A New Assessment Model for the Restoration Project of Listed Buildings and the Planning of Interventions, Between Resilience and Sustainability

The essay aims at offering an innovative contribution to the restoration project of a building of cultural interest. In particular, it delves into the subject of the overall economic evaluation of the functional changes that may occur over time, during its entire life cycle. The inclusion of such new uses must however be compatible with the demands of conservation. When comparing and evaluating possible intervention scenarios, the funda-mental aspect of the study of the various uses is the technical-economic feasibil-ity of the various proposals, also considering the needs and necessary transfor-mations related to each new function. The contribution constitutes the synthesis of a recent and still unpublished specialisation thesis in architectural heritage and landscape (Iuav University of Venice, 2023). It proposes an economic evaluation model capable of contributing to the comparison between different uses with reference to a building of cultural interest undergoing restoration. This model must also be able to consider the changes that may occur during its life cycle, allowing the planning of an econom-ically sustainable intervention. The model requires a preliminary identification of the different possible func-tional solutions to evaluate, which must be defined by the owner of the property or his advisors. This is followed by a first analysis phase, called VITE - Technical-Economic Impact Assessment, which refers to the multi-criteria analysis method. The result is a ranking of preferences among the different evaluated scenarios, elaborated from the attribution of evaluation criteria and appropriate weighting scores. Once the best (highest scoring) project alternatives have been identified, they are sub-jected to further and more in-depth analysis in the next phase of the evaluation. The second stage of the evaluation method is called RES2 - Resilient Restoration - and makes use of both the Cost-Benefit Analysis and Life-Cycle Cost Analysis methods. Since in both methods there are limitations in their ability to evaluate a resto-ration intervention capable of adapting to possible future transformations in a resilient way, the proposed evaluation method tries to compensate these deficien-cies by integrating the two systems. In this way, the ability of the Cost-Benefit Analysis to consider the benefits that occurs in different temporal moments is combined with the aptitude of the Life-Cycle Cost Analysis to evaluate the over-all intervention and management costs of the asset over its entire life cycle.