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Regeneration of existing buildings and abandoned areas is a governmental and European key objective. This research focuses on Poveglia: an abandoned island in the Venetian lagoon, Italy. The underpinning idea concerns the upgrade of Poveglia to a zero energy Cognitive University Campus, connected to other educational institutions in the lagoon. The vision aims at reusing abandoned islands combining architecture, learning environments and digital networks, to demonstrate the potential of new technologies for the transformation of abandoned areas. The case study demonstrates the effectiveness of employing improved and revised systems and tools, developed in eLUX lab at the University of Brescia, for the regeneration of the island. The inclusion of the island in a smart campus network results in triggering positive synergies both enhancing energy efficiency and the learning environment. A further development concerns the setup of strategies for historical preservation, energy efficiency and renewable energy production.

Hungarian professionals have highlighted the vulnerability of post-war built legacies in Budapest. Their reference point is the recent transformation of central areas showing a significant number of demolitions and a small number of conservative refurbishments. This is commonly attributed to the narratives of revisionist memory politics and/or the stigma of architecture built under state socialism. In contrast, professional activism and recent official listings have indicated a change of paradigms towards the extension of the official patrimonial acknowledgement to post-war built legacies. Throughout the case of the House of Diplomats, this article presents the origins of diverging narratives and discusses their impact as risk or potential in architectural preservation.