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Ancient Palermo identifies itself with its Historic Center whose complexity is the result of the encounter of successive cultures over the centuries and which gave the city its current facies. These sites are now a complex and articulated microcosm where the cultural models of the new inhabitants relate to the pre-existing, creating new forms and expressions of the anthropic intervention. The analysis is aimed at new urban scenarios, at footprints, at signs and at mutations created by a settlement process that involves new residents and their resources, in a field that has all the potential to return to Palermo its role as an international capital, with a view to integrating, welcoming, renewal and enhancing the enormous multicultural wealth accumulated in centuries of history., La Palermo Antica si identifica con il Centro Storico, la cui complessità è il frutto dell’incontro di culture succedutesi nei secoli e che ha dato alla città la sua attuale facies. Questi luoghi sono oggi un microcosmo complesso dove i modelli culturali dei nuovi abitanti si relazionano al preesistente generando nuove espressioni dell’intervento antropico. L’analisi è volta ai nuovi scenari urbani, alle impronte, ai segni e ai mutamenti generati da un processo insediativo che vede coinvolti i nuovi residenti e le loro risorse, in un ambito che ha tutte le potenzialità per restituire Palermo al suo ruolo di capitale nell’ottica dell’integrazione, dell’accoglienza, della riqualificazione e valorizzazione dell’enorme ricchezza accumulata nei secoli.

Ancient Palermo identifies itself with its Historic Center whose complexity is the result of the encounter of successive cultures over the centuries and which gave the city its current facies. These sites are now a complex and articulated microcosm where the cultural models of the new inhabitants relate to the pre-existing, creating new forms and expressions of the anthropic intervention. The analysis is aimed at new urban scenarios, at footprints, at signs and at mutations created by a settlement process that involves new residents and their resources, in a field that has all the potential to return to Palermo its role as an international capital, with a view to integrating, welcoming, renewal and enhancing the enormous multicultural wealth accumulated in centuries of history., La Palermo Antica si identifica con il Centro Storico, la cui complessità è il frutto dell’incontro di culture succedutesi nei secoli e che ha dato alla città la sua attuale facies. Questi luoghi sono oggi un microcosmo complesso dove i modelli culturali dei nuovi abitanti si relazionano al preesistente generando nuove espressioni dell’intervento antropico. L’analisi è volta ai nuovi scenari urbani, alle impronte, ai segni e ai mutamenti generati da un processo insediativo che vede coinvolti i nuovi residenti e le loro risorse, in un ambito che ha tutte le potenzialità per restituire Palermo al suo ruolo di capitale nell’ottica dell’integrazione, dell’accoglienza, della riqualificazione e valorizzazione dell’enorme ricchezza accumulata nei secoli.

We have been granted a new season that is much too long and devastating during which an indigestible amount has been built in a very brief period. Eventually, we will have to address this with actions of either reclamation or redevelopment and architecture will have to know how to propose itself as a guiding discipline that will reform the Italian landscape, especially the urban one. It will be necessary to conceive a critical point of view with respect to the usual logic used in redevelopment building that tends to overlook collective interests. Architecture is a collective art, in its contributions and results. Design on the other hand, is a personal art, which has become closely connected to architecture in recent years, a privileged vehicle that has allowed the designer and the products of design reach commercial gains.

Long living space for many animal and plant species, the river system and its tributaries represent a principal wealth, always valid for human settlements in the Yonne valley, France. In my case study the major questions raised as starting points are: 1. How the infrastructure is related to the landscape of Yonne. 2. Which could be the possibilities and potentialities to treat this local resource. 3. How local authorities could start a project of exploitation and valorization of the water region. 4. Which interventions could enforce the dynamics of the region. 5. How to articulate cities in discontinuity around the Yonne river, taking into account the flood threat, but in a sustainable way. 6. And last but not least, how can we face the problem of rupture between the banks of the river and the urban space, regaining the docks.

