FLEXIBLE AND REVERSIBLE CONSTRUCTIVE SYSTEM FOR A TEMPORARY RE-USE OF INDUSTRIAL WASTELANDS IN ITALY

Italy is characterized by a high level of soil use for buildings and by a vast abandoned building heritage. Particularly industrial wastelands are a big problem, because there usually are very big buildings, built with “heavy technologies”, that are complicated to dismantle. Furthermore in these times of crisis and changes, it is difficult to find a new, permanent function for these big industrial wastelands. In contrast, at the moment there are many new small businesses or activities in Italy that would need a seat for a limited time, but don’t have enough money to rent or to buy a building or an office, particularly in large cities, characterized by high living costs. With the intent to re-use the industrial wastelands and to give a “flexible answer” to real “needs changing over time”, this research aims at developing a dry assembly, easy to build, flexible and reversible constructive system. This consists essentially of two elements: 1) a modular steel-made “ground connection element” that allows to create a flat (and suitable for any type of soil) base on which to place new temporary micro-architectures or buildings. 2) catalogue of small, light, easy to assemble and modular cross laminated timber elements, that are movable by one to three people and can be quickly assembled, de- assembled and re- assembled according to different configurations. The developed construction system has been also “tested” in the re-design project of a big industrial wasteland in Milan called “Ex Innocenti”. This project not only provides an opportunity for evaluating the developed constructive system in practice and to optimize it, but is also the basis for the application of the developed system in many different contests. In conclusion, this research has shown that the developed reversible constructive system can be a solution for a temporary reuse of many Italian industrial wastelands. The application of the constructive system achieves not only a high flexibility and a good spatial quality for very different functions, but also a good indoor comfort and a low energy consumption (during the entire life cycle of buildings) even in different Italian climate zones.