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The pandemic, with its environmental and socio-economic crises, has highlighted the urgency of structural responses. Overcoming this polycrisis requires the reactivation of a community and identity dimension of places. Cultural institutions can play an important role in this process. This paper proposes a focus on the role of ecomuseums in the creation of resilient communities, able to renew themselves to respond to crises. The ecomuseum movement is strongly committed to the eco-social transition of communities and territories and offers good practices for the management of common goods, methods and tools for the recognition of local identities, joint decision-making, co-planning, the care of living cultural heritage, the integral development of the landscape and the monitoring of impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the intermediate results of the design experimentation of a Public Housing development in which the Renewable Energy Community model is an opportunity for energy transition but also for the needs of social inclusion and collaboration, which characterise the complex conditions of contemporary housing. Demonstrating the transcalar and multifunctional effectiveness of RECs incentivises their implementation, especially when a complex demanding framework is confronted with limitedly available resources. Hence, through a systemic approach, simulative methods and impact indicators, the extent of the contribution offered by the REC model was verified not only in terms of decarbonisation and climate neutrality but as an opportunity for eco-social regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the contemporary context of the polycrisis, ways and criteria for sustainable urban transformation are discussed that shift the needle of ecological transition from building to city, towards energy self-sufficiency and social self-determination. Alternative forms of management, containment and production of clean and accessible energy from renewable sources are explored that have feedback in terms of process, design and social innovation. The paper aims to highlight the active and adaptive dimensions of technological design in its ability to support and promote behaviour favouring sustainable environmental transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper shows the results of an applied research carried out at the Department of Architecture, Roma Tre University, to integrate a multi-criteria method in the generative design process of envelope refitting with the aim of implementing a holistic evaluation of sustainability. The resulting Decision Support System is created for the decision-maker who has to assess the multiple performance aspects of a complex system by considering alternative options. It is a procedure that promotes multi-disciplinarity in the generative design process via horizontal integration of the skills of subjects involved in the process, besides vertical integration in relation to the inclusion of further specialisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the common practice and the regulatory requirements related to the urban planning of our cities continues to define environmental quality through compliance with urban planning codes, the inadequacy of this parameter is increasingly evident. For this reason, numerous urban regeneration programs, and above all urban sustainability assessment standards, evaluate the environmental sustainability levels and livability, as if they were a project indicator. The paper describes the most consolidated indicators and proposes the use of the livability indicator of the public space promoted by the Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona with some modifications that make it more consistent with the Milanese and Italian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India is a significant contemporary design laboratory for collective housing models in terms of both the construction of housing that experiments with new building materials and technologies and the design of flexible housing in informal contexts. Starting with a historical review of housing models created by B.V. Doshi and Charles Correa in the mid-1900s, this paper compares recent collective housing projects designed by Anupama Kundoo and Bijoy Jain (Studio Mumbai) in Auroville and Mumbai. The chosen projects explore new prototypes for housing and demonstrate the ability to respond in an original way to the growing challenges linked to environmental and social sustainability, opening up to new typological and technological experimentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade the European residential market has seen radical social and economic changes. The economic situation and heterogeneous housing demand has created the necessary conditions for the development of new housing models. This paper introduces the methods, procedures and tools of a process model for new construction or retrofitting of residential buildings called Collective Self-Organised (CSO) housing. The CSO process model is characterized by service sharing, reduction of construction costs and use of high energy performance technologies developed through the PROFICIENT research project financed by the European community's 7th framework programme (GA N°312219). The paper also presents an example of a Dutch CSO housing project named 'De Hallen'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a critical analysis of the 15-Minute City concept, developed through a comparative analysis of three case studies: the ville du quart d’heure in Paris, the Superilla plan in Barcelona and the Piazze Aperte programme in Milan. This comparative analysis is addressed through the lens of the theoretical and design paradigm of civic design/capital web and aims to highlight the limits and potential of these models and inform future research directions to pursue the eco-social transition of urban systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The circular economy applied to the urban context is linked to sustainability objectives focused on environmental performances overlooking socio-political implications, in order to achieve a circular balance within the neoliberal paradigm of business-nature-society in a continuous growth scenario. This paper discusses this criticality, articulating a counter perspective based on the debate of degrowth, circularity