Dissertationen zum Thema „ICARO (Project)“

Esta pesquisa de mestrado aborda o projeto geométrico de aeródromos a partir dos padrões e recomendações da ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) e da FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). Os padrões e recomendações da ICAO foram extraídos do documento Annex 14 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation e de documentos por ele referenciados. Para o caso da FAA, serviu de base o documento Airport Design: Advisory Circular 150/5300-13, incluindo-se aqueles nele referenciados e considerados pertinentes ao escopo do estudo. Seguindo-se uma estrutura de critérios de projeto proposta, os padrões e recomendações da ICAO e da FAA são comparados entre si, explicitando-se as diferenças nas especificações em si e também na forma como estas especificações são feitas por cada norma. Para o caso em que comparações diretas não são possíveis, as comparações são feitas a partir de um conjunto de aeronaves com características conhecidas. No caso dos critérios cuja avaliação é mais complexa, equacionamentos matemáticos são propostos. Apresenta-se também uma série de flexibilizações dos padrões, as quais são voltadas à acomodação das aeronaves A380-800 e B747-8 em aeroportos existentes. Estas flexibilizações provêm das conclusões do A380 Airport Compatibility Group (AACG) e do Boeing 747-8 Airport Compatibility Group (BACG), no caso dos padrões da ICAO. Para a as flexibilizações dos padrões da FAA, servem de base os Engineering Briefs (EBs) por ela emitidos. Finalmente, com base nos critérios de projeto considerados, é feita uma análise do Aeroporto Internacional de São Paulo/Guarulhos quanto à operação das aeronaves A380-800 e B747-8.
This Master Thesis tackles aerodrome geometric design according to the standards and recommended practices from the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). ICAO standards and recommended practices are from the document Annex 14 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation and from the referred documents. In turn, FAA documents herein addressed are the Airport Design: Advisory Circular 150/5300-13 and others referred in this one. By following a proposed design criteria framework, ICAO and FAA standards and recommended practices are compared. From such comparison, it is shown the differences in specifications itself and also in the way by which ICAO and FAA specify their standards. For the cases where direct comparisons are not possible, it is used a set of aircrafts of known characteristics. For the most complex design criteria, mathematical equations are also proposed. Another addressed issue is the flexibilization of design standards, which aims the accommodation of A380-800 and B747-8 aircrafts at existing airports. The ICAO flexibilizations are made from conclusions of the A380 Airport Compatibility Group (AACG) and the Boeing 747-8 Airport Compatibility Group (BACG). FAA flexibilizations are from this same agency, namely through EBs (Engineering Briefs). Lastly, the addressed design criteria are applied to analyse the operation of A380-800 and B747-8 aircrafts at São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport.

On the background of growing privatisation of resources, of the incapacity of both private and public forms of arrangements to protect them, other forms of governing the resources and building welfare are emerging. This dissertation questions the emancipatory role of property under the current circumstances: under which conditions can property be emancipatory? My hypothesis is that the different ways of owning currently being experimented by many practices as the rising discourse on the commons for example, in alternative to private and public forms of property- suggest the possibility of a third turn of the relationship between property and emancipation. Beyond the exclusivity of private property, beyond the redistributive logic of the public though not implying the obscuration of these two models. The Community Land Trust, officially established in Brussels in 2013 (CLTB), is an example of those practices and the case study of this dissertation. My thesis is that the architectural and urban project have a paramount role in realising the form of governing resources aka property- implied in that model. The double engagement as an activist in Commons Josaphat and as an architect contributing to the realisation of one of the first projects of the CLTB Le Nid- allowed me to develop an ethnographic approach, which in fact proved to be essential in order to address the topic of emancipation. The immersed position allowed me to seize the thick fabric of relationships and the accumulation of capacities which led to the establishment of the CLT in one of the poorest municipalities of the Brussels Capital Region, as an answer to an unsolved housing question, unbearable in particular for numerous and low income households. It allowed me to learn about the values, rights and needs of the involved inhabitants and local actors and to reconstruct a history of emancipation of a whole community, one among many possible others. At the core of the CLTB, I argue property is reconceived beyond the right to access: on the base of the recognition of the right and capacities of the concerned communities to decide, to take care and to govern the resources they need for the fulfilment of their basic needs, for the development of their life strategies. In other words, for their emancipation. The other side of the right to decide and of recognition is responsibility. Responsabilization being in this case a collective endeavour and not an alienating process, condemning individuals to rely only on la propriété de soi. By referring to my direct implication in the design process of the project Le Nid, I argue space matters and the project as a process -as a unique characteristic of the Belgian form of CLT-has a paramount role in envisioning what the jurist Steiner would define the set of compossibilities: by assembling compatible needs and rights; by redefining them in relation to the spatial limitations; by balancing the spatial configuration with the actual capacities of the inhabitants and concerned communities to take care of their living environment and resources. On these grounds, because of a project centred on the concrete capacities of the concerned communities to contribute to the common good, property would be emancipatory: being about the right to decide and recognition as much as about responsibility and the long term protection of resources.

