Reuse and Reconversion as Sustainability Paradigm for Marginal Areas Regeneration

Abstract

Imagining the future has become an increasingly arduous exercise especially if we consider the constant anthropic modifications and their consequences to which the environment is subjected. In the face of climate change, the reduction in land consumption and the energy efficiency of buildings are some of the missions to be pursued to achieve an adequate level of sustainability, in the constant search for inclusive, safe, and durable urban settlements. Trying to rebalance a relationship, which has been compromised for too long, between nature and artifice can only take place through an ecosystem approach capable of promoting conservation, productivity, and resilience. These indications become the tracks to formulate exploratory projects of urban regeneration for marginal territories, linking, through a multidisciplinary approach, the architectural scale and the urban scale. In particular, this contribution addresses the debated topic, especially in the Italian context, of possible sustainable transformation scenarios for inland areas, with a focus on hamlets and villages and reflects on the possibility of working on the resilience of territories either by recovering the heritage of villages for housing purposes or enhancing the ecological–environmental component through renaturalization.