and technology through the analysis of three cases of socio-technical assemblages: Transition Towns; Repair Cafes; Community Gardens. The research individuates the effectiveness of urban practices in which the circularity is implemented beyond purely economic interactions or ecoefficiency parameters, defining the potentialities of a degrowing circular city based on inclusiveness, social justice and reciprocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issues of energy efficiency and climate change belong to a complex scenario to which contemporaneity is called upon to answer. Architecture can contribute by promoting practices that look at the environment with a view to building the future. As an architectural activity, restoration of heritage buildings can actively participate in this fundamental challenge within the perspective of a circular economy proposing a globally sustainable model. Starting from a state-of-the-art investigation, this paper aims to enucleate the BECK project’s contribution in this field, as well as to underline how careful strategies of conservation and contemporary use can have positive effects on sustainable future scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are at the heart of global challenges and its solutions. When occupying only 3% of Earth's land, they are both the engines of economic growth with 80% of the global GDP but at the same time cities are emitting 75% of global green house gases. The aim of this paper was to focus on how different city development programs have been developing and how they are supporting the city's strategic goals. This paper has shown self-assessment results of 37 projects from four different programs in the city of Tampere. The projects were evaluated against five themes: people, planet, propagation, governance and scalability/replicability. The results showed that the environmental indicators had high scores. Also, the governance focus had a high scores in most of the projects. The people focus was highest in project themes on smart cities. Some of the ecological projects were in nature very technical, which is the reason why they did not score that high in people theme. The results showed clearly that the scalability and replicability are becoming very important elements in the existing and coming projects in cities. This could be also clearly seen in the analyses where the scalability and replicability of the different projects has been important in last 5-10 years and it seem that especially in the recent years the importance has a high impact. From our study we could initially conclude that the program based approach in city's economic development seems to provide one strand of continuation in implementation of the city's economic development policy and that the impact of its implementation improves. The hierarchical roles of different sets of projects as well as that of the sub-ecosystems that have carried out the project(s) indicates that the ecosystem approach is a useful one. The results also highllighted the role of programs as platforms for for innovation and co-creation between citizens, companies, research organizations and public sector. In these ecosystems value is created to all stakeholders. The value may be direct financial value but may well be also indirect such as R&D related, community value etc. The role of the cities is very important in this ecosystem value creation as they are considered to be a neutral body with focus on the public interest, not a vested one. As the role of cities is growing to be paramount also in innovation, this should be reflected in regional, national and EU level innovation policies, funding schemes and regulations as well as in execution of innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fener - Balat represents the 19th century Ottoman social way of life with particular construction techniques and urban life in Istanbul. In the 20th century, conservation approaches influenced the area and the recently there has been intervention in disaster prevention concerning architectural heritage. In this paper, a brief history and values have been elucidated. Urban resilience was intended in the historical area starting with a rehabilitation programme; however, various stakeholders display inconsistent scenarios on the historical built environment. As a methodology, the paper analyses major urban interventions influencing the area; in addition, monitoring after the Rehabilitation Programme via direct investigation on the neighbourhoods was discussed in the context of resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The industry of construction products plays an important role in Europe in promoting the sustainability of the built environment in a life cycle perspective. Within the framework of the European initiatives for a sustainable competitiveness, manufacturers are interested in promoting a life cycle approach along the building chain. However both, institutions and building operators, in general still have to go a long way on designing and applying a sustainable and competitive industrial policy. This paper aims to describe the European background, the regulatory framework, identifying gaps and the actions to be undertaken to promote a market for sustainable products and sustainable buildings. In particular this paper deals with the assessment and communication of the environmental performance of construction products between the operators in the building chain, as a prerequisite for the sustainability of the built environment, and outlines the strategies to implement a proper evaluation and communication process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The boost in social housing interventions is the answer to the growing demand for new housing caused by higher social vulnerability in the wake of the economic and financial crisis in Europe. It meets the goal of inclusive growth, as defined in Europe 2020's growth strategy. This paper deals with this issue starting from an analysis of the social events that are worsening the housing problem in Europe, and which are exasperated by the anti-crisis measures implemented by the Governments of the most financially stricken countries. This paper then highlights the key role played by social managers as the element that guarantees intervention sustainability. The case-study of the Fondazione Housing Sociale demonstrates how the social manager is a key element in