The 21st century has witnessed a growing debate around learning places. A new educational paradigm that favored the spreading of the concept of informality in the renewed pedagogical models has long promised a radical evolution in the design of educational spaces, with the ideal figure of the university campus called to rethink its founding principles to stimulate new alliances between the design of its architectures and the new pedagogical agenda. In contemporary architectural discourse, we are witnessing a paradox: on the one hand, the euphoric rediscovery of the so-called radical pedagogies that in the Seventies had challenged the authoritarianism of the university institution guided by the principle of emancipation from the productive logic of the bureaucratic state; on the other hand, the often artificial revival of an informal use of space instrumentally adapted to the new production logics of a flexible and ever-changing reality. The thesis explores the precedents of this phenomenon in the aftermath of the Second World War in a specific region of Latin America which, despite its peripheral position, has functioned as a laboratory of design experiences on the project of educational space, in dialogue with some Italian architects directly involved in the design of those spaces in which they themselves worked as educators. The research is therefore structured on the critical-design analysis of six university campus projects conceived between Chile and Argentina in the 1950s. The selected episodes are presented as interconnected nodes of an educational project instigated by the same university institutions that intended to favor the relational component in their programs, to transform their internal organization into a flexible structure and to realize the highest level of integration with the outside world, identified both in the immediate context (urban) and in the larger one (regional). What emerges from the trajectory of selected episodes is a complex of architectural and urban solutions that are anything but neutral and univocal with respect to an alleged pedagogical mandate. On the contrary, these are multiple, ambitious and even divergent solutions, identified by specific design themes through which to explore the new educational paradigm within their own specific context. Therefore, the limits of the peripheral condition are turned into the advantages of a privileged territory for architecturally exploring the relationship between university and city around the theme of the monument, the ground, the megastructure, the envelope or the internal atrium. In parallel, the thesis identifies the architect-educator in charge of these experiments as a prototypical figure. In particular, they always participate in the post-war architectural discourse by operating an internal critique mostly supported by design contributions. As part of the institutional apparatus of the university, all the protagonists of the selected episodes interpret and adapt this figure to a specific condition with their contribution that are not only original proposals for educational spaces, but all these proposals are always reinvested in the environment in which each of them already work as teacher or consultant. In conclusion, the selected episodes and the work of the South American and Italian architects operating in this particular context become the pretext for discussing a design trajectory enriched by other experiences and theoretical contributions that are previous, contemporary or subsequent to the selected cases, rather instrumental for repositioning the architectural and urban themes analysed in this thesis at the center of a critical reflection on the design of contemporary educational spaces, especially on the gradual shift from the extended dimension of the campus to the inner content of its architectures.

Taking into account the beginning of the international economical crisis, the focus is the variation of foundations' grants that bore on restoration sector. The analysis investigates wich is the preferred typology of interventions and how the foundations work.

