Adaptive envelope for the Integrated retrofit of the buildings

The paper deals with the theme of how buildings have survived over time, suggesting that a useful way to understand it – and therefore to design buildings – is to investigate what makes them fragile or antifragile. A growing amount of international researches affirm that an antifragile system is one that benefits from perturbations in the outer environment or the uncertainty of the context. Thus an “antifragile design” in architecture depends on its adaptability or ability to cope with the unpredictability and the changes. The paper analyzes the relationship between antifragility - adaptability - uncertainty and sustainability in the design process and identifies some design strategies of “combined and adaptive regeneration” (on a structural, typo-morphological, functional, performance and social level) that weigh uncertainty in its fundamental design moment of the building, that is service life. This paper puts forth adaptability as a design principle which brings to the forefront this critical dimension - time. As Croxton (2003) points out, “If a building doesn’t support change and reuse, you have only an illusion of sustainability.” According to this approach, the buildings are not finished work removed from time, but imperfect objects whose forms are in constant flux continuously evolving to fit functional, technological, and aesthetic metamorphosises in society. The capacity for buildings to respond to these changes are highly determined through design decisions early on resulting in the building’s design structure – what it is, how it is constituted. Starting from the several studies that have addressed similar issues over the years (Kronemburg, Habraken, Fitch, Alexander et al.) the paper suggests strategies of "Adaptive Retrofit Envelope" for the rehabilitation of the existing buildings that operate: - At room level, by the increase in interior surface space with the addition of ambient units; - At home level, by the adaptability of the envelope to external climatic conditions; - At building level, by a reinforcement structure providing static and seismic adjustment. - At urban level, by creative use of collective spaces; - At users level, by the improvement of his conditions of livability and psycho-physical well-being This design approach, in the contemporary world, on various scales and in its multitude of declinations, takes shape as an “open” system that helps the building or the city to respond to social, economic, functional challenges, to the uncertainty of the contexts.