The refurbishment of abandoned industrial areas with adaptive re-use strategies: analysis of decision making models and design criteria

The preservation and reuse of abandoned industrial buildings play an important role in the process of urban regeneration. Adaptive re-use is a sustainable strategy that promotes the enhancement of urban planning and activates projects for the refurbishment of unused areas. The existing multicriteria analysis models (ARP Model, AdaptSTAR Model and Decision-Making Model) allow the development of adaptive re-use strategies, identifying the variables influencing the steps of the building reconversion. The article deepens the topic of adaptive re-use, through the study of a decision support systems for the recovery of industrial areas and the identification of all the categories that affect the procedures for building adaptation. The objective of the research is to identify decision making choices that take into account the social, functional and architectural risks conditioning the solidity of the city-environment-society system. The proposed Design Criteria System (DCS) considers the factors involved in the building transformation process, highlighting the complexity of the management, control and implementation phases of the same. The definition of adaptive re-use interventions is done by multicriteria analyses based on the weight of each component during the building transformation. The research shows that the identified microscopes allow to synthesize the procedural apparatus, guaranteeing the optimal management of case-by-case decisions.