Criticità e potenzialità per l’uso e il riuso sostenibile di edifici e siti storici in rovina. Indirizzi di metodo

Buildings and sites in ruins are not a mass abandoned on the edge of modernity, but a living material that, despite its incompleteness, still retains tangible and intangible values, becoming warning, teaching and inspiration. From an ideal and operational point of view, it is necessary to define methodological guidelines within the current principles aimed at sustainability in terms of conservation and enhancement of the historic building which, when in ruins, manifests greater degrees of difficulty. These guidelines make it possible to outline a scientifically correct approach to the project for the reuse of artefacts and sites in ruins and direct the designer towards compatible, reversible and universally shared compositional, technological, formal and structural solutions. Finally, it is proposed the case study of the fortress of São Domingos da Baralha, in Portugal, which survives with some walls still intact and many in a state of ruin which must be preserved and enhanced, with a project that both consolidates the existing vestiges, restores the volumes and offers new possibilities for life at work and in the community.