The paper Mega-events: a privileged observatory on the reconfiguration of spaces, landscapes and identities in the contemporary city. The case of Zaragoza 2008 proposes an analysis of urban restoration processes in contemporary European cities, through the case study of Zaragoza. Zaragoza represents a useful case study in order to point out how contemporary cities face the economic and social transition, from the traditional industrial model to the contemporary response to global urban challenges. The case of Zaragoza synthesizes the main strategies adopted by local administrations in reshaping cities, adopting urban renewal programs and policies. The transformation of Zaragoza started at the end of the eighties with the approval of the new Masterplan (Plan General de Ordenación Urbana). After that, in 1998, a commission composed by local administrators and stakeholders, adopted a Strategic plan, which promoted the regeneration and the local development of the city until 2015. In 2004 Zaragoza obtained the nomination as host city for the International Expo of 2008. The challenge of the Expo gave a new impulse to all the programmed projects, spread in all the neighborhoods, which converged towards the scheduled event of 2008. The core of the research presented in this paper concerns the analysis of the policies, the strategies and practices promoted by the city of Zaragoza for the Expo 2008 and their consequences in reshaping and reorganizing the city after the conclusion of the event.

The Istituto d’Istruzione Superiore (High School) “Antonio Zanelli” from Reggio Emilia, Italy, has carried out research activities on an artificial water body called “Fossetta Dei Morti”, within the agreement signed with the “Consorzio di Bonifica dell’Emilia Centrale”. Such water body, located in the municipality of Carpi (Modena), had previously been the target of hydraulic-environmental requalification actions, carried out by the Consorzio di Bonifica itself within the European Project LIFE ECOnet, aiming at securing the banks and at the creation of a riparian vegetation strip. The High School has undertaken the following actions: characterizing/monitoring the waters from a chemical, chemical-physical and microbiological points of view; characterizing/monitoring the sediment from a chemical and physical-chemical point of view; establishing the biological quality through the analysis of the macrozoobenthos community (application of the IBE method); and establishing the hydro-ecological functionality (application of the IFF method). The goal of this project was to identify and to quantify the changes introduced by the Consorzio di Bonifica requalification actions., L’Istituto d’Istruzione Superiore “Antonio Zanelli” di Reggio Emilia, nell’ambito della convenzione firmata con il Consorzio di Bonifica dell’Emilia Centrale, ha svolto una campagna d’indagini su di un corpo idrico artificiale denominato Fossetta dei Morti. Detto corpo idrico, ubicato nel Comune di Carpi (MO), è stato in precedenza oggetto di un intervento di riqualificazione idraulico-ambientale, svolto dallo stesso Consorzio di Bonifica nell’ambito di un Progetto europeo LIFE ECOnet, finalizzato al consolidamento delle sponde e alla creazione di una fascia vegetale riparia. L’attività dell’Istituto si è svolta tramite quattro tipologie di azioni: la caratterizzazione/monitoraggio delle acque dal punto di vista chimico, chimico-fisico e microbiologico, la caratterizzazione/monitoraggio del sedimento dal punto di vista chimico e chimico-fisico, la determinazione della qualità biologica mediante lo studio della comunità macrozoobentonica (applicazione della metodica IBE) e la determinazione della funzionalità idroecologica (applicazione della metodica IFF), finalizzate a identificare e quantificare parte dei cambiamenti indotti dall’intervento di riqualificazione.

The paper Mega-events: a privileged observatory on the reconfiguration of spaces, landscapes and identities in the contemporary city. The case of Zaragoza 2008 proposes an analysis of urban restoration processes in contemporary European cities, through the case study of Zaragoza. Zaragoza represents a useful case study in order to point out how contemporary cities face the economic and social transition, from the traditional industrial model to the contemporary response to global urban challenges. The case of Zaragoza synthesizes the main strategies adopted by local administrations in reshaping cities, adopting urban renewal programs and policies. The transformation of Zaragoza started at the end of the eighties with the approval of the new Masterplan (Plan General de Ordenación Urbana). After that, in 1998, a commission composed by local administrators and stakeholders, adopted a Strategic plan, which promoted the regeneration and the local development of the city until 2015. In 2004 Zaragoza obtained the nomination as host city for the International Expo of 2008. The challenge of the Expo gave a new impulse to all the programmed projects, spread in all the neighborhoods, which converged towards the scheduled event of 2008. The core of the research presented in this paper concerns the analysis of the policies, the strategies and practices promoted by the city of Zaragoza for the Expo 2008 and their consequences in reshaping and reorganizing the city after the conclusion of the event.

