Urban regeneration of public housing in Southern Italy: application of an analysis and design methodology to an emblematic case-study

This essay presents experimental research under way at the “Eduardo Vittoria Academic School of Architecture and Design”, University of Camerino, within the sphere of activities of the Italian Society of Architectural Technology (SITdA) . The research is focused on the development of a method for an effective approach to the regeneration of the industrialized residential housing districts built, in Italy, between the ’60s and ’80s and which now have become, after only a few years, a real urban emergency. Currently, they contain rapidly deteriorated, obsolete and often overcrowded homes, completely inadequate to the inhabitants’ needs, to the current legislation and to the now accepted performance standards. Within the controversy between "new construction" and "retrofitting the existing" as strategies for the modernisation of the city, the majority of debate has now concentrated on the destiny of these estates. In these areas, physical deterioration reaches exceptional levels, not only for the shoddy quality of their construction but also for the failure of the original planning choices, characterized by the quantitative application of urban standards, the indifference towards the quality of common outdoor spaces, the lack of flexibility levels in the dwelling units (to respond to changes in the needs of their inhabitants). The fruit of the research carried out to date is SET_up ( “SETTLEMENT_upgrade”), which is an analysis and design method devoted to the regeneration of this mass housing typology, applicable to different case studies in this housing field. The paper illustrates the method configuration, in its broad lines, and some results of the application of SET_up to an emblematic case-study of southern Italy: the PSER intervention in Naples in the ‘80s.