social housing interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dismissed architectures and urban voids are often considered revitalization chances for the cities. At the same time they are an urban problem, tied to structural crisis and social decay. The research take on the relationship between the safeguard of historical industrial buildings and new needs in terms of eco-compatibility, global cost and energy. Through the results of an application of life cycle design, the paper aims at demonstrating the importance of tools for the analysis supporting strategical evaluations for the sustainable planning of urban renewal through the reclamation of dismissed industrial sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the liveability of the urban environment and to guarantee a widespread accessibility, it seems helpful to deal with the redesign of streets and public spaces together with the reorganization of mobility in a sustainable way. This paper refers to research works and tests, carried out and in progress, which, to that aim, analysed limits and possibilities of application of the Environmental Island tool and of a specific design approach, testing them also in two university districts of the city of Rome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability in architecture should involve environmental and social aspects and also economic aspects. However, in a design process budget issues usually outweigh ecological aspects. How can we then drive clients and builders to put more socially responsible buildings on the market that do not exceed the fixed budget but are environmentally friendly? This paper propose an economic and environmental assessment tool to aid private or public building designers and owners to find the global sustainability value of a green building within a life cycle perspective. Sustainable life cycle tools for buildings design and construction help to achieve successfully integrated architecture. The research here presented proposes a new point of view of the "time-cost-quality triangle" of Project Management, by introducing three further aspects: environment, society and aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent times Life Cycle Approach in building design and construction was set up by means technical standards (e.g. CEN/TC 350) as well as comprehensive impact assessment methods (e.g. LEED® and ITACA). Although standards and methods may be considered as accurate and exhaustive, product and system design needs a further organisation and systematisation of those environmental requirements tricky to take into account in preliminary design. It stands to reason such trickiness becomes more important in industrial research projects. Starting with the assumption that there is an urgent need to overcome the gap between design and production, the paper deals with the outcomes of a research project focused on detailed designing, manufacturing and monitoring of a Living Wall System (LWS) aimed at carrying into action a Life Cycle Approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent surveys on the condition of the Italian school building stock provide information on its relevant seismic behavior and fire safety levels, however no information is made available on its thermo-hygrometric conditions and energy behaviour, despite the fact that the former has a considerable impact on the use and physical conditions of indoor environments and the latter plays a fundamental role in limiting the buildings operating costs, as literature abundantly shows. This paper reports the results of a study carried out on a sample of Italian school buildings, substantiating their high levels of energy consumption, and describes the application of a specific method of analysis used for identifying the main causes of these, therefore allowing to propose some possible strategies for retrofitting, aimed to improving the building energy efficiency and environmental quality, by way of simulations and validation of their relevant effects and benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question posed by ever more ecological towns requires a rethinking of the aesthetics and of the nature of 'grey infrastructures' that deface the urban landscape and for which a new planning and landscape sensitivity is called for . The employment of vegetation as the project material can assist the mitigation and insertion into the high density context also in terms of recovery and requalification for a sustainable solution. Intervening in many environmental aspects, 'ecotechgreen' becomes the premise for a new environmental planning with which to transform towns into more efficient ecosystems. This paper presents partial results in the ongoing research into different planning approaches relative to these urban components . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UNESCO site Cinque Terre, Portovenere and Islands (Palmaria, Tino e Tinetto), in the eastern part of Liguria Region, is one of the best-known examples of protected landscapes; nevertheless it is vulnerable to natural actions (floods, landslips) and human ones (abandonment of argicultural landscapes and terraced system, uncontrolled transformations on the built heritage even due to the insertion of technical installations).The paper intends to briefly describe motivations, methodology and results of the research aimed to identify criteria to set up Guidelines for the eco-efficiency of traditional rural heritage and the insertion of small size renewable energy disposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Economic Forum is an independent non-governmental organisation (NGO), committed to improving the state of the world. There are approximately 1500 member companies, including 50 from the architecture and construction sector. The Forum carries out annual surveys through its CEOs, enabling it in order to draw up its projects efficaciously; this paper presents the results of the last two. As well as examining the health of public finances, the chief problem likely to bedevil the construction sector in 2011, it also provides an analysis of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), which are the most probable source of project funding in the near future, and discusses the importance of infrastructures and the use of cutting edge technologies for the sustainable development of the global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]