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This study was developed at the Department of Architecture of Pescara and Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction Engineering of the University of Pisa as part of an experimental thesis that led to the implementation of a Decision Support System. The objective of the work was to implement a tool capable of evaluating - in relation to the choices concerning the morphology of the building, the construction technologies, the materials and the design of the architectural elements - the levels of maintenance quality implemented in the various phases of the project, from the first phases, in which few relevant decisions are made, to the executive phase characterized by a multiplicity of choices. The aim was to construct a tool in which the reliability of the evaluations was related to the quantity and quality of the data that feeds the decision-making process, but which is also able to evaluate preliminary decisions based on the elements of choice that characterize the first phases of the project. The conceptual model has been defined through the construction and implementation of a Bayesian Network or a graphical system of probabilistic inference able to represent the set of stochastic variables and their conditional dependencies through the use of a direct acyclic graph. Through the interrogation of the network it is therefore possible to evaluate through the expression of a synthetic index, a real overall rating of the different aspects that contribute to define the maintenance quality. The use of Bayesian Networks, in the light of the analyses carried out on an experimental basis - exemplified here on the case study of ING Groupe headquarters - for the ability to control a multitude of factors linked to the durability of materials, the morphology of systems and ease of intervention, seems capable of generating useful, effective and expandable tools to support the design decision-making process.

This experimental study on the renewal of post-World War II suburban areas addresses the theme of the technological retrofitting of buildings, focusing on typological features, construction techniques and, more in general, of all aspects that fail to meet the needs of contemporary living. An initial examination of Italian and international case studies helped to identify possible guidelines for the optimization of urban renewal activities. The guidelines were tested by applying them to a case study: a 1950s-era neighborhood in the city of Pisa. The study undertaken highlights the need to consistently integrate all of the activities that affect the building structures-consolidations and static adjustments, improvement of energy efficiency, functional and spatial adaptation-and that work towards strengthening social integration by taking into account the specific needs of the individual. The work is implemented on individual buildings and urban areas, with the aim of improving the local identity characteristics. The suggested approach is that of a circular economy, which helps to reduce the impact on the environment, mainly through the extensive use of recycled materials. The proposed experiment thus aims to test the resilience of buildings following their seismic, energy and functional updating, including sociological and environmental psychology assessments, with particular attention to vulnerable users, in order to find solutions capable of promoting social inclusion.

The increase in the intensity and frequency of natural disasters in recent years require new methods and tools to deal with this change. New approaches must be developed to ensure the safety of cities and settled communities from these events. Implementing the resilience of a territory requires an integrated approach to act simultaneously on physical, economic and social reality. The described research had investigated on possible tools to really improve physical and social dimension. Resilience is assumed as a paradigm within the project for the construction/transformation of the built environment. Is highlighted the fundamental role of the social component in determining priorities and security issues for each specific context. Physical and social environment are characterized, therefore, as an inseparable dyad for any action aimed at strengthening the resilience and safety of the environment built. In the implementation process of the resilience of an urban system, two closely interrelated areas are identified: for one, the community capability of implementing organizational-procedural adaptability; contrary, the physical space and the natural dimension, as a place of construction of the technological-spatial convertibility, and the ecological and environmental responsiveness. Among the several conditions to ensure adequate levels of connection and correlation with ecological factors, topological, social and technological developments of the built environment, in this paper are described those related to risk communication as fundamental first tool.

The need for a living environment that responds to the needs of users with their different abilities, outside of standardizations, is increasingly felt as autonomy, independence and wellbeing are the result of real usability and adaptability of the spaces. The project to improve the inclusivity of living space need to be characterized as an interdisciplinary process in which the integration of specialized contributions leads to adaptive customization of space solutions and technological that evolve with the changing needs, functional capacities and abilities of individuals.

Safety in façade systems realized with stone materials is linked to a multitude of factors, as regards the stone materials, such as: mechanical resistance values, behavior in specific environmental conditions, inner stress related to applied static and dynamic loads; as concerns the implementation process, in order to achieve safety the following specific aspects emerge: the production processes carried out to realize the elements, the quality in projecting anchorage systems and the modes of material placing. In order to define and maintain over time the desired safety levels, it is important activate a process aiming at controlling the above mentioned factors by carefully determining morphologies and dimensional characteristics, techniques of production and realization of coating and anchorage components so that slab shedding is avoided. In the text, the phases and the critical elements of such process are detected in order to define a safe-life or fail-safe façade system.

The attention paid to the themes of curing and maintaining represents one of the most significant acquisitions in post-industrial contemporary culture, which is more and more oriented towards sustainability objectives. The urban maintenance theme can be considered as a real strategy for built environment sustainability; indeed, it is the primary tool for gaining knowledge about and governing the complex and heterogeneous contemporary reality, through which we can achieve system reliability, as well as sustainability regulating the life dimension. This contribution becomes an opportunity for reflecting within the technological culture of a maintenance project whose disciplinary discussion is today based on the application modes of such a discipline at both a building and an urban scale. Indeed, the methods and instruments for programming and maintaining the urban organism – intended as a complex unit system – cannot be those ones used for sub-systems and urban components; they have to be strategic instruments that are able to help managers and citizens to “decide how to decide”. It is necessary to reach an integrated approach that, overcoming the logic of a technical management intended as a mere addition of parts, reaches systemic operating modes.

Public administrations have to guarantee and improve the utilities performance, while minimizing the financial and environmental costs, by means of methods and tools which optimize the process itself in order to carry out constant improvements within the level of the services delivered as well as of the infrastructure sustainability.In such a context, the development of non-destructive technologies for mapping, diagnosis and rehabilitation of underground infrastructures assumes a relevant role since the need to operate interventions on existing infrastructures – minimizing at the same times the impact on urban functions and environment – find in these ones a satisfactory answer. In the present contribution, we will describe the main non-destructive diagnosis technologies in order to map a network as well as to develop its diagnostic process.

The Bruntland Report has for the first time formulated the concept of “sustainable development”, defining it as “development able to meet current needs without compromising future generations’ ability to meet their own needs”; such definition has emphasised not only the need to limit natural resources consumption and pollution emissions, but has also introduced the concept of (ethical) “responsibility” of man’s action, both towards the natural environment and towards the anthropized one. Applying the sustainability objectives to the building process (project, construction, maintenance, management, decommissioning) – with the intention of reducing raw materials demand and wastes – forces one to reflect even on the maintenance process role. Maintenance can indeed be intended as a tool to build up a co-evolution project between man and nature, to be achieved by considering and managing maintenance-oriented buildings. Carrying out the maintainability requirement during the project phase becomes crucial since it guarantees, during the managing phase, that the maintenance intervention is carried out without any unforeseen or unpredictable collateral events characterized by a waste of financial and environmental resources. A number of researches and experimentations have been developed at the Department of Technologies for Built Environment in order to encourage the carrying out of the maintainability requirement during the project phase.

The planning and management of infrastructure assets (both if carried out according to the city development and if planned for important culture and sport events) - being them crucial to guarantee use and management modalities capable of avoiding those territorial, financial and environmental wastes which characterized the past – has to be optimized according to functional, management and maintenance needs. The definition of maintenance-oriented planning modalities as well as of methods and tools for infrastructure management and control enables to carry out a development within technologies and processes which better answer to instances of quality and sustainability as well as to a more careful attention towards the time dimension.