Evaluation procedures for sustainable recovery of cultural properties. A case study in Rome

Cultural properties possess unique characteristics that fulfil the essential needs and desires of individuals, thereby enhancing the well-being and quality of life within a community. The enhancement of cultural properties focuses on promoting their recovery to improve physical preservation, protection, and safeguarding; in such operations, it is essential to ensure sustainability from environmental, economic, and social perspectives. To achieve sustainable architecture, it is necessary to implement strategies that create solutions aligned with green design principles (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Renew, Repair, etc.). Even though cultural properties can also be regarded as economic goods — due to their characteristics of usefulness, usability, and rarity — monetary evaluation methods are often inadequate for assessing the sustainability of a recovery project, since they do not contemplate the intangible benefits that are fundamental in evaluating a cultural good. To this end, multidimensional evaluation methodologies are commonly employed because of their ability to incorporate various criteria for a comprehensive evaluation of a project's overall sustainability. The paper proposes a method for evaluating the sustainability of cultural property recovery projects. After an introductory overview outlining the current needs and challenges of cultural property valorisations, the characteristics of sustainable architecture and multidimensional evaluation approaches are discussed. A case study is then presented, focusing on the multi-criteria assessment of a recovery project for a castle located in the Roman Campagna; the case study aims to identify the most sustainable solution among various alternatives, in accordance with the principles of green building design. Finally, concluding remarks focus on how the results can be generalized and applied to other cultural properties beyond the specific case study.