Tailored Solutions for the Sustainable Transition of the Built Environment: The Specific Context as Information Source

The contribution illustrates and analyses the results of research aimed at identifying innovative technologies and operating methodologies which could steer the Italian North-East built environment and construction sector towards an increase in sustainability. In particular, the identified solutions can be implemented on the urban or architectural scale, and their effectiveness is determined based on two main features. On the one hand, the benefits they prove within three domains—energy transition, environmental challenges, climate change, and plus digitalisation as cross-cutting enabler—are considered, paying attention to their feasible technical applications, or actions, that support policy objectives linked to the domains. On the other hand, their potential extensive application is examined depending on the actual capacity in addressing four targets—outdoor space, indoor space, building structure, and building envelope. The chapter describes the methodology adopted in its three-step structure, which allowed (i) to precisely define the investigation scope, (ii) to devise an original conceptual framework complying with the research objectives, and (iii) to evaluate the technologies and methodologies depending on their effectiveness by applying the conceptual framework to context area and interpreting the results through a visualisation tool. It then illustrates the outputs achieved, describing the solutions ranking, identifying the ones that are digital per se or are implemented through digital processes, and displaying two diagrams that summarise the connections of the detected technologies and methodologies with the domains, by highlighting the actions technically implemented and the policy objectives supported. The results are then discussed in light of the need to address the urban areas’ carbon neutrality, considering the features and fragilities of the Mediterranean territorial, historical, and cultural context. Two main topics are debated, the significance of a multidisciplinary research group in identifying a comprehensive toolbox of solutions strictly linked to the specific geographical context, and the innovative character of the solutions themselves. A common feature they share is observed and analysed, as they all rely on the understanding of the state of places and artefacts in their environmental context, a knowledge achievable through the exam of these objects, at all scales. This knowledge mining process and its contribution to fostering innovative approaches for known procedures, rather than in using technical innovation in and of itself, are then identified in several technologies and methodologies. The conclusion reflects on the importance of this information-based approach when dealing with complex territories as the Mediterranean ones, allowing the solutions supporting carbon-neutral cities to be context-wise, a tailored outcome going beyond the sole definition of technical tools and parameters.