Ecologically oriented urban architectural renewal: three case studies

Abstract

In Italy, the complexity of regulations and of bureaucracy and the lack of an organic overall program make it difficult to carry out interventions aimed at safeguarding infrastructures and buildings against both seismic and hydrogeological risk and at making them more energy efficient.
Besides municipal permits, in protected landscape areas or in the case of protected historical or artistic buildings, any modification of the landscape or architectural intervention is subject to the authorization of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage. Unfortunately, there are no objective criteria for these authorizations and the subjectivity of the evaluation of the proposals often leads to different results in very similar cases. Also, while there are time constraints within which decision should be made, the deadlines are often extended. All this leads to an increase in management and operating costs, which are becoming increasingly unsustainable.
The present methodologically oriented paper deals with urban renewal and architectural renovation, presenting three case studies as examples of innovative approaches to the modernization of urban areas. In all three case studies, the traditional contents of urban planning are developed taking into account the guidelines imposed by regulations. In Italy, so-called “detailed executive urban plans” (piani urbanistici particolareggiati) often provide insufficient or uncertain indications with regard both to implementation and financial and management aspects. The present paper hypothesizes interventions to upgrade buildings technologically based on a multi-scalar and unitary idea of renovation, necessarily obtained through an interdisciplinary approach, which could be usefully adopted in actual practice.