Chaque année en France, 4 millions de consultations en urgence ne sont pas justifiées d'un point de vue médical et presque la moitié des patients se présentant aux Urgences auraient vocation à être traités ailleurs, libérant ainsi les services d'Urgences destinés à traiter les réelles situations urgentes. L'engorgement des Urgences a conduit les services à mettre en place une priorisation de la prise en charge à l'accueil des patients ; cette priorisation n'est pas standardisée ni rationalisée. Nous avons conçu un outil informatisé permettant le tri des niveaux d'urgence en fonction des symptômes, antécédents et contexte médical du patient. Par cet outil, baptisé iCare, le patient seul ou aidé d'un tiers, doit être capable de détecter et de prioriser ses symptômes devant mener à une consultation urgente, par opposition aux symptômes moins urgents ou non-urgents. L'évaluation de l'algorithme iCare concernant les pathologies oculaires a pour ambition de disposer d'un outil de tri généralisable et reproductible au sein des différentes unités de soin, mais aussi à améliorer la responsabilisation et l'autonomie des patients dans la compréhension de leurs symptômes et leur recours au système de soins (concept d'empowerment en e-santé). L'objectif principal de notre recherche interventionnelle ne comportant que des risques et contraintes minimes consistait à valider l'algorithme de tri iCare, déterminant le niveau d'urgence approprié correspondant aux situations cliniques rencontrées. Cette validité était basée sur les calculs de sensibilité, spécificité, valeurs prédictives positives et négatives. Le niveau de référence retenu était le niveau d'urgence déterminé par le médecin à l'issue de sa consultation. Un effectif de 1000 patient se présentant pour une urgence ophtalmologique s'est vu proposer la participation à la recherche à son arrivée à l'accueil de deux centres de soins parisiens (Fondation Rothschild, Institut Vernes), à compter de la date d'acceptation du protocole par le Comité pour la Protection des Personnes dans la recherche biomédicale (CPP). Si le patient consentait à participer à la recherche, un technicien d'étude clinique (TEC) lui faisait remplir l'algorithme iCare, présenté sous forme de questionnaire interactif sur tablette tactile, dont l'implémentation prenait en routine moins de deux minutes. À l'issue de cette implémentation, un niveau d'urgence A, B, C ou D était fourni par le programme. Le niveau d'urgence attribué par l'algorithme n'était connu ni du patient, ni du médecin qui allait l'examiner. Le niveau d'urgence déterminé par le médecin à l'issue de son examen clinique (gold standard du critère de jugement principal) était recueilli, sous forme de niveau A,B,C,D ou de choix binaire Urgent / Non Urgent (U / NU). D'autres paramètres, comme temps nécessaire et le besoin d'aide au remplissage, le motif de consultation, les données démographiques et le temps d'attente sur place ont également été analysés. Cette thèse dresse un état de l'art de l'appellation "e-santé" en 2018, aborde les problématiques actuelles de santé publique liées à l'hyperfréquentation des services d'urgence en France, et présente l'outil iCare comme solution potentielle pour simplifier et rationaliser le tri des niveaux d'urgence en ophtalmologie (aspect santé publique), comme moyen d'éducation à la santé et d'autonomisation des patients dans la lecture de leurs symptômes (aspect empowerment), mais aussi comme outil généralisable de big data rapportant les motifs de consultation dans les services d'urgence, les cabinets ou même à domicile (aspect épidémiologique)
Every year in France, 4 million emergency consultations are not justified from a medical point of view and almost half of the patients presenting to the Emergency Department could be treated elsewhere, thus releasing the Emergency Departments to take care of the real urgent situations. The overcrowding of the ERs led the services to set up a prioritization of care for the reception of patients; this prioritization is not standardized nor rationalized. We designed a computerized tool to sort emergency levels based on a patient's symptoms, background, and medical context. By this tool, called iCare, the patient alone or assisted by a third party, must be able to detect and prioritize his symptoms leading to an urgent consultation, as opposed to less urgent or non-urgent symptoms. The evaluation of the iCare algorithm regarding ocular pathologies aims to run a generalizable and reproducible sorting tool within the different care units, but also to improve patient autonomy in the understanding of their symptoms and their use of the healthcare system (e-health concept of empowerment). The main objective of our "interventional research involving only minimal risks and constraints" was to validate the iCare sorting algorithm, determining the appropriate level of urgency corresponding to the clinical situations encountered. This validity was based on the calculations of sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values. The chosen gold-standard was the level of emergency determined by the doctor after his consultation. A number of 1000 patients presenting for an ophthalmological emergency were offered to participate in research upon arrival at the reception of two Parisian health centers (Rothschild Foundation, Vernes Institute), from the date of protocol acceptance by the Committee for the Protection of Persons in biomedical research (CPP). If the patient consented to participate in research, a Clinical Study Technician (CST) made him fill in the iCare algorithm, presented as an interactive questionnaire on touchscreen tablet, whose implementation took less than two minutes. At the end of this implementation, a level of emergency A, B, C or D was provided by the program. The level of emergency attributed by the algorithm was unknown to either the patient or the doctor who was going to examine him. The level of emergency determined by the physician at the end of his clinical examination (gold standard of the primary endpoint) was collected as a level A, B, C, D or as binary choice Urgent / No Urgent (U / NU). Other parameters, such as the time required and the need for filling assistance, the reason for consultation, demographics and on-site waiting time were also analyzed. This thesis outlines a state of the art of the word "e-health" in 2018, addresses the current public health issues related to high traffic in emergency services in France, and features the iCare tool as a potential solution to simplify and rationalize the sorting of emergency levels in ophthalmology (public health feature), as a means of health education and empowerment of patients in the reading of their symptoms (empowerment feature), but also as a generalizable tool for big data reporting of the reasons for consultation in the emergency wards, private practices or even at home health-related internet researches (epidemiological feature)

