Maria Carmela Frate – Conferenza Tel Aviv
ABOUT “SUSTAINABILITY” – The environmental system has a reticular geometry. Inside it, the system seeks its balance. When an environmental stress occurs, a poorly resilient eco-system comes across fragile; instead, an adaptable eco-system remodels itself. Since eco-system is not resilient, we have to use sustainable strategies to enhance the state. Over all, we have to disambiguate the word “sustainability”, even used as buzzword.
In 1987 the Brundtland report associated the word “sustainability” with the term “development”, but they clash each other because the development has perceived with an anthropocentric meaning. According to the eco-centric vision, sustainability is the quality of no causing damages to the environment: the right term is “degrowth[1]“.
Therefore, we have to use the term eco-sustainability; prefix eco, from greek Oikos/home, represents our environment. Eco is also a part of terms eco-logy and eco-system. Inside systemic organization, human being produces architecture for his living, and he must relate himself to the other subjects, part of this “system”.
First definition of sustainable architecture dates back to 2004; according to this definition, architecture is sustainable if is able to recompose the discrepancies, also through technological innovations, minimizing the impact on the environment, therefore it is eco-sustainable.
ABOUT “RE-USE AND RECYCLE” BUILDINGS – In 2004, the European Conference of Sustainable Cities signed the Åalborg Charter. In this agreement, the commitment n.5 concerns recovery, restoration, reuse and regeneration of buildings and towns/cities, focusing on existing buildings.
Then, in 2012, at the Venice Biennale, the motto by Muck Petzet, curator of the German pavilion, was “Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. Architecture as Resource”. According to Petzet, we must renew our approach and have as goal to use pre-existing buildings, also with new and compatible functions, because every existing building has already had an impact on the environment.
These actions must recognize their value (permanence), both in material and immaterial terms (physical/architectural and relational/social). They include conservation and restoration of historical architectural heritage, next to recovery and redevelopment actions that concern a large amount of buildings built in the last fifty-seventy years. There aren’t problems in re-using cultural heritage. The real problem is re-using and restoring modern constructions.
The building replacement, restoration and redevelopment or overwriting are feasible, since these interventions contribute to the enhancement of settlements. The way is to rethink uses, functions, and values of buildings and their neighbourhoods.
PUBLIC SPACE AROUND REUSED BUILDINGS – In urban landscapes, open spaces suffer from deterioration caused by attempting to satisfy our society or developers. This crisis causes a progressive retraction of urban open spaces, damaging the identity of places.
As paradox, there are public urban places where people are not welcome and private spaces that are more public than public one. So, we have to take into account these differences: a little piazza, a court yard, the space under a tree create the possibility for social life; they are public spaces that can contribute to increase social interactions. As consequence, their quality is commonly perceived as quality of urban life (social sustainability).
So, every historic building has a cultural value that comes from his urban surrounding too: note the Venice Charter (1964), Article n.6: “The conservation of a monument implies preserving a setting which is not out of scale. Wherever the traditional setting exists, it must be kept. No new construction, demolition or modification which would alter the relations (of mass and colour) must be allowed” and the declaration of Amsterdam (1975): “The architectural heritage includes not only individual buildings of exceptional quality but also their surroundings”.
So, in addition to conserving the heritage buildings, urban space conservation must be planned as socio-cultural asset for a urban regeneration. The sustainable sequence must be life-space-buildings not vice-versa; life must have the priority.
EXISTING VS EX-NOVO – Each existing building has three fundamental aspects to evaluate and graduate. They are: environmental value, economic value, morphological and functional value.
The reuse of existing buildings introduces the hard concept of quality and criteria for evaluating and classifying them. Briefly, “building quality” concerns the compliance with the required performances. The “architectural quality” concerns cultural, functional and formal value.
About recent constructions, we have to discern those with an economic value (“Ordinary buildings”) and other who have a heritage value (“Modern heritage buildings”). The first have not a great testimonial value but a particular activity (for example a bird hunting roccolo and a ceramic factory); the last is a cultural sign of twentieth century (cfr Do.Co.Mo.Mo.).
So, about existing buildings, we have different levels of activity. Requalify can mean: rehabilitate, redevelop, refurbish, renovate; adding “retrofit” that means mainly to introduce new technological systems that buildings hadn’t.
