This paper presents the experience of both interdisciplinary and sustainable implementation of an educational construction site for the recovery of the architectural heritage in Central America. Rey Prendes House is representative of one hundred and forty-five houses made of wood, stamped steel sheet, and deployé that are located in the historical center of San Salvador. Its origin is linked to historical events, such as the strong migration of foreigners to El Salvador in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the presidential decrees that encouraged the reconstruction of the city with anti-seismic materials as a result of the earthquakes of 1873 and 1917. More recently, since 2017, Rey Prendes House has been included in the project funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation. In this paper, the phases of the survey are documented with both materials and degradation analyses, the new design construction with BIM technology for the organization of the educational construction site, the creation of offices and laboratories for restoration and treatments of timber and metal details. Moreover, the study provides a contextual framework with the aim of describing the policies and the projects implemented, highlighting the adopted strategies, the results achieved, and outlining the path followed towards the design solutions for sustainable rehabilitation relating to future use.

Nowadays, the research in the fields of conservation and restoration is focusing on recording large amounts of data and information in order to obtain highly accurate surveys that include most details of constructions. Documenting and surveying are fundamental activities in achieving the successful preservation of cultural heritage, but also in implementing efficient strengthening interventions of structures. The applications of methods and techniques that link the disciplines of geometrical surveys and structural analyses are still fragmented, and further research is necessary to fully transfer site information into structural models. In this article, the authors propose a methodology with which to link different restoration fields, with the aim of highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the interoperability between surveys (carried out through detailed restitution from point clouds), heritage building information modeling (HBIM), and structural analyses to connect three different disciplines. The goal is to find a synthesis model that brings together historical and geometric characteristics, but also physical–mechanical properties, for a structural evaluation through a finite element model (FEM). The case study of the Escuela José Mariano Méndez is analyzed, an extremely damaged historical adobe building in Santa Ana, the second largest city of El Salvador; it is considered fundamental to the national economy, particularly after the “coffee boom” in the late 1800s. The site, located near the historic center, is also known as “Antigua Escuela de Artes y Oficios” and embodies the architectural traditions of the region, being built in adobe and stone. Roma Tre University and the Secretaría de Cultura de la Presidencia (SECULTURA) are partners in this research project to document and restore the historical and cultural value of this site.

Historical timber roofs play a significant role in architectural heritage, as listed in the World Heritage List protected by UNESCO. Despite their complexity, they are frequently lacking in maintenance, with the consequence that only a few original examples have been preserved until today, contradicting the principle of minimum intervention. In the paper, a decision-making approach has been proposed for the best and most sustainable solution, in which tradition and innovation meet to achieve the maximum quality with minimum intervention. With an emphasis on sustainability (environmental, economic, technological, historic, and social), analyses have been carried out in order to compare various intervention alternatives, modeled in a Heritage-Building Information Modeling (HBIM) environment, assessed using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), and implemented with the multi-criteria Modelo Integrado de cuantificacion de Valor para Edificacion Sostenibles (MIVES) methodology. The case study is the roof of the Michelangelo Cloister in the Diocletian Baths in Rome, which is a significant example of historical timber roofs. The results are given in terms of a quantitative sustainability index SI, which takes into account different alternatives of intervention, including the task of diagnosis.

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One of the biggest issues in civil engineering is the poor performance of concrete repairs. In fact, in Europe only 50% of concrete structures restorations are estimated to be successful, even though rehabilitation costs account for about half of the yearly construction budgets. This research aims at investigating a potential green approach to the sustainability of rehabilitation solutions for infrastructures. Following a simplified analysis of C02 emissions, intervention costs, social aspects, structural performances and other variables considered relevant to the scope, possible rehabilitation techniques are compared and ranked. The following four different options have therefore been designed to be applied to an actual column of the Brabau Bridge in Sardinia (Italy): i. complete removal and replacement of the column, ii. replacement of the damaged longitudinal rebars by machined bars and ultra-high performance fibre-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) strengthening, iii. longitudinal and transverse fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) wrapping, iv. concrete jacketing. A methodological and procedural strategy is established through multi-criteria analysis that will allow future developments to assess the whole Life Cycle Assessment of the maintenance work.