Reactivation of the Built Environment: From Theory to Practice

The economic-financial crisis in 2008 and the pandemic in 2020, have placed the issue of rehabilitation of the built environment back at the center of the urban and architectural debate, with particular emphasis on social, environmental and feasibility issues. In this sense, the crisis represents an important watershed, as it not only brought about new economic, political, social and technological conditions, such as restoring the focus on the built environment, but also encouraged the spread of alter-native modes of intervention to the existing ones. These include forms of urban re-generation via social innovation designed to respond to the actual problems of civil society, which traditional public and private actors can no longer cope with. Urban reactivation shares this approach, focusing on the many unused urban spaces which, due to their characteristics, don’t match the interests of the private/public operators. This book deals with the theme of urban reactivation as a particular form of regen-eration intervention, which in addition to the physical-spatial dimension of the places also—and above all—considers the social and relational dynamics that the interven-tion is able to activate. In this sense, the concept of activation (or reactivation) em-phasizes the act of putting something into or back into operation, whether it concerns the material components of a container (a building or a place) or the immaterial com-ponents of a content (a need, a function), starting from the exploitation of opportuni-ties that the architectural project contributes to revealing, developing and accompany-ing. At the center of the topic are public and/or private spaces and buildings that have lost their original purpose—or never had one—and are in need of actions to define or redefine their uses in relation to the needs of today's world. These spaces represent important territorial resources from which to activate the local community and trigger transformations capable of producing socio-spatial effects. The book explains the way in which urban reactivation interventions are carried out and describes the possible contribution of the project as a tool to promote the success of such interventions by foreseeing the social, procedural and morphological frame-works of possible strategies. The analysis of case studies, as well as carrying out field activities such as interviews and reactivation project initiatives conducted in the real world, introduce readers to the characteristics of the reactivation intervention and the useful tools for managing its project implications. In summary, the first part of the book investigates the reasons why, in recent years, there has been an increased focus on urban regeneration issues, also addressing the taxonomic aspects related to the definition of the reactivation intervention and its characteristics of action. The methodology, in line with the principles of the place-based approach and the principles of integrated urban development promoted by Eu-ropean policies, adopts the semantic shift introduced by urban regeneration processes via social innovation. In the second part, the book presents the methodology of urban reactivation as a new approach to urban regeneration. In this new approach the scale of the project is not a decisive factor, as the approach favors the ways in which the design choices of interventions mature and the social ramifications, they are able to produce. In this sense, the book examines a different form of scalarity, which is linked to effects rather than the actual size of interventions. This is a multiple scalarity that operates on the vertical relationships between the local and global dimensions, but also and above all, on the horizontal connections between the urban spaces. The third and last part of the book focuses on the applicational aspects of the method, deepening three enabling factors: (a) the key role of the planner, seen as an activator and mediator of the requests of the subjects variously involved in the reactivation process. A genuinely ena-bling figure capable of acting as an agent of social, cultural and political medi-ation who acts not only as a creator of form, but also as an enabler of processes and narratives; (b) the open and flexible nature of urban regeneration processes in fostering the emergence of new economies at the micro scale of neighborhoods, which in turn can trigger forms of participation, encouraging inclusiveness and a sense of belonging on the part of the communities involved; (b) the need for technological tools, including digital ones, capable of facilitat-ing the involvement of a wide range of users, from the recognition of a prob-lem to its practical treatment in design and construction terms. The cognitive investigation of these three aspects has led to the definition of the methodological and instrumental apparatus of the urban regeneration intervention, which was subsequently tested through real-world experiences. A collection of select-ed interviews, case studies and field trials provide references for understanding the application of the method examined.