The requalification of industrial buildings: a circular economy perspective

Agata Maniero,Giorgia Fattori

doi:10.36253/techne-10592

Abstract

Since the 1970s, in Europe the industrial decommissioning phenomenon has led to the generation of an obsolescent and widespread building stock, located in highly strategic areas. This paper, aiming to make abandoned industrial buildings re-enter the market, focused on the development of prefabricated housing modules, according to the nested-building renovation approach. The project started from the constraint’s typological analysis (architectural, functional and structural) of 900 reinforced concrete industrial buildings in view of the intervention replicability. Finally, to validate the design and technological choices, the analysed system was applied to a real case study in Verona: the Greggi Warehouse (1960) in the “ex-Manifattura Tabacchi” factory area.

Highlights

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the primary resources, considered unlimited, have been used to create consumer goods, producing significant amounts of waste and emissions during their life cycle
Buildings can be ranked among consumer goods and their manufacturing throughout Europe has for decades followed the linear system based on “take, make and dispose”
Abandoned buildings have an intrinsic value to be exploited by extending the life cycle of recycling components, rather than demolishing them

Summary

Introduction

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the primary resources, considered unlimited, have been used to create consumer goods, producing significant amounts of waste and emissions during their life cycle. The awareness of their exhaustibility through the 1973 energy crisis highlighted the necessity to adopt a new circular system of economy, based on sustainable growth and cyclical use (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2015). In 2011, the EU published the “Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe” and the “Circular Economy Action Plan” in 2015, emphasising the importance of limiting the new soil employment and encouraging recycling.

Methods

Results

Conclusion