Abstract:The study describes the planning strategy for a tourist itinerary in rural areas located in South-Eastern Sicily which aimed at promoting cultural rural heritage and diversifying the tourist offer. The planning of the tourist itinerary occurred within an appropriate heritage interpretation strategy as a working method which could facilitate the understanding and social use of the heritage sites located along the itinerary. The tourist itinerary combined significant territory potential such as traditional rural buildings and enogastronomy. It included a starting point; which is a heritage site and an already well known "tourist attraction", and several other tourist resources selected on the basis of the information derived from the analysis of the profile of the average visitor to the area. An interpretation center, which was located at the heritage site, and several interpretation media placed at each stopping point included in the itinerary supported the tourists during their trip. By promoting traditional rural buildings and enogastronomy, the tourist itinerary represents a significant opportunity for rural diversification and, therefore, can contribute to achieving sustainable socio-economic development of rural areas.

Most European cities are characterized by very large areas, often formed by buildings of low quality, from a series of perspectives (architectural, technological, materials, technical systems, etc.). The possibility of renovating them is strategic to improve both the quality of life and to the possibility of economic recovery for building companies. In the last decades, the attention of the scientific community has been addressed to the energy renovation, thanks to the strong activities of the European Community in this field. However, since a relevant part of the EC territory is at risk of earthquake, the possibility to combine both energy and seismic renovation actions may be strategic for many countries. In particular, Italy and Romania are linked by a common social tradition that springs from the Roman Empire. Nowadays, this link is stronger, thanks to common interests in social, cultural and business fields. Therefore, the investigation of possible synergies for seismic and energy renovation strategies may be really interesting for both countries. In this paper, after an overview of regulations and common practices for buildings with reinforced concrete structures, in both states, some key combined renovation interventions will be described and discussed, as well as advantages and perspectives of integrated renovation approaches. The outcomes of this work are to show the way to transform existing energy-consuming and seismic-prone buildings into energy-efficient and seismic-resistant ones.

Recent natural disaster highlighted the need of a form of the emergency-kit house, quickly available to provide shelters for victims of disaster, war refugee or homeless. Usually these requirements are satisfied through tents or containers, which are thermally uncomfortable and induce a sensation of precariousness to people that, were victims of a disaster. An alternative to simple and extemporized solutions is the design of light, evolved and thermally comfortable solutions available before the emergencies and/or in prevision of their occurrence. They are described by victims of a disaster as being thermally uncomfortable and to induce a precariousness felling. This research presents the Archicart Prototype, a Cardboard Architectural system. It is an emergency houses, temporary prefabricated construction and a repeatable system. The prototype provides a quick answers, being easily accessible, mountable, reversible, repeatable and thermally comfortable as described in the paper. Archicart is a precast building composed of a lightweight and easy to assemble system named PACO (Panels made up of Alveolar Corrugated Cardboard). The system is suitable for the construction of complete housing modules or a portion of buildings, (e.g. walls, partitions, ceiling, roof,). The study verifies thermal performances that are key for the product once installed. The first part concerns the base material's transmittance characterization and the correlation between time, durability and thermal performances decay. Finally the whole system performance are simulated.

Contemporary research is increasingly focused on studying buildings that either interact with environmental boundaries or adapt themselves to their users’ needs. In the current literature, this kind of ability is given different names: responsivity, adaptability, smartness. These are different ways to refer to a common concept, with subtle nuances. Foldable surfaces are one of the most interesting geometries able to give responsivity to building components, but often their production is complex and expensive. The aim of this research was the creation of a novel material that can provide lightweight solutions for foldable building envelopes. This composite material can be folded and unfolded easily, like a sheet of paper, but with a higher mechanical performance. It is made with the thermoplastic elastomer SEBS (styrene–ethylene–butylene–styrene) as its matrix, as well as a fabric reinforcement. In this paper, following an introduction to this subject, the authors present the composite material’s production methods and its mechanical characterization.

The policy about energy efficiency of buildings, including minimum energy requirements and energy performance certificate (EPC), have to be also applied to existing buildings in the case of energy retrofit. In this paper, the possible strategies that can be used to reduce the energy needs of traditional massive buildings, that are widespread in the old town of the Mediterranean cities, have been investigated. To this aim, this study evaluates the energy consumption of a massive building placed in Catania city, called "La Casa del Portuale", which was recently refurbished with the aim to host two local administrative centers. The energy needs of this building was evaluated through computer simulation both in the heating and cooling period, on a yearly basis. The activities research were developed analyzing different refurbishment solutions suitable to improve the thermal performance of most traditional buildings without adversely affecting their fabric and character. Therefore, the feasibility comparison has been performed between the examined refurbishment solutions. The results of the proposed research , considering the diffusion of this typology of buildings, could be assumed as reference to a significant portion of the traditional real estate.