Since the European Year of Cultural Heritage, adaptive reuse is considered a strategy for intervention on historical buildings and territories to preserve and enhance artifacts, cities, and communities. Adaptive reuse can also generate social and economic benefits. This work looks at adaptive reuse in the context of industrial heritage, which represents an excellent test benchmark because of its intrinsic architectural characteristics and its localization in the city suburbs. The paper puts forward a methodological approach, verified through the application to a case study, which analyzes both the local context and the building. This study concludes using the data obtained to define an adaptive reuse project with positive repercussions for the community, the environment, and the local economy.

Almost all the faç ades of rural vernacular constructions were rendered in order to protect and decorate the masonry walls. Therefore, this study has been carried out in order to identify and classify the different vernacular techniques for producing mortar over history in a given geographical region through the combination of petrophysic, chemical and organoleptic analysis, going on to classify and date constructions for which there were no recorded data. The results show that mortars do indeed contain a wealth of information, which situates these constructions in a specific period of history and allows relationships to be established between construction stages and techniques. The results have also demonstrated that mortars are mainly composed of lime rather than gypsum as was erroneously assumed before the study. So, the determination of components and techniques has been considered a crucial aspect to be taken into account when working on the conservation, of contemporary aesthetic interventions for which the combination of petrophysical, chemical and organoleptic analysis is necessary to guarantee compatibility between existing mortars and new ones.

Abandoning rural areas requires promoting their repopulation. In Europe, wealth and life in these enclaves are valued. However, the current state of these houses does not meet actual needs and requires interventions to actualize current standards. Therefore, decisions in the design and execution of the works will generate a volume of construction and demolition waste (CDW), which must be managed sustainably out of respect towards its origin, the architecture, and the surrounding environment. This paper examines the prevention and management of CDW, providing control strategies and actions to monitor and plan them from the rehabilitation project itself. Some of the interventions carried out in recent years on this type of housing have been analyzed and the existing management protocols within the European Union have been reviewed, specifying their application in Mediterranean popular housing. As a result, we herein show a representative case that observes the existing reality regarding the destination of generated CDW and delves into their possibilities for use. We present these findings in order to reduce the energy cost resulting from manufacturing new materials and meeting the established sustainability and energy efficiency parameters.

Editorial VITRUVIO - International Journal of Architectural Technology and Sustainability, Volume 5, Issue 1 (2020)

No abstract