Abitare il capannone. Strumenti di supporto nella rifunzionalizzazione residenziale degli edifici industriali

The productive disuse phenomenon, whether due to the already stabilized economic crisis, to productive outsourcing or building obsolescence, caused an increasing number of abandoned or underutilized industrial buildings. They appear rather different in typology, morphology, technology, materials, building system, but are linked together by their flexibility and the large amount of volume accessible in a hypothetical reconversion. These buildings’ reuse operation represents a possibility of value intervention under several aspects. In various occasions it was the trigger of urban reactivation mechanisms and, extending the lifetime of the existing resources, it adhered to the European norms that encourage the “Zero soil consumption” and the reduction of buildings energy usage. Furthermore an industrial building’s sustainable refurbishment could be an opportunity to respond to specific and even more pressing needs of work, cultural or residential sharing. To identify the most appropriate intervention strategy we need an accurate classification of the existing buildings in a multidisciplinary vision given by the contribution of the different factors involved in the process and shared tools in support of strategic choices. The paper will present a phase of an ongoing research that goes in that direction, focusing on the residential refunctionalization boundary and its specific requirements. The existing buildings’ classification is made with a double approach: from above (by means of norms, handbooks, guidelines, catalogs) and from below (unstructured interview to planners, construction companies, designers, economists, photographers, authorities, writers). It was then verified following some example areas situated between Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia and supported by an analysis of the strategies adopted by some case studies for the industrial structures’ residential reuse. The aim is to systematize information and tools with the intent of highlighting opportunities, shortcomings, possible new inquiry areas for a real and contextual assessment of the intervention’s suitability on this type of buildings.