Today as in the past decades, a growing number of industrial and military sites are being abandoned and disused. This number in Europe is estimated to go from a few hundred in small Member States with a modest industrial legacy to a few hundred thousand in the larger Member States with an important industrial past (Cabernet, 2006). To date in Italy no overall census has yet been achieved on abandoned industrial sites, if not at the level of regions or local authorities but, according to Istat surveys of 2012, it seems that they represent 3% of the National territory, an area of about 9 thousand square kilometres, equal to that of Umbria, of which 30% located in the urban area. The interpretation of this phenomenon of decommissioning, as a central issue of architectural debate on the contemporary city, is therefore extremely urgent due to the intrinsic potential linked to regeneration projects and new uses of this considerable heritage. This research work, exemplified by a case study, wants to meditate to find tools to give a new meaning and a renewed use to pre-existence in our urban and environmental territory and to give new life to what is rejected or abandoned, cancelling waste processes as much as possible (Bocchi, 2013). The spaces of production, designed and realized according to precise functionalist and technical logics, have offered and offer themselves today to various potential uses: spaces conceived from a rationalized and delimited productive logic, expression of a precise historical period, evidence of social transformation, symbol of redemption and economic health of the working class, but also places of pride for technological advancement, aggregation and daily life. They may become fertile ground for design transformations that bring out potential of new uses. Example of this is the building of the Ex Burgo paper mill in Lama di Reno (BO) due to its inherent peculiarities that connote it from an environmental, typological and functional point of view.
Recycle of Industrial Heritage: is it still life?
Daniela Besana
;TRUGLIO, MARTINA
2018-01-01
Abstract
Today as in the past decades, a growing number of industrial and military sites are being abandoned and disused. This number in Europe is estimated to go from a few hundred in small Member States with a modest industrial legacy to a few hundred thousand in the larger Member States with an important industrial past (Cabernet, 2006). To date in Italy no overall census has yet been achieved on abandoned industrial sites, if not at the level of regions or local authorities but, according to Istat surveys of 2012, it seems that they represent 3% of the National territory, an area of about 9 thousand square kilometres, equal to that of Umbria, of which 30% located in the urban area. The interpretation of this phenomenon of decommissioning, as a central issue of architectural debate on the contemporary city, is therefore extremely urgent due to the intrinsic potential linked to regeneration projects and new uses of this considerable heritage. This research work, exemplified by a case study, wants to meditate to find tools to give a new meaning and a renewed use to pre-existence in our urban and environmental territory and to give new life to what is rejected or abandoned, cancelling waste processes as much as possible (Bocchi, 2013). The spaces of production, designed and realized according to precise functionalist and technical logics, have offered and offer themselves today to various potential uses: spaces conceived from a rationalized and delimited productive logic, expression of a precise historical period, evidence of social transformation, symbol of redemption and economic health of the working class, but also places of pride for technological advancement, aggregation and daily life. They may become fertile ground for design transformations that bring out potential of new uses. Example of this is the building of the Ex Burgo paper mill in Lama di Reno (BO) due to its inherent peculiarities that connote it from an environmental, typological and functional point of view.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