The National Interest Site for remediation of Balangero and Corio produced chrysotile from the 1918 and in the 1970s became the largest European asbestos mine, causing a considerable contamination of the area.The mine was closed in the 1990 because the D.L. 257/92 banned the extraction, import, export, marketing and production of asbestos.The objective of the competition was not only to reclaim a contaminated area, but also to enhance culture and landscape, to preserve the historical memory and to promote initiatives involving the local population to restore the economic and social strength of the region.The project proposes the conversion of the industrial buildings into spaces for documenting the mine history, places for production and promotion of arts and a range of accommodation aimed at developing different forms of tourism.

With reference to a specific case study, this paper is an attempt to respond to questions concerning progress toward better understanding of the role of urban unit’s mosaic and fringe belt recognition in urban planning and building retrofitting/design. In particular, the paper describes a reading procedure consisting of data requirements to be used as an “interpretative analysis” of the dismissed military area Sani-Casaralta, in the north sector of the city of Bologna.By means of specific comparison between local characters and historic evolution, the paper suggests a design procedure based on the use of new technologies as possible interaction between “intentionality” in urban planning and possible evolution of historical urban forms.

The construction of large size residential public housing estates that took place between the Fifties and the Seventies has been replaced in the Nineties in the vast majority of the Italian cities by the physical and social rehabilitation of the former built housing estates, often characterised by degradation and negative stigmatisation. The three cases that are presented in the article describe different forms of public or public-private interventions for the integrated rehabilitation of peripheral neighbourhoods: while two of them (PRU via Artom and CdQ Sant'Eusebio) use in an innovative way some new implementation tools introduced in the Nineties - the so called "complex programmes" -, the third case (Villaggio Barona) proposes, through a small scale intervention promoted mainly by private actors, the rehabilitation of a wide and critical urban sector where the new neighbourhood becomes a new spatial and social core. Through the cases it is possible to understand not only the context of the different urban sectors, but also the interventions that have been promoted in order to foster the participation of the inhabitants, to support them and to manage and overcome the conflicts that often compromise the effectiveness of such programmes., Dagli anni '90 la realizzazione dei quartieri residenziali pubblici, avvenuta tra gli anni '50 e '70, ha ceduto il passo in buona parte delle città italiane ad interventi di riqualificazione, non solo fisica ma anche sociale, dei grandi complessi realizzati nei decenni precedenti, spesso percorsi da processi di degrado che ne hanno stigmatizzato negativamente l'immagine. I tre casi presentati nell'articolo descrivono diverse ed esemplari modalità di intervento pubblico o in partnership pubblico-privato, per la riqualificazione integrata di quartieri periferici: mentre due di essi (PRU via Artom e CdQ Sant'Eusebio) utilizzano in modo nuovo alcuni strumenti attuativi innovativi nelle modalità di finanziamento pubblico e nell'iter procedurale introdotti negli anni '90 -i cosiddetti "programmi complessi"-, il terzo caso (Villaggio Barona) propone, attraverso un intervento di dimensioni quantitativamente limitate e di iniziativa sostanzialmente privata, la riqualificazione di un ampio settore urbano in crisi di cui il "quartiere" diviene il nuovo centro spaziale e sociale. Dei casi si ricostruisce, oltre la contestualizzazione negli ambiti urbani di riferimento, l'insieme delle azioni di accompagnamento o di partecipazione che hanno teso a superare le situazioni di conflittualità che spesso compromettono l'efficacia di questi programmi, Desde los años 90 en muchas ciudades italianas hemos pasado de la creación de polígonos residenciales públicos, habitual en los años 50 y 70, a intervenciones de rehabilitación física y social sobre los mismos. Estos grandes conjuntos, realizados en las décadas mencionadas, sufren a menudo procesos de degradación que influyen negativamente sobre su imagen. Los tres casos analizados en el artículo describen distintas modalidades de intervención pública o de colaboración público-privada en las acciones de rehabilitación integrada de barrios periféricos. Mientras dos de ellos (PRU via Artom y CdQ Sant'Eusebio) han sido realizados gracias a instrumentos de gestión, introducidos en los años 90, e innovadores por las modalidades de financiación pública y de intervención -llamados "programas complejos"; en el tercer caso (Villaggio Barona) se rehabilita un amplio sector urbano en crisis, a través de una acción de menor dimensión y desarrollada por iniciativa privada, donde el "barrio" se propone como nuevo centro espacial y social. De los casos se desprende, además del contexto urbano de referencia, el conjunto de acciones de desarrollo o de participación que ayudaron a superar las situaciones de conflicto y que a menudo ponen en peligro la eficacia de estas acciones.

