Adaptation and Enhancement of Small Historic Centres: A Multidimensional Mapping Model

According to the New European Bauhaus, sustainability, aesthetics and inclusion should guide the renewal of our consumption and production lifestyles, based on a place-based and human-centred approach at different scales: territorial, urban, neighbourhood or small municipality. On the other hand, both the ecological transition and the resource circularity should support the revolution of project processes, methods and tools in a life-cycle perspective. This will take at least 25 years, but immediate action is urgently needed to redefine the boundaries of the future balance between humankind, environment and resources that are at risk. In this scenario, the architectural heritage could become a resource—cultural, social and economic, but also environmental—as a stock of materials and energy embedded in the built environment. The historic centres (HC), a particular part of this heritage, are threatened by increasing depopulation and abandonment phenomenon as a paradigm of the linear approach to the built environment: HC embody values and resources that should be preserved and kept in use with a view to resources circularity. However, possible valorisation and regeneration strategies presuppose interventions that put at risk the values as well as the embedded resources. The paper presents an ongoing methodology for the analysis and representation of small historic centres, based on a multidimensional model mapping that aggregates complex data on state of conservation and use, material consistency, residual performances, material and immaterial values. The intersection of new uses, performance improvement and associated environmental impacts describes the small historic centre’s margins of adaptability and resilience to potential risk of loss and alteration, by providing future design scenarios for regenerating and adapting.