ECO-SUSTAINABLE METHOD AND APPROACH – Working on existing buildings requires a theoretical approach based on a deep knowledge. On one side, the conservation and restoration of the Modern requires an approach aimed at recognizing and conserving the original architectural structure and language. On the other side, the operation of redevelopment is characterized by the trend towards the transformation of the architectural configuration. This approach shall provide new values to the existing buildings, based on their “availability for transformation”.
In Europe the greatest impact on the environment is produced by those built in the twentieth century, especially after the Second World War according some necessity: need to rebuild bombing houses, speed of execution, availability of fossil resources, new technologies (reinforced concrete or prefabrication). All this caused a low executive quality and a consequent decay, deterioration, degrade and disuse, with almost three type of lack:
- Environmental un-sustainability;
- Functional and technological obsolescence;
- Physical deterioration;
- External obsolescence.
As architects, we have to reduce or remove these lacks by reducing the use of exhaustible resources and using renewable resources, materials and buildings. According to the ecological city strategy, we must offer another chance, by using architecture design! I would like to point out the “robust design”: to design following criteria of flexibility, adaptability, integrability and durability.
RE-DESIGN THE EXISTING FOR ANTHOTER LIFE – Restoration approach requires specific knowledge and ability and has to be different because requalify means to give qualities never had or return qualities by now lost. In particular, about Modern Movement architectures, their techniques were experimental and their decade is caused by experimentation.
Speaking about “Ordinary buildings”, they are open to change, especially their morphology as surface re-styling or deep re-design. According to a Dutch approach, we can graduate: light renovation (new envelope), deep or high level renovation (infilling empty space too), extreme make-over or stripping (a new look).
Paolo Portoghesi named the results of this change of morphology with term “metamorphosis” (from caterpillar to butterfly). To achieve this metamorphosis, it is possible to use more actions: re-place, for obsolete single element of facades; wrap it, like a second skin; add in or add on, adding new volumes, also as climatic greenhouses; cover it, for open spaces between buildings; decrease of volumes and height, to reduce impact of buildings.
At last we can another possibility, to build as Parasite architectures (a very interesting metamorphosis).
RESTORE MODERN BUILDINGS AS HISTORICAL TRACES – Two small examples: a birds hunting roccolo (a very small hunting house); a ceramic factory. Both the buildings are in Italy, Umbria; both disused and in ruin and with obsolete functions but with a cultural value. So, according to our point of view, we had to remodel them.
The roccolo was built around 1950 on a Trasimeno lake island. Its previous function was as birds hunting house e for hunters, with a garden of trees and bushes in the shape of an ellipse. In this garden birds were caught by nets, a cruel method. Now this is a forbidden hunting method, as consequence its function is not current but this place is a strong cultural sign. In the photos you can see the roccolo, inside and outside, and the garden, in which every colour is a specific tree or bush. According to the goal “reuse-recycle buildings”, the roccolo is converted in a didactic laboratory for watching migrant birds. The small house is being restored and will have anti-seismic performances, then, also the garden and the vegetation will be restored.
Also the pottery factory “Rubboli” was no longer current, because it is in the historic centre of Gualdo Tadino. Anyway it is a strong cultural sign for the town and the history of ceramics. On the photos, you can see the factory, the plaster molds and the ovens (their name is “muffola”) – even usable – for the third fire named “luster” and Maurizio Rubboli at work, engaged in the operation. So, according to the goal “reuse_recycle buildings”, it was converted in a pottery museum in which it is possible to know the ancient factory and its ancient “luster” technique (gold and ruby) a very specific ceramic technique. This small museum is active and has preserved all its architecture qualities.
Concluding: on one side, the interventions are eco-sustainable, first of all as reusing buildings and all those resources used to build them; moreover, as reuse and recycle materials and technics; on the other side (on a historical, cultural and social level) these are two examples of re-functionalization in which their qualities and their peculiarity are perceived, by using appropriate techniques of conservation and rehabilitation, according to the fundamental Restoration criteria: De-restoration, Minimal intervention, Compatibility, Reversibility, Distinguishability.
[1] by Serge Latouche, 2007
