Urban streets are increasingly acknowledged as more than infrastructural corridors, serving as accessible and pervasive spaces where ecological processes and collective life unfold. In the context of climate change and ecological transition, cities worldwide are experimenting with nature-based street regeneration. Yet current research and practice often prioritize ecological performance metrics, overlooking the nuanced, spatially embedded, and culturally grounded processes through which urban nature evolves. […]

This article argues that the design of streetscapes in Southern Europe can no longer rely on standardized, purely technical approaches. Instead, it must engage Nature-based Solutions (NbS) through culturally rooted strategies that align contemporary ecological imperatives with historical and social narratives. […]

Across the projects analyzed, interventions requalify underused or mono-functional streets, transforming them into multifunctional ecological corridors and civic interfaces. Locally adapted materials, Mediterranean planting assemblages, and microclimatic devices reinforce environmental performance while maintaining spatial continuity with layered urban fabrics. […]

The results demonstrate that ecological performance is inseparable from cultural recognition, collective practices, and narrative continuity. NbS emerge not merely as technical infrastructures, but as cultural-ecological spatial dispositives capable of advancing resilience, social equity, and place identity. […]