How does contemporaneity interpret Urban Design and what kind of meaning give to it? How has the economic and politic transformation process of the town influenced Urban Design? Through a comparative method applied to two comparable geographic realities (Italy and France), this dissertation investigates those actions related to the transformation of urban fringe contexts, inside and outside of dense town, setting out from a theoretical basis that examines the process of explosion of centre-town in the metropolitan territory since the Eighties to this day. Going through this transformation process, the dissertation interrogates about the notion of suburbs, centre and centrality by analyzing the issues provided by those actors that, both in Italy and France, have contributed to renew the notion of Urban Design. The aim of this dissertation has been then to show the analogies and differences in the mode of action of Design where several actors claim that theoretical contributions and first intervention strategies have developed.

Le governance comunali che decidono di pianificare strategicamente e in modo partecipato il futuro del proprio territorio “fanno” innovazione, perché inseriscono nel sistema urbano elementi di novità, in grado di cambiare in modo duraturo molti aspetti della vita dei cittadini. Questi elementi sono la strategia e la partecipazione: si tratta d’innovazioni perché hanno la capacità di creare contesti ed ambienti culturali in grado di dare origine ad ulteriori processi innovativi. Nell’ambito della Ricerca si fa riferimento alla Pianificazione Energetica Comunale e alla sfida, che molte città ormai condividono, di ottenere risultati reali nelle politiche per l’ambiente, grazie ad azioni che integrano l’apporto di molteplici attori sociali. In questo contesto, innovare può essere considerato un processo lineare che, senza introdurre elementi di discontinuità, prende le mosse da risorse contestuali per trovare soluzioni più adatte. Il contributo della Ricerca a questa nuova sfida urbana si struttura su due progetti innovativi e concreti, in corso di svolgimento nella Città di Alessandria, ai quali viene fornito un forte supporto tecnico e scientifico. Il primo è il Progetto Dimostrativo Europeo Concerto AL-Piano, grazie al quale la Città di Alessandria sta riqualificando un’area residenziale di 1'786 abitanti, con un intervento integrato che prevede retrofit sugli edifici esistenti e nuove abitazioni e servizi, alimentati interamente con fonti energetiche rinnovabili. Il secondo progetto, il cui esordio è più recente, deriva dall’adesione da parte della Città al Covenat of Mayors, che la impegna a dotarsi di uno Strategic Energy Action Plan (SEAP). Progetto e Piano sono intrinsecamente connessi, poiché è la partecipazione al primo che ha creato le sinergie tra gli attori sociali che ora intervengono nel secondo. La Ricerca, così come il percorso intrapreso da Alessandria sui temi della sostenibilità energetica, si articola quindi su due livelli operativi: “tattica” e “strategia”. Concerto AL-Piano è “tattica”. Ha una struttura e degli obiettivi, da tempo determinati, che richiedono una corretta attuazione. Un’azione specifica del Progetto prevede lo studio dei consumi energetici dell’intero patrimonio residenziale urbano per consegnare alla Città dati ed informazioni utili a strutturare future politiche energetiche. Il SEAP si colloca a livello di “strategia”. La Città, che non dispone attualmente di strumenti di pianificazione per lo sfruttamento sostenibile delle fonti energetiche, definisce un Target di riduzione delle emissioni di CO2 da raggiungere al 2020 e le Azioni necessarie al conseguimento dell’obiettivo. La somma delle Azioni - caratterizzate dalla descrizione degli obiettivi, dei tempi, dei soggetti responsabili e dei risultati stimati - costituisce il SEAP. Definita la “strategia”, ogni azione si troverà nella fase in cui è attualmente Concerto AL-Piano, necessitando di una “tattica” per essere attuata. Il vantaggio dell’aver sviluppato un Progetto Dimostrativo come Concerto è proprio nel disporre già di strumenti, metodi e Partnership tra attori sociali consolidati ed efficaci.

