Combined and adaptive regeneration as approach for a less fragile habitat

The paper deals with the theme of how buildings survive over time, suggesting that a useful way to understand it – and therefore to design buildings – is to investigate what makes them fragile or antifragile. A growing amount of international research affirms that an antifragile system is one that benefits from perturbations in the outer environment, or the uncertainty of the context. Thus an “antifragile design” in architecture depends on its adaptability or ability to cope with the unpredictability and the changes. The paper analyzes the relationship between antifragility - adaptability - uncertainty in the design process, and identifies some design strategies of “combined and adaptive regeneration” (on a structural, typo-morphological, functional, performance and social level) that weigh uncertainty in its fundamental design moment of the building, that is service life. Starting from the several studies that have addressed similar issues over the years (Kronemburg, Habraken, Fitch, Alexander et al.) the paper suggests strategies that operate: 1) at the level of the building by adopting envelopes that adapt to existing buildings. The proposed envelopes are adaptive at different levels (structures, energy efficiency and function); 2) at the level of the dwelling through recognizable and customizable solutions; 3) at the level of the city through connections and reciprocal opportunities involving all actors. These strategies and levels of intervention proposed, may be considered as paradigmatic solutions not only because of their adaptability to blighted buildings bat because they can be easily modified over time. Design in the contemporary world, on various scales and in its multitude of declinations, takes shape as a “open” system that helps the building or the city respond to social, economic and functional challenges, to the uncertainty of the contexts.