Sewers, water pipes, and streets are elements of our civil infrastructure, the supporting structure of society. Infrastructure is a complex technical system that provides us with a varied range of essential services; a storehouse of resources and wealth that each generation inherits, uses, and passes on to succeeding generations. The asset management has a big influence on infrastructure development and use: undertaken and executed without fully recognizing the complexity, diversity, and social and technological evolution of the system almost inevitably squander economic, environmental, social, and cultural resources. The challenges of managing these assets most effectively are substantial: the inefficiencies are widespread and really easy to see: jammed traffic on roads designed to carry only a fraction of the current demand, newly-resurfaced city streets open to repair aged subsurface pipes, basements flooded in case of insistent heavy rain, etc. In existing asset management systems often information is not efficiently used in decisional process, which results in much waste in time and effort. It is necessary to develop life-cycle management systems of infrastructure to overcome this problem. The system must integrate geographic information, design data, inspection and maintenance data. Emphasis is placed on development of decision-support tools for municipal infrastructure management. The study identifies the challenges for maintenance, repair and renewal planning faced by asset owners and managers. Integration with existing systems such as Computerized Maintenance Management Systems, Geographic Information Systems, is seen as the largest challenge for developing and using decisionsupport tools in the area of asset management.

The "Monitoring City Walls" research project by the University of Pisa approaches planned conservation as a process that pursues an in-depth understanding of historic city walls and their surroundings to define a system of effective risk prevention. This multidisciplinary research adopts monitoring strategies and technologies at the large scale and in relationship to natural and urban conditions. The underlying logic frames the conservation of these historic fortifications within the more general mitigation of risks generated by context. The research aims to develop an innovative approach to monitoring ancient defensive structures in historical towns. The integrated use of advanced technologies allows for the control and, most importantly, advance identification of possible risks. These new technologies, in particular satellite interferometry, make it possible to improve and increase the operational capacity of monitoring processes by facilitating the acquisition and investigation of data relative to the system defined by ancient city walls and their surroundings. These technologies also represent a cost-effective tool for managing the important transition from the observation and study of individual monuments to the monitoring of large monumental complexes or even entire historical centers.

as part of an experimental thesis that led to the implementation of a Decision Support System. The objective of the work was to implement a tool capable of evaluating-in relation to the choices concerning the morphology of the building, the construction technologies, the materials and the design of the architectural elements-the levels of maintenance quality implemented in the various phases of the project, from the first phases, in which few relevant decisions are made, to the executive phase characterized by a multiplicity of choices. The aim was to construct a tool in which the reliability of the evaluations was related to the quantity and quality of the data that feeds the decision-making process, but which is also able to evaluate preliminary decisions based on the elements of choice that characterize the first phases of the project. The conceptual model has been defined through the construction and implementation of a Bayesian Network or a graphical system of probabilistic inference able to represent the set of stochastic variables and their conditional dependencies through the use of a direct acyclic graph. Through the interrogation of the network it is therefore possible to evaluate through the expression of a synthetic index, a real overall rating of the different aspects that contribute to define the maintenance quality. The use of Bayesian Networks, in the light of the analyses carried out on an experimental basis-exemplified here on the case study of ING Groupe headquarters-for the ability to control a multitude of factors linked to the durability of materials, the morphology of systems and ease of intervention, seems capable of generating useful, effective and expandable tools to support the design decision-making process.

This experimental study on the renewal of post-World War II suburban areas addresses the theme of the technological retrofitting of buildings, focusing on typological features, construction techniques and, more in general, of all aspects that fail to meet the needs of contemporary living. An initial examination of Italian and international case studies helped to identify possible guidelines for the optimization of urban renewal activities. The guidelines were tested by applying them to a case study: a 1950s-era neighborhood in the city of Pisa. The study undertaken highlights the need to consistently integrate all of the activities that affect the building structures-consolidations and static adjustments, improvement of energy efficiency, functional and spatial adaptation-and that work towards strengthening social integration by taking into account the specific needs of the individual. The work is implemented on individual buildings and urban areas, with the aim of improving the local identity characteristics. The suggested approach is that of a circular economy, which helps to reduce the impact on the environment, mainly through the extensive use of recycled materials. The proposed experiment thus aims to test the resilience of buildings following their seismic, energy and functional updating, including sociological and environmental psychology assessments, with particular attention to vulnerable users, in order to find solutions capable of promoting social inclusion.

A local administration can develop learning policies aiming at improving the economical and productive capacities and regenerating the urban contexts: the city physical and social requalification can indeed be carried out even by building up a learning community as a crucial development tool. The district labs and networks - socio-technical places aiming at properly requalifying/maintaining/using cities - can build, in such a scenery, a strong means of physical requalification and evolution of the social capital in degraded environments, by building a path guiding towards the implementation of "learning cities" as a new way of thinking modalities, times and places of learning