La tesi di ricerca approfondisce il tema del riuso di prodotti e componenti edilizi quale strategia circolare e sostenibile per la gestione del costruito. Essa muove dalla duplice potenzialità che tale processo presenta attraverso la conservazione delle risorse materiali, limitando gli impatti dettati dalla produzione di rifiuti da costruzione e demolizione, nonché preservando, attraverso la conservazione formale e funzionale dell’elemento nella sua integrità, la cultura materiale che lo ha prodotto. Partendo dal quadro teorico e dello stato dell’arte, la tesi si struttura attraverso quattro linee di indagine parallele e complementari, mirate a restituire la complessità del tema secondo una visione quanto più possibile trasversale. La prima definisce il contributo dei processi di riuso a una sostenibilità intesa non solo in ottica ambientale, ma anche sociale, culturale ed economica. La seconda esamina il valore conferito alla pratiche di reimpiego da parte dei progettisti contemporanei, evidenziando come essi vi individuino un significato culturale, al quale si associano ragioni di matrice ambientale, etico-sociale o di potenzialità espressiva. La terza linea di indagine approfondisce le incongruenze e lacune della cornice normativa europea relativa al tema, individuando le ricadute di questo quadro sulle problematiche pregresse del settore. La quarta esamina la potenziale applicazione di questa strategia a scala urbana, definendo il Reuse Design Project quale “processo progettuale che, a partire dalla formulazione del concept di un nuovo edificio fino alla sua costruzione, prevede, studia e compie l’integrazione nello stesso di prodotti e componenti edilizi, derivanti da altre costruzioni, che il progettista individua e ritiene adeguati al progetto”. Gli esiti della ricerca consentono di determinare l’idoneità del riuso di prodotti e componenti edilizi quale strumento sostenibile per la gestione del costruito esistente, promuovendo la potenziale diffusione futura di tale approccio. Oltre a identificare suggerimenti e azioni da intraprendere in ambito normativo per favorire il reimpiego, la tesi propone degli strumenti operativi volti a massimizzare l’efficiacia del Reuse Design Project. L’applicazione di tali strumenti, simulata su di un caso studio reale, consente non solo di esaminarne gli esiti in termini di processo progettuale, ma anche di confrontarli con quelli di uno scenario convenzionale sotto il profilo della fattibilità tecnico-economica e degli impatti incorporati. L’analisi dei risultati ottenuti evidenzia i caratteri innovativi propri dell’approccio progettuale volto al riuso di elementi edilizi, delle figure professionali coinvolte e della gestione del processo di decostruzione, nonché la formazione di tipo culturale necessaria per promuovere questa strategia nella pratica di architettura.

