Preliminary analysis for the urban regeneration of derelict industrial sites through Adaptive Reuse interventions: the former Stanic refinery of Bari

Abstract

The theme of urban regeneration of underutilized areas and disused historic buildings is increasingly becoming a key intervention with a view to develop smart cities. The city is a dynamic and malleable place according to the needs of the population, where abandoned places are reinvented and converted to generate new opportunities and centralities. Important resources to activate sustainable urban densification policies are abandoned industrial areas, once the engine of nations economy, today relegated to unused skeletons. Towards revitalizing and generating sustainable recovery actions of these sites, adaptive reuse is adopted as a process of modifying, transforming and reusing obsolete volumes in contemporary architectures with new functions, extending their useful life. The adaptive reuse intervention on industrial heritage sites shouldn’t modify their settings and historical relevance. This paper aims to select the best design solution for the former Stanic refinery area in Bari, starting from multi-criteria analysis concerning social, physical-morphologic, environmental, and urban aspects. The research methodology is designed starting from a literature review about urban regeneration processes and adaptive reuse interventions and finishing with a weighted checklist of the selected parameters for each scenario. Adaptive reuse strategies contribute to reduce urban sprawl and demolition activities, applying smart conversion activities and technologies on derelict existent heritage industrial sites.