Location-based systems currently represent a suitable solution to enhance cultural experiences inside museums, as they can satisfy visitors’ needs through the provision of contextualized contents and services. In this framework, a promising approach to captivate the attention of teenagers—a hard to please target audience—is represented by mobile serious games, such as playful activities aiming to primarily fulfil educational purposes. The use of a mobile digital tool during the visit definitely discloses new opportunities for contextual learning scenarios; however, so far, only a few studies have analysed the impact of different communication approaches on visitors’ degree of exploration and acquisition of knowledge. This work aims to enrich this field of research, presenting the conceptual framework; the design principles; and the evaluation results of “Gossip at palace,” a location-based mobile game integrating a storytelling approach. The game was developed for an Italian historical residence to communicate its 18th-century history to teenagers, capitalizing on narrative and game mechanics to foster young visitors’ motivations to explore the museum and facilitate their meaning-making process. Following a mixed-methods perspective, the article firstly describes to what extent the components of the application were appreciated by teenagers as well as by other visitor segments. Secondly, it provides an insight on the effectiveness of the game in facilitating the acquisition of historical knowledge by participants, enriched by considerations on the methods to be adopted when evaluating mobile learning in informal educational settings. Thirdly, players’ degree of use of the digital game throughout the visit is compared to analogous patterns registered for people using a multimedia mobile guide in the same venue. On the one hand, the study pointed out that the game facilitated a wider exploration of the museum; on the other, it highlighted that players mainly gained a superficial knowledge of the proposed contents.

Built heritage resources (BHRs) are multidimensional assets that need to be conceived under a sustainability and circular economy framework. Whereas it is essential that their conservation, management, and enjoyment are sustainable, it is also necessary that the environmental, cultural, and socio-economic contexts in which they are integrated are sustainable too. Like other amenities, BHRs can improve the quality of the urban environment and generate externalities; additionally, they may influence sectors such as real estate, hospitality, and tourism. In this framework, this contribution aims to identify spatial relationships occurring between BHRs and short-term rentals (STRs), i.e., a recent economic phenomenon facilitated by platforms such as Airbnb. Through the application of Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis techniques and taking Turin (Italy) as a case study, this article provides evidence that spatial correlation patterns between BHRs and STRs exist, and that the areas most affected by STRs are the residential neighborhoods located in the proximity of the historic center of the city. Relations with other sets of socio-economic variables are highlighted too, and conclusions suggest that future studies are essential not only to monitor sustainability issues and reflect on new housing models and sustainable uses of buildings, but also to understand the evolution of the phenomenon in light of the pandemic Covid-19.

In the last few decades the renewal of waterfront contexts has been especially inspired by neoliberal approaches favoring the creation of residential units and entertainment facilities. However, sustainability frameworks suggest that the economic dimension should be interpreted in a way that goes beyond the profitability of the interventions and that takes into account non-monetary values as well. In light of the complex social value (CSV) theory—which considers as a fundamental value component the intrinsic values attributed by communities to environmental and cultural heritage resources—this article proposes the adoption of exploratory methods to firstly map and then integrate citizens’ points of view into the evaluation and design of redevelopment scenarios, selecting the ex-industrial complex of Officine Piaggio (Italy) as a case study. Survey results highlighted that discrepancies between the new functions advanced by official redevelopment proposals and citizens’ opinions were present, and that values such as memory and collective meaning need to be considered if multidimensional sustainability represents a goal. Coherent with these results, a new project scenario is then envisioned and implications related to the application of exploratory methods in the decision-making and policy-design processes are finally advanced.

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Abstract:In recent years there has been a growing interest in the use of multimedia mobile guides in museum environments. Mobile devices have the capabilities to detect the user context and to provide pieces of information suitable to help visitors discover and follow the logical and emotional connections that develop during the visit. In this scenario, location based services (LBS) currently represent an asset, and the choice of the technology to determine users' position, combined with the definition of methods that can effectively convey information, become key issues in the design process. In this work, we present Museum Assistant (MusA), a general framework for the development of multimedia interactive guides for mobile devices. Its main feature is a vision-based indoor positioning system that allows the provision of several LBS, from way-finding to the contextualized communication of cultural contents, aimed at providing a meaningful exploration of exhibits according to visitors' personal interest and curiosity. Starting from the thorough description of the system architecture, the article presents the implementation of two mobile guides, developed to respectively address adults and children, and discusses the evaluation of the user experience and the visitors' appreciation of these applications.