The thesis is on the transformation of Regent Street in London in the early nineteenth century. Regent Street was conceived within the London Metropolitan Improvements, and its design and execution are considered a different model from every other street. Within its history, Regent Street suffered several transformations, adjustments and at last complete rebuilding. Currently, even if the street has been completely rebuilt, the original Regent Street perspectives left a sign that remains not only in the plan but also in the image and the imaginary of the city as part of Cultural Heritage. In this research, the street is studied in the context of several proposals and ideas of improvements. The study looks to the new and to the old city. The new project enlightens also some aspects of the old city thanks to the kind of sources written and illustrated produced. It enlightens the process of construction by surveying the procedures and the pre-existing conditions. The study discusses time, causes and events that from an idea of project led to a demolition. Finally, it also aims to discuss if this interruption represents a fail within the project. Some questions still remained open by the published literature. The thesis, through the discovery of new documentation by the author, aims first to enlighten the conceiving and constructing processes of Regent Street. It also aims to study the relationships between the project of John Nash and the other projects, the receiving of the street and issues and matters after its construction. Therefore, the most emblematic part of Nash’s project, the Regent’s Quadrant, had never been a specific object of study before. Thanks to an unpublished sketch by hand of Nash found during this research, new inputs emerges in order to understand the peculiar shape of the Regent’s Quadrant. Another corpus of unpublished documents, related to the modifications to the original project of the street, has been found during this research in the archives, then dated and contextualized by the author in order to create a new chronology of the street building site.

Sensory as a vehicle of information is today a relevant topic. For many years, the immediacy and spontaneity of the visual approach has supported several theories affirming living in a real “eye culture”. Nowadays, these theories are overtaken, and architects and designers are more and more willing to enclose all the multisensory aspects in their projects. In this context, in Politecnico di Torino developed SounBe, an innovative-patented tool and method conceived in support to the selection of the most suitable materials within the possible hyper-choice, taking into consideration also the sound as a project requirement. Nevertheless, an effective validation of the efficacy of SounBe tool and method was still lacking. Therefore, the aim of the Doctorate research was to validate SounBe tool and method, verify its accuracy as a design tool as well as the effectiveness of the subjective tests performed following its method, and find out any possible improvement. A huge experimental phase was carried out in the anechoic chambers in Politecnico di Torino and IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris. The workspace was selected as testing ground because of the existing relationship between the acoustic conditions of the work environment and workers’ health, job satisfaction and wellbeing; office chair rolling sounds represented the main case-study of the experimentation. More than ninety subjects took part to different listening tests performed in ecologic, laboratory and SounBe conditions, comparing from time to time the results of the descriptive processes adopted to give a qualitative characterization to the sound. Subjective data were compared to objective measures, to better interpret the qualitative judgement. The key point of the validation was demonstrated: the comparability of sounds obtained with the SounBe method and from the real object in action, which was assumed as a reference, was proved. Moreover, a second objective of the research was looking for a possible implementation of the method. Therefore, a set of tests adopting the semantic differential technique were performed, disclosing the possibility to adopt also this technique to sounds obtained with SounBe tool. A final step of this Doctorate research consisted in a direct comparison with enterprises, in order to verify the potential interest of firms in investing on this innovative technology. In this context, the positive feedback as well as its acceptance by firms let hypothesize new activities to carry out after the Doctorate research. Some possible future steps could be finalized to the realization of a new working prototype, as well as the launch of a starting exploitation phase of the technology.

