Post-earthquake reconstruction of the city of L’Aquila: case histories of the Special Office, beyond the parametric costs

Since April 2013, the U.S.R.A. (Special Office for the Reconstruction of L’Aquila) has been playing a crucial role, within the complex reconstruction of L’Aquila, by governing the state refunding process. Such a task has been chased on the basis of some parametric costs adopted to define, on the one hand, the maximum allowed compensation amount for each refurbishment project, and, on the other hand, the financial schedule for the whole reconstruction process. Throughout its experience, however, the Special Office has been facing some particular technical issues, often emerged during construction phases, which couldn't be traced back to the foreseen parametric costs and required further outlay. For example, in the urban context, the demolition of severely damaged buildings, that used to sustain embankments over which roads or other buildings are founded, requires the construction of embedded walls, whose costs were not considered in the standard reconstruction costs. Similarly, the presence of underground cavities requires the adoption of specific geotechnical solutions, in order to guarantee the stability of the ground and of the construction upon it as well. The same financial implications can be observed as a consequence of some prescriptions, specified by the national building code, related to the level of safety of some structures. This paper aims to describe some of the afore mentioned issues, together with the solutions adopted by the Special Office in order to account for them.