From soldiers to students: a case study of adaptive reuse

In recent decades in Europe a constant process of overbuilding and land use took place, which has led over time to a situation that is highly detrimental to the landscape, to the natural environment and to the consolidated city. The decision to give new life to a building or to a portion of the city is strictly connected to the will to preserve what these spaces represent for the citizens and for the city itself. In this context the disused former military areas and buildings constitute a peculiar example of “abandoned places”. These are areas with great historical-documental value, but isolated from the surroundings, and frequently characterized by physical elements of hostility and inaccessibility such as high perimeter walls. The aim of this research, which is part of the Italian panorama and in particular of the city of Pavia, is to analyse and to propose an adaptive and sustainable reuse of a former Carabiniere barracks, one of the many abandoned buildings present scattered mostly around the crown of the historical center and within the consolidated urban context.