Maintenance, reconstruction and prevention for the regeneration of historic towns and centers

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is for a higer sustainability of the historic towns and centres. The task of the society is to minimize risk and guarantee maximun safety within the territory while safeguarding the natural as the built landscape. With these sometimes unfortunate outcomes in mind, the society continue to promote “informed planning” hoping to achieve ever grater sustainability and respect for the extant, but, in practice, what the society have done amounts to very little. Indeed, today’s historic city centrers remain neglected and are increasingly “unsafe”.

Design/methodology/approach

In the course, Italy introduced a set of regulations in an attempt to construct, transform, conserve and exploit the potential of historic cities. Unfortunately, the results were not outstanding and today we need to rethink their approach if we are to reverse the abandonment of historic centers and make those “safe” again. In an effort to understand if what was hitherto put in place is sufficient or if new strategies are called for, we have reviewed the technical measures issued. In a large number of cases, restoration only increased their fragility, whereas in many others, especially concerning small centers with traditional economies, no rehabilitation work was ever attempted, not even essential maintenance work, and thus their functional and physical obsolescence became manifest.

Findings

The variegated and complex fragility of such centers requires forms of planning that can take account of the environment, deploy city-planning measures and undertake structural and architectural adaptation. If regeneration is to lead to a “comprehensive and integrated vision” for solving urban problems, economic, physical and social improvement and appropriate environmental conditions for an area subject to transformation, it will require new national and local action policies able to guarantee physical safety, the conservation of cultural values and the social and economic regeneration of such centers within a framework of policies for equilibrated urban development.

Research limitations/implications

The processes of repurposing/revamping and giving leverage to historic centers must make use of multidisciplinary approaches ranging from conservation needs to overall regeneration needs. Therefore, new formulas are needed to enable us to combine conservation based on protective constraints with formulas for rehabilitation, reuse and performance improvement that are couched less in terms of sustainability, and more in terms of profitability, according to the principle – repeatedly voiced in international forums – that assets are also economic resources. Therefore, it will be necessary to proceed carefully, by drawing up a program of territorial development strategies with due guarantees of feasibility and economic growth prospects.

Practical implications

An appropriate regulatory framework is certainly necessary for the regeneration of historic towns and centers but an even more important role should be played by projects that optimize the use of resources if we are to ensure that financing will be managed correctly and a connection will be created – given the discontinuity represented by new constructions – between what remains of extant historic and contemporary architecture and construction. In this context, contemporary architectural design and urban planning can help meet the continued requests for the refurbishment of consolidated cities and the reconstruction of earthquake-stricken towns.

Social implications

Rehabilitating center is not a cultural luxury but a necessity that springs from the need to economize territorial and economic resources. Consequently, a methodology should be formulated to produce, in each specific case, a design jointly drawn up by town planners, architects, urban redevelopment experts, structural engineers and with the participation of many other specialist figures, such as economists, sociologists, geologists and engineering physicists.

Originality/value

This paper provides a multidisciplinary vision on regeneration.

Citation

Gatti, M.P. (2018), "Maintenance, reconstruction and prevention for the regeneration of historic towns and centers", International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 96-111. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJDRBE-10-2016-0043