The architectural and environmental retrofitting of public social as a resource for contemporary cities. The redesign of building envelopes

The current focus on the transformation of Western cities puts forward, in a shared and far-reaching manner, ‘degrowth’ as an opportunity to renew and update the perspective of sustainability, not only from an environmental point of view, but from a social and economic point of view as well. The most modern updated legislation is also headed in this direction: considering building stock as a resource for renovation, adopting policies and strategies aimed at reducing land and energy consumption, reusing and recycling building stock. Nowadays, the interpretation of the terms Reduce, Reuse, Recycle in relation to urban development offers the opportunity to create a new generation of spaces and architectures that sees buildings – dilapidated, neglected, worn out or abandoned – as a real resource and, hence, value. Renovations concern new programmes and projects for rethinking the uses, meanings and the values contained in existing construction (from individual buildings to whole neighbourhoods) and which can change. Within this scenario, suburbs are now considered part of the contemporary city and they are becoming the object of particular attention from those who are involved in urban planning and managing urban developments. Among the resources that have already been built, social housing stock is a wide field of investigation, from different points of view. This built heritage can involve different levels of building and space transformation and defines various design approaches: the overall architectural quality is to be acknowledged. These design approaches reinterpret regeneration activities and are not just limited to the ‘technical’ renovation of buildings: they also take into account the consequent urban, social and economic implications