Cultural heritage as activator of circular urban dynamics

Rossella Roversi,Martina Massari,Beatrice Turillazzi,Danila Longo,Serena Orlandi

doi:10.36253/techne-10607

Rossella Roversi, Martina Massari + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.36253/techne-10607

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Abstract

Cultural heritage can represent a key factor in circular processes on an urban scale that trigger relationships between users and the surrounding environment, generating new urban capital and enhancing individual and collective capacities. This topic is addressed through a review of academic literature and policy documents and a comparative analysis of two regeneration processes carried out in the cities of Bologna and Bogotà: the H2020 ROCK – Regeneration and Optimisation of Cultural Heritage in creative and Knowledge cities (GA 730280) project – on the historical university area, and the experiments on the former Ravone railway station of the OBRAS – Opportunities for Boosting urban capabilities project – developed in parallel on the La Sabana Station in Bogotá, Colombia.

Highlights

Research on the circular city poses the challenge of reusing and regenerating cultural heritage translated within complex and adaptive systems, characterised by an unstable, changing balance: a condition that requires an innovative management of urban transformation processes, which consider the interdependence between economic, social, ecological subsystems (Boeri et al, 2019; Fusco Girard and Nocca, 2019)
Preparedness goes beyond the control of urban space to support living with uncertainty and invokes some operational attitudes towards city design: from the flexibility and adaptability of projects, to the proximity of urban governance systems, to the stable involvement of citizens in transformation processes
The many experiments of adaptive cultural heritage regeneration processes represent a useful cognitive resource to start putting into practice a different vision and role of cities

Summary

Introduction

Research on the circular city poses the challenge of reusing and regenerating cultural heritage translated within complex and adaptive systems, characterised by an unstable, changing balance: a condition that requires an innovative management of urban transformation processes, which consider the interdependence between economic, social, ecological subsystems (Boeri et al, 2019; Fusco Girard and Nocca, 2019). The specificities and complex dynamics that characterise each urban context require the adaptation of European policies with new forms of flexible and multi-scalar approaches, capable of guiding transformation and regeneration processes, combining different types of cultural heritage, architectural landscape, environmental and climate issues, social conflicts and economic constraints. The project was funded in 2017 in the Climate – Greening the Economy axis in response to the Cultural Heritage as a driver for sustainable growth call of the Horizon 2020 Innovative Action programme and ended in December 2020 (GA 730280) It was coordinated by the Municipality of Bologna with the scientific support of the University of Bologna and involved 10 European cities. L’intervento, attraverso azioni tattiche, costruite collaborativamente, consente di riflettere sul potenziale dei luoghi in maniera graduale e incrementale, disponendo di un prototipo di allestimento e una simulazione di alternativa d’uso dello spazio, in ambiente reale

Conclusioni

Conclusions