Design and technologies for cultural heritage

Promoting and enhancing environmental and cultural heritage through research and technology are part of European Community activities with regard to innovative actions and programs for regional development. A scenario that involves different levels and aspects of the technological design for sustainability, in a perspective of economic growth too. In this area the research must renew both the methodological approaches and the management practices, opening the way for advanced exploitation processes based on criteria of technical reliability and social feasibility; also going through the latest instruments of governance, such as - for example - Strategic and Marketing Plans, Cultural Districts, Ecomuseums, etc. The City of Mantua, and his wide area, marked by a conspicuous historical legacy and by an extraordinary environmental asset, acts as an ideal laboratory in terms of sustainable development based on cultural heritage. Since 2002 the Research Group “Governance, design and valorisation of built environment”, with the Laboratory T.E.MA.-Technology Environment Management of the Politecnico di Milano-Polo territoriale di Mantova and the Ph.D. Course in “Design and technologies for cultural heritage”, has been cooperating with the main local institutions in several projects, implementing a network that acts as new model of governance with regard to the wide area, with the active participation of the community to the growth of the local system. The book therefore presents an overview on a possible “Mantua Model”, focusing on the innovative approaches that can be developed assuming new dimensions and scales of heritage assessment and natural/cultural resources enhancement, in their articulated interdisciplinary implications for design and project