The present work deals with the problem of sustainable re-use and preservation in architecture, either legally protected or not. Its aim is to provide a method that might assist designers and decision-makers during the whole planning process. This research starts with a literature review of the interpretation of sustainability, followed by the definition of a regulatory framework (international and national) and a comparative analysis of 18 building assessment tools. The three sustainability domains (social/cultural, environmental and economic) are widely accepted, but most regulations and evaluation tools still focus on the environmental component. On the other hand, re-use is becoming more and more important for its key role in future sustainable development. However, only two of the analysed methods deal with the specific task of re-using/preserving historic buildings, so that the GBC HB protocol (Historic Building by GBC Italia) and the Villas model have eventually become the basis for the new method that was developed in reference to the territory of Gorizia and Nova Gorica.
The method is a three-step procedure that guides the user through the knowing phase with a sort of “building ID”, towards the definition of compatible use (vocationality analysis) and the planning of a sustainable intervention (sustainability analysis), which simultaneously considers socio-cultural, environmental and economic issues. Each of the last two phases is also provided with an expert-based multi-criteria evaluation model, whose weights are based on a survey that collected opinions from more than 100 experts from Italy, Slovenia and other countries.
The method was continuously refined through the application to some case studies that were selected in equal number between the region of Gorizia and Nova Gorica in order to cover all the three project stages: the preliminary phase or feasibility study, the intermediate and the final planning stage. Finally, the six case studies that are reported in the last part of the thesis prove the method’s reliability in dealing with different building types and planning phases, also guaranteed by the possibility of tailoring the sustainability model by including or excluding certain criteria. Nevertheless, the method does not provide definite answers and it does not aim at certifying the sustainability level of projects. In contrast, the interpretation of results is essential, as it forces the user to consider different points of view and, therefore, helps to make rational decisions.
