Regenerating Territorial Networks: Adaptive Reuse Strategies for Former Military and Industrial Sites
ProgettoDisused industrial and military areas at the fringes of contemporary cities and within urbanised rural territories do not constitute simple voids, but ratherlatent territorial infrastructures in which mobility networks, spontaneous ecologies, energy systems, and collective memories may become matrices for newregeneration processes. However, their ecological, social, and economic potential often remains unrealised due to the coexistence of environmental andheritage constraints, contaminated soils, large cadastral units, fragmented ownership structures, and planning instruments that are unable to govern long,incremental, and frequently conflictual transformation processes.
The research proposes to interpret these areas not as urban voids, but as complex nodes in which infrastructural, ecological, and energy networks intersect.The initial hypothesis is that such networks, if read through a morphological, comparative, and trans-scalar approach, may constitute the basis for newregeneration criteria capable of integrating material culture, ecological transition, adaptive reuse, energy production and local development scenarios.
The research aims to develop a methodology for the interpretation and transformation of these areas through the expertise of architectural and urban designpresent in 4 Italian universities, with the integration of transdisciplinary competencies dedicated to selected case studies, analysed through 4 territorialdomains (mountain areas, rural urbanised areas, urban sprawl areas, urban areas) and located in regions of Northern Italy and along the Adriatic coast,understood as a laboratory of contemporary territorial transformations linked to processes of industrial and military decommissioning. Through historical-morphological analysis, interscalar mapping, geospatial data, field surveys, moments of exchange with public authorities, local communities andstakeholders, the research aims to build a comparative framework of the forms, constraints and transformative potentials of these territories.
The main output will consist of an operational Atlas on an open WebGIS platform, capable of integrating territorial matrices, urban morphologies,infrastructural networks, vegetational systems, ecological corridors, climatic vulnerabilities, heritage values, soil conditions and ownership structures.
On this basis, the research will define indicators and scenarios to guide adaptive and incremental regeneration processes, thereby contributing to bothscientific and operational advancement. On one hand, it will define a set of replicable methodological elements for the analysis of abandoned industrial andmilitary areas through the interpretation of the morphological and networked relations that bind them to their territorial contexts; on the other hand, it willdevelop tools useful for public administrations, designers, planners, local communities to transform currently underused spaces into active territorialinfrastructures.
The research proposes to interpret these areas not as urban voids, but as complex nodes in which infrastructural, ecological, and energy networks intersect.The initial hypothesis is that such networks, if read through a morphological, comparative, and trans-scalar approach, may constitute the basis for newregeneration criteria capable of integrating material culture, ecological transition, adaptive reuse, energy production and local development scenarios.
The research aims to develop a methodology for the interpretation and transformation of these areas through the expertise of architectural and urban designpresent in 4 Italian universities, with the integration of transdisciplinary competencies dedicated to selected case studies, analysed through 4 territorialdomains (mountain areas, rural urbanised areas, urban sprawl areas, urban areas) and located in regions of Northern Italy and along the Adriatic coast,understood as a laboratory of contemporary territorial transformations linked to processes of industrial and military decommissioning. Through historical-morphological analysis, interscalar mapping, geospatial data, field surveys, moments of exchange with public authorities, local communities andstakeholders, the research aims to build a comparative framework of the forms, constraints and transformative potentials of these territories.
The main output will consist of an operational Atlas on an open WebGIS platform, capable of integrating territorial matrices, urban morphologies,infrastructural networks, vegetational systems, ecological corridors, climatic vulnerabilities, heritage values, soil conditions and ownership structures.
On this basis, the research will define indicators and scenarios to guide adaptive and incremental regeneration processes, thereby contributing to bothscientific and operational advancement. On one hand, it will define a set of replicable methodological elements for the analysis of abandoned industrial andmilitary areas through the interpretation of the morphological and networked relations that bind them to their territorial contexts; on the other hand, it willdevelop tools useful for public administrations, designers, planners, local communities to transform currently underused spaces into active territorialinfrastructures.