Discordant goals in alpine rural heritage restoration: discussion and proposals

Alpine wooden vernacular heritage recovery has been an issue for many years in the scientific and professional debate, being at the centre of several European projects and recent experiences. Different topics have enriched this debate over time, as for example typological approach, conservation of historical values, effectiveness of regulatory instruments, preservation of landscape values, energy efficiency. Nevertheless, this rich debate has not yet produced overall good quality restoration practices. In our opinion one of the reasons why is that the different coexisting goals of the restoration can come into conflict: low construction costs often clashes with high energy efficiency, structural safety often collides with conservation of historical structures and surfaces, etc. These discordances need to be taken into account to improve restoration quality. In recent years low energy consumption and high energy efficiency in particular have been at the centre of building recovery in Italy, where we sometimes assist to a “muscular” application of “sustainability” principles, followed in a rather uncritical way even when applied to the historical and vernacular wooden heritage. Yet this approach tends to disregard sustainability several facets: ecological, economic and cultural. Starting from a ten-year research and professional experience, we propose a discussion, displaying some recent vernacular building restoration experiences in Italian Eastern Alps. We analyse them through a specific evaluation grid of our own design, in order to highlight and eventually manage the trade-off among the different restoration goals. Some suggestions for planning regulations and heritage conservation policies will be drawn from this cross-reading.