ABSTRACT
A few years ago, formaurbis LAB’s “BUILDINGS” research project intersected with “iWRECKS” research project carried out by ReLOAD 1 . The transnational programme based in Italy was focused on decommissioned industrial buildings: a huge amount of cubic metres demands for new uses. The reuse of this outmoded asset is always more frequently the only possible path to devise future scenarios in our territories, and cause the consumption of soil meant to build new volumes no longer sustainable. The obsolescence of productive built stock, made by large sheds, vast areas, and even whole districts, is of course a more complex phenomenon to manage, if compared to the programmatic decay of technological devices. While facing the big economic crises of the beginning of the millennium, public administrators, urban planners and architects have been trying to regenerate urban districts and industrial wrecks, following a sort of benchmarking approach, especially based on figures and parameters. For these reasons, intervening on the acknowledgement of the abandoned or decommissioned building, both in terms of highlighting a sort of heritage component and their reusing potentials, can mean a reduction in the number of buildings to be demolished and therefore in the production of waste.
