Theory 1: Contemporary Architecture in Old Buildings and Historical Complexes Lecturer: Fabiano Micocci

The increasing number of professional occasions in the world dealing with issues of reuse and rehabilitation of buildings and complexes, instead of the construction of new buildings, poses the question of the foundation of strategies and practices of adaptive reuse that deal with what already exists.
Along these premises, the course aims to investigate the historical foundations of adaptive reuse, to give tools to analyse and evaluate the existing, and to introduce recent theories and practices.
The course is organized in four sections focusing on different theoretical aspects:
1) ‘Traces and memories’ focuses on the analysis of the building and its context as a palimpsest, 
2) ‘Heritage and reuse’ will introduce issues related to the value of architecture, cultural heritage, and commons,
3) ‘Strategies of adaptive reuses’ will present a catalogue of case-studies categorized by the type of intervention that will highlight different modes of approaching the existent,
4) ‘Reuse of Urban Complexes’ analyses urban process of reuses, like top-down vs. bottom-up interventions. Students will be asked to complete a short exercise for each of the four parts.