Designing the Sustainable Adaptive Reuse of Industrial Heritage to Enhance the Local Context

Abstract

Since the European Year of Cultural Heritage, adaptive reuse is considered a strategy for intervention on historical buildings and territories to preserve and enhance artifacts, cities, and communities. Adaptive reuse can also generate social and economic benefits. This work looks at adaptive reuse in the context of industrial heritage, which represents an excellent test benchmark because of its intrinsic architectural characteristics and its localization in the city suburbs. The paper puts forward a methodological approach, verified through the application to a case study, which analyzes both the local context and the building. This study concludes using the data obtained to define an adaptive reuse project with positive repercussions for the community, the environment, and the local economy.

Adaptive Retrofit for Adaptive Reuse: Converting an Industrial Chimney into a Ventilation Duct to Improve Internal Comfort in a Historic Environment

“…The restructuring of the Valencia industrial heritage is currently underway and, according to the analysis carried out, still shows significant unexplored potential. In particular, the interventions carried out to date have focused a lot on the aspect of functional reuse from the perspective of an urban and neighbourhood redevelopment of the intervention areas, often with very positive results, as in the case of Bombas gens and Fabrica de Hielo [21,40]. Furthermore, the environmental issues seem to be forgotten, although the structures involved in the restoration process are suitable for accommodating numerous adaptive retrofit solutions whose experimentation would have low cost, both from an economic investment point of view and consider the material impact on the industrial protected heritage.…”

“…The most recent methodologies on architectural heritage reuse are instead based on adaptivity, which can be understood as a 2.0 version of resilience. Making the architectural heritage adaptive is equivalent to making the conservation and enhancement intervention not utter and stark but open to future changes-if the surrounding conditions such as fruition, use and performance updating should modify over time-to be carried out easily, often by users themselves, without causing damage to structures and components [17][18][19][20][21].…”

“…Talking about adaptive retrofit declares the intent to collect all the forward steps taken by contemporary reuse and restoration theories and convert them into architectural technology. Adaptive retrofit interventions can guarantee complete reversibility, the respect and protection of historical and architectural values, flexibility of use and, at the same time, a quantitatively predictable performance update of the entire buildings involved during the design phase that is measurable on-site [21].…”

The Application of Green Adaptive Reuse of Historical Buildings in Unesco Cities

“…When steel is recycled, the main source of avoided environmental burden is reuse (Sanchez et al, 2019). Bricks are another building material that PLANNING MALAYSIA Journal of the Malaysia Institute of Planners (2022) 189 © 2022 by MIP can be reused and recycled; blab al discovered that 70% of 2500 bricks could be reused, with the remainder destined for recycling (De Gregorio et al, 2020). Therefore, recycling of materials and reuse of structural elements can contribute to the reduction of construction waste in landfills (Sharifi & Farahinia, 2020).…”

Enhancing the Cultural Heritage through Adaptive Reuse. A Multicriteria Approach to Evaluate the Castello Visconteo in Cusago (Italy)

“…The role of cultural heritage is recognized in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and in particular in Goals 11 (development of inclusive, sustainable, safe, and resilient communities), 4 (education), and 8 (sustainable economic growth, such as cultural tourism) [19]. It is recognized that the conservation and reuse for new functions of the cultural and landscape heritage can have positive impacts on the quality of life and individual and community well-being, contributing to the creation of jobs, the conservation of natural resources, and the revitalization of cities hosting heritage [20][21][22]. Given these premises, adaptive reuse could be the answer to both preserving memory and generating new values, looking at a more holistic vision, i.e., integrating social, economic, environmental, urban, and political policies in agreement with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and providing additional benefits related to the economic value of the landscape where the asset is located [23,24].…”