Adaptation vs fragility, rule vs exception: antinomies of the architectural heritage

The positive meaning of the concept of resilience has actually been intensified, moving from the materials science (where it indicates the property of a material to absorb impacts without breaking), to psychology (where it indicates the capacity of individuals to face and get over traumas and difficulties). In the evolutionary vision, the ability of an organism to adapt to environmental mutations is a condition for survival. Similarly, in the technological field, the capacity of changing state, i.e. flexibility, is a system’s feature that permits its adaptive transformations, by increasing at the same time its performance standards. The positive meaning is also recognized when applied to natural or built environment, where it indicates the property to respond to external conditions without losing its own nature and, furthermore, taking the opportunity of positive evolutions. In the subsequent extensions of the original meaning there is an unspoken distinction between a “before” and an “after”, in the sense that the changes of state take place precisely due to resilience. This property maintains its own positive meanings also referring to the specific architectural heritage operational field, and could be (at the same time and in parallel) considered both a connotation of the built heritage and an objective for the entire conservation process, in which the project plays a central role. This paper includes the following paragraphes: - The intrinsic resilience of the architectural heritage - The contribution of the architectural heritage to the urban resilience - The role of architectural heritage in the resilient design - Resilient interventions on the architectural heritage. The paper summarizes the contribution of the Clusters SITdA "Architectural Heritage" to a "collective research work that involved the associates of the Italian Society of Architectural technology (SITdA) and in particular the young academics and PhD students on the themes of Resilient Design. The activity employed a visioning tool, the Future Conference, borrowed from the techniques of participatory design. It is a topic of great relevance investigating how a building, urban or landscape system can adapt to changes and to react with a proactive capacity. Technological innovation and design of process and product are thus required to tackle with the new urgent environmental, as well as social and economic challenges posed by climate change, hydrogeological risks, energy transition, growing population and migratory phenomena"