The progressive modernization of the railway infrastructure has caused many lines (both active and disused) to progressively leave apart a series of railway buildings (some of them, architectural and civil engineering elements of great value), with their use already obsolete or without the main function which they were intended for. The high cost of maintenance leads them to a progressive state of margination, neglect and decay. This paper discusses various elements of the railway heritage, particularly the stations and their auxiliary buildings, their context and the way to put them in value, according to the needs of the society and the territory in which they are set. The railway heritage represents potentially an added value that can be assumed, correctly managed, be the drive shaft of a new function that ensures the future of the stations and serve as the main driving force and enhancer for the active development of a community or territory. For this, the analysis of the territorial strategy, the new energetic and social model and the existing potential in the closer areas will play a key role in achieving, through a new strategic role demanded by society, a self-management of architectural (constructed) railway heritage.

The main aim of the following process is to revitalize a landscape heritage that is of strong character but threatened by oblivion: the landscape of Tannat wine production and marketing, located on the banks of the Uruguay River in the late 19th century. This paper outlines a method to resignify aspects related to its memory. This article focuses on the links regarding the identification and assessment of the resources of the memory, which can be classified into two different areas: traces and narratives. The traces of a landscape represent the tangible settings, which evoke a collective memory. The narratives, which are part of its intangible heritage, are everyday stories that, recalled again and again, make us feel part of that landscape. The planned actions on the studied landscape include, on the one hand, the understanding and revaluation of the traces of memory, such as the Pascual Harriague Winery as a setting for collective memories. On the other hand, we agreed on narratives that give meaning and coherence to the former landscape in this social construct (in this case, the stories of the production and marketing of Tannat wine in Salto, at the end of the 19th century). All this with the purpose of reinforcing the evolutionary capitals of the citizenship identified with the landscape, reaffirming that social group's sense of identity (referential capital) and increasing their resilience or ability to assimilate changes, undertake and innovate. Having analysed the criteria and means to identify and assess the resources of memory, recovering a landscape should be understood as that which implies restoring its image (giving it continuity) and regenerating its social system (reactivating socioeconomic dynamics based on the feeling of belonging). None of these is possible without an adequate social participation, which is the engine of the sustainable, socioeconomic , local development of this type of landscape. A subjective, non-positivistic approach to the processes is required to achieve our objective: the recovery of the character of a landscape highly determined by socioeconomic interrelations.

This article proposes the dichotomy of "landscape" analysis necessarily associated with a qualifier such as "natural" or "cultural", which implies unnecessarily limiting its concept, should be overcome. For this, some authors have proposed the definition of the landscape in three differentiated and interrelated levels; these lines analyse and propose what this three-dimensional analysis would consist of. When assuming this three-dimensional approach, it is proposed that the three facets for its analysis and management would be: memory, generating a feeling of belonging or anchoring; the image, as identity, meaning and physical structure of a perception; and the sociosystem, analyzed in terms of the characteristics of the habitat, the inhabitants and their habits. Memory can be reconstructed and enhanced through spontaneous or directed processes of recovery and reintegration. The image can also be constructed, by interpreting it and minimizing its noises and discontinuities to turn it into a vivid, differentiated and evocative perception. The sociosystem is the area of the landscape that responds less to a behavioural methodology. We must, therefore, seek the measurement of certain factors that, despite not accurately reflecting subjective characteristics or externalities, work as indicators of a comparative evolution. As a result, an identification of the elements that articulate each of the facets is obtained for subsequent documentation and assessment through social dialogue: traces and narratives of memory; nodes, milestones, paths, districts and edges of the image; and opportunity spaces of the sociosystem. Frequently, interventions on cultural landscapes are excessively focused on improving their aesthetics (image), protecting their heritage by historicizing it (memory) or obtaining profitability, especially touristic profitability from their socioeconomic potential (sociosystem). Through this three-dimensional landscape analysis, we can compensate the gains achieved from each facet (memory, image and sociosystem) with the losses of the others, avoiding rejection and achieving social involvement and the essential balance with the means to make our project sustainable.

The gradual deterioration experienced by the railway in the mid-20th century precipitated the dismantling of a great part of the once dense rail network, which articulated Europe and many of the most industrialized countries in the world, leaving a large set of infrastructures and buildings in disuse. In just a few decades since the closure of these lines, the existing number of buildings that formed these infrastructures has been decreasing alarmingly. From an academic point of view, most of the papers deal with the reasons for the continuous disappearance and destruction of railway heritage. The object of this article is to expose the main factors that have favoured the conservation of the buildings of those lines that have fallen into disuse, approaching from another perspective the vision of a reality in which both social and cultural aspects will play a role as relevant as architectural, technical and constructive ones. These lead us to the following question: Why are they still standing? To answer this question, more than 231 buildings from six disused railway lines which share similar characteristics, are close to each other and were part of one of the densest railway networks in Europe, such as the one in the Basque Country, have been analysed. Among them, the railway line of the Urola will stand out, due to its general state of preservation, experimented in the number, quality and conservation of its built elements. In this paper, we will present the different evidences why this line, coeval and analogous to the others and whose original buildings have remained almost the same, presents so different results from the rest. We will also determine and quantify the different indicators that could be relevant to define the possible level of recovery of the railway heritage in case of a hypothetical, future intervention, that could be extrapolated to the rest of the cases.

In our southern European environment, planning continues to be addressed with 19th-century zoning instruments and defined policies. The growing reaction to the impositions of this territorial policy in local areas proposes a strong bottom-up, non-urbanism of the strategic and the punctual, whose results are beginning to be insufficient due to their limited continuity and difficult coordination. The work in network and with articulated and inter-connectable projects, is revealed, however, as a tool of utility not yet sufficiently tested. To overcome the barrier between what we define as "planning" or macroterritorial policy and "ordination" at a micro level, tools such as Landscape Action Plans (LAP) are proposed. The LAP is structured as a document that, starting from the micro analysis of all facets of the landscape (not only of how it is perceived, but also of its identity generating dimension, and even of its socioeconomic aspects), and listening to the demands of the citizens through social dialogue processes, raise a solution to shared problems in local or municipal areas. This solution must be defined not only formally, but applying the determinations emanated from the regional policy of Territorial Planning designed for larger areas. In the last six years, the design of LAP by our Constructed Heritage Research Group (GPAC) has yielded very interesting results in terms of coordinating municipal and regional policies, such as the Landscape Action Plans of Trapagaran (2016) and Ortuella (2018), among others. The planning of small, embraced landscapes, endowed with strong character, through Landscape Action Plans (LAP), could be an option to channel this desire for local planning into a network, which compensates or inspires a broader and more democratic territorial policy.