacity and career degree: whether they are at first and second
year of the “laurea specialistica”, or at final degree, or at PhD.