Urban mining e rigenerazione: upcycling per la Casa della Cultura a Rieti

The concept of “circular economy” in architecture implies the reuse, repair, refurbishment, and recycling of existing products and materials to be turned into resources. On the other hand, if the great amount of the abandoned building was appropriately considered as a potentially reusable building materials compound, even in the perspective of urban mining, this would offer interesting environmental opportunities to reduce both the consumption of non-renewable resources and the release of waste into the environment. This article aims to present the results of a design experiment whose aim is to contribute to the definition of methodologies and tools for reuse and repurpose of building components characterized by high-performance levels coming from decommissioning processes of buildings and an efficient design, that integrates both the disassembly and the re-assembly of the construction elements. From this point of view, Upcycling is one declination of reuse/repurpose in which materials and components are decontextualized and used in a way totally or partially different from the original function. The operational methodology, elaborated and adopted, defines four closely interrelated phases: the first phase of drafting of the Harvest Map, with the census of reuse areas and components; a second stage of knowledge for the project, an articulated analysis procedure that aims to understand the urban and cultural characteristics of the city through the study of the physical, climatic, and socio-cultural characteristics of the city of Rieti and of the lot. The analytical moment follows the critical one useful for the third phase of the project, with the strategies and operational guidelines that guide the implementation first design of the project of the “house of culture” and then the technical-operational translation of the necessary interventions through the choice of materials and construction systems in the fourth phase of the Upcycling technological project. It declines the strategies operational according to precise intentions and verifies the technical constructive feasibility of the necessary interventions.