Medieval urban centers and weak users: reflection and methodological suggestions for an inclusive approach

The medieval urban centres characterizing many European medium to small size cities, are often distinguished by historical architectural and cultural peculiarities that make them not only a place where it is pleasant to live, but also where people go for tourism. These are urban areas characterized by materials, pavements, gradients that do not always satisfy the needs of mobility and use of weaker users (people with mobility or sensorial disabilities, the elderly, parents with strollers) and sometimes tourists moving with trolley and suitcases. However, some characteristics cannot be modified to fulfil current mobility needs, because it would risk of losing the identity and the distinctive features that appreciate the urban environment itself. It is necessary to work with great balance, combining the extended users’ needs with those of conservation and valorization of urban centres of high historical and cultural value; to propose appropriated solutions to the context, it is essential to have a deep knowledge of the urban plan and its morphological and constructive features. To do this it is necessary to start with a particularly detailed cognitive framework, based on objective parameters that allow to identify on one side the already usable path and areas and on the other to define the priorities of intervention to improve all users’ usability. The paper intends to illustrate a method for assessing the accessibility and usability of urban spaces, defined and refined during various researches developed on medium-sized Italian historical centres; the outcome of the evaluation allows to create an accessibility level map of the studied area identifying the already user-friendly routes and others requiring interventions (more or less significant) to be enjoyed by everyone.