Abandonment, degradation and reuse

The theme of Abandonment, Degradation and Reuse, offering a reflection on the meaning of re-inhabiting space, on how to conceive and activate new life cycles for artefacts, infrastructure and abandoned areas. In each case, it is a matter of intervening in the leftovers of classical modernity characterised by the growth of economic well-being, which has given way to a different dimension that must contend with uncertainty and the concept of limits. These are fragments of the space/time of these places which ongoing transformations are gradually enlarging, disseminating uninhabited spaces in the post-industrial city, not just buildings stripped of their function, but a neglected landscape. A constantly updated landscape of contemporary ruins that no longer corresponds to that of romantic contemplation, but to a narrative of increasingly widespread heterogeneous presences. From metropolitan areas to abandoned villages or those scarred by earthquakes or flooding, these are places that introduce a state of wilderness into anthropised areas and which today require identification of appropriate conceptual and operational routes that transcend the consolidated practices of re-use and re-functionalisation, care and repair or even urban renewal. There is a need to start thinking about the process of senescence and abandonment of areas and infrastructure not only as an indication of failure, but to accompany it with transitional tools towards an interaction between human settlements and the natural environment, with a greater focus on community dynamics.