The construction of large size residential public housing estates that took place between the Fifties and the Seventies has been replaced in the Nineties in the vast majority of the Italian cities by the physical and social rehabilitation of the former built housing estates, often characterised by degradation and negative stigmatisation. The three cases that are presented in the article describe different forms of public or public-private interventions for the integrated rehabilitation of peripheral neighbourhoods: while two of them (PRU via Artom and CdQ Sant'Eusebio) use in an innovative way some new implementation tools introduced in the Nineties - the so called "complex programmes" -, the third case (Villaggio Barona) proposes, through a small scale intervention promoted mainly by private actors, the rehabilitation of a wide and critical urban sector where the new neighbourhood becomes a new spatial and social core. Through the cases it is possible to understand not only the context of the different urban sectors, but also the interventions that have been promoted in order to foster the participation of the inhabitants, to support them and to manage and overcome the conflicts that often compromise the effectiveness of such programmes., Dagli anni '90 la realizzazione dei quartieri residenziali pubblici, avvenuta tra gli anni '50 e '70, ha ceduto il passo in buona parte delle città italiane ad interventi di riqualificazione, non solo fisica ma anche sociale, dei grandi complessi realizzati nei decenni precedenti, spesso percorsi da processi di degrado che ne hanno stigmatizzato negativamente l'immagine. I tre casi presentati nell'articolo descrivono diverse ed esemplari modalità di intervento pubblico o in partnership pubblico-privato, per la riqualificazione integrata di quartieri periferici: mentre due di essi (PRU via Artom e CdQ Sant'Eusebio) utilizzano in modo nuovo alcuni strumenti attuativi innovativi nelle modalità di finanziamento pubblico e nell'iter procedurale introdotti negli anni '90 -i cosiddetti "programmi complessi"-, il terzo caso (Villaggio Barona) propone, attraverso un intervento di dimensioni quantitativamente limitate e di iniziativa sostanzialmente privata, la riqualificazione di un ampio settore urbano in crisi di cui il "quartiere" diviene il nuovo centro spaziale e sociale. Dei casi si ricostruisce, oltre la contestualizzazione negli ambiti urbani di riferimento, l'insieme delle azioni di accompagnamento o di partecipazione che hanno teso a superare le situazioni di conflittualità che spesso compromettono l'efficacia di questi programmi, Desde los años 90 en muchas ciudades italianas hemos pasado de la creación de polígonos residenciales públicos, habitual en los años 50 y 70, a intervenciones de rehabilitación física y social sobre los mismos. Estos grandes conjuntos, realizados en las décadas mencionadas, sufren a menudo procesos de degradación que influyen negativamente sobre su imagen. Los tres casos analizados en el artículo describen distintas modalidades de intervención pública o de colaboración público-privada en las acciones de rehabilitación integrada de barrios periféricos. Mientras dos de ellos (PRU via Artom y CdQ Sant'Eusebio) han sido realizados gracias a instrumentos de gestión, introducidos en los años 90, e innovadores por las modalidades de financiación pública y de intervención -llamados "programas complejos"; en el tercer caso (Villaggio Barona) se rehabilita un amplio sector urbano en crisis, a través de una acción de menor dimensión y desarrollada por iniciativa privada, donde el "barrio" se propone como nuevo centro espacial y social. De los casos se desprende, además del contexto urbano de referencia, el conjunto de acciones de desarrollo o de participación que ayudaron a superar las situaciones de conflicto y que a menudo ponen en peligro la eficacia de estas acciones.