La sostenibilità degli edifici storici e della città storica The sustainability for historical buildings and the historical city

The purpose of this abstract is to outline a brief thought on the problem regarding the reconfiguration of buildings, architectures and historical essence in ways to promote sustainability, so as to combine liveability, efficiency, and energy saving with the conservation of the historical- artistic aspects, by working out flexi- ble ways to determine which are the best tasks to follow. In order to achieve ‘a sustainability objective’ it is necessary to study deeply not only the knowledge of the building, but also its relationship with the context: as the city itself can represent the main source for the re- generation of sustainability, therefore centering the target of ‘focus on sus- tainability’ from a building to a urban perspective. As the reconfiguration of historical buildings considering sustainability cannot be made -especially in Italy – without taking into account political measures regarding sustainability it- self for the totality of the building construction, which is represented by the historical parts of the city. It is the historical city - dense, func- tional under its different aspects, hinged on its tissue of public spaces, well-suited for its place (with the con- sequent prevention of the wearing of the terrain, saving on infrastructures costs, and conferring a urban appear- ance) – which represents the best component for the sustainability of urban contemporary places, it has therefore become the ‘model’ for the inspiration for the practice of the planning and urban architecture of the great european capital regions to reconsider the contemporary suburbs under a sustainability scheme. A ‘model’, meaning that from this the planning guidelines will be per- formed for the reconfiguration of the suburbs: densification of buildings, functional improvement, rearrange- ment and delineation of the public spaces. Now that the historical city has be- come ‘the model’ on how to intervene on the contemporary city we can adapt it according to the needs of sus- tainability, economic growth, quality of life which today represent the new frontier for the development of the city itself. Endorsing this fact we find many in- teresting examples abroad which can represent the guidelines for possible strategies of operation. Above all, the new means of ‘light’ transportation, in second place allow- ing more green spaces, with the pro- duction of an interconnected system of green roofs, green walls, new paths, promenade itineraries, trails, green ‘streams’, and green squares which will remake the urban tissue, the identity of the places and the struc- ture for the urban performance; and finally the inclusion of micro genera- tors of energy, or the production of ef- ficient systems for waste disposal. In all these fields, however, a lot of background information and know- how is available, but it is still difficult to find a general rule on how to pro- ceed, because it involves insertions which are made in buildings and places.