Goals: The research goal is to investigate, by the further definition of existent theories and their numerical control, when a set of project and technological factors can really have an influence on energy performances in buildings of central Italy (Mediterranean regions) considering, as experimental site, the region of Marche. Regardless of plant design, this research want to set the importance of "variable" project factors, in dynamic energy simulations, referring to passive buildings project. The research goals are: - definition of users' comfort conditions, referring to thermo-hygrometric conditions and psycho-physical factors connected to living spaces and climatic features of the regions object of study; - definition of the morphological and technological project's importance, in determining energy features and psycho-physical comfort conditions, in Mediterranean climate; - numeric and scientific check of variable project factors. Method: from the analysis and study of ancient and modern architecture's components in Mediterranean climate, it has been defined and classified ten reference project factors, checking their impact on energy components and comfort conditions in winter and summer conditions. These factors can be so defined: 1 Orientation, 2 Surface area to volume ratio, 3 Thermal inertia, 4 Thermal transmittance 5 Sunscreens use, 6 Natural ventilation, 7 Different temperature areas, 8 Passive strategies for the envelope 9 Air impermeability 10 Colour Through accurate and repeated energy evaluations performed in dynamic energy simulations (using Design Builder and Ecotect softwares) considering three different typological models and various techological arrangements for the envelope, it has been calculated the real effective incidences related to thermal requirements in winter and summer conditions. The requirements are determined as they occur, depending on building components' changes in each model, coming to quantify in percentage how much each factor above mentioned, weight upon the project and construction of Mediterranean climate buildings. Results: The analysis of the archieved results, in numerical terms, shows more or less marked confirmations about the importance (in terms of comfort and energy requirement de-escalation) of factors as inertia, phase displacement, thermal damping and orientation of the structures. It shows moreover some surprises about the actual incidence of some factors, until now not fully considered by the existent reference literature, as colour, natural ventilation and sunscreens use. It shows instead the very low incidence on global energy behaviors of primary importance factors in cool climate, as air impermeability, surface area to volume ratio and partly the external envelope's high performances (with low thermal transmittance). It can be said then that a building well insulated and with a good thermal inertia, conceived for winter conditions in a cool climate, should be conveniently revised and corrected, considering with more attention another series of project and technological factors, with reference to Mediterranean climate areas. Specificity: the research's results can represent an important progress for new research projects, in university field and European and non-European cooperation programs. Beneficiaries of these achieved results are: - the university, because the produced instrument sets itself as starting point for the following research improvements, in Mediterranean regions, to scientifically setting guidelines and reference instructions for the project of high energy efficiency buildings in Mediterranean climate. - public administration. The results, can become instruments for regional instructions and local codes for the energy control in buildings, setting project strategies suitable for the local building production. - professional technicians: architects, civil and constructions engineers. The research is aimed at technical operators in the field, because can provide practical instruments for the high energy efficiency buildings project, through the ten referential factors management.

The climatology at mid-latitudes (for instance, Europe) is dominated by both extra-tropical depressions at the synoptic scale and by mesoscale thunderstorm outflows (also called downbursts). Thunderstorm outflows are non-stationary phenomena, complex and potentially devastating, which strongly differ from synoptic winds under many points of view (genesis, scale, duration above all). Consequently, the induced wind fields are highly different. Modern codes and guidelines are mainly based on the cyclonic model, because of the persistent lack of knowledge about thunderstorm outflows, in particular concerning full-scale measurements. On the other hand, severe wind damage is often induced by downbursts, especially concerning low- and medium- rise structures (e.g., cranes, small turbines, light poles, low-canopies). The present PhD Thesis is collocated within the framework of the ERC THUNDERR Project. It investigates aspects connected with the aerodynamic loading of structures subjected to thunderstorm outflows, particularly focusing on the transient aerodynamics and transient aeroelasticity. This is firstly pursued through the definition of analytical formulations which, starting from compatible vertical wind fields, permit to evaluate the aerodynamic wind loading by using the strip and quasi-steady theory. The application of the procedures on selected slender test structures shows that a crucial role is played by thunderstorm-induced variations of the wind angle of attack, which may increase or reduce the structure response. The second part of the Thesis is devoted to an extensive experimental campaign carried out at the multiple-fan wind tunnel of the Tamkang University, Taipei, which is able to simulate unsteady flows. The sectional model of a sharp-edged square cylinder, equipped with 94 pressure taps, is investigated and numerous configurations of the flow parameters are considered in order to study the effects of acceleration on the aerodynamic loads and on the vortex-shedding from the body. The drag coefficients and the fluctuating cross-flow force coefficients connected with vortex shedding are found to be either comparable or definitely lower than their corresponding values for steady flows. Furthermore, discontinuities of the shedding frequency are present during the transients and their number and magnitude appear to be connected with the acceleration of the flow.

Thunderstorm winds, i.e. downbursts, are cold descending currents originating from cumulonimbus clouds which, upon the impingement on the ground, spread radially with high intensities. The downdraft phase of the storm and the subsequent radial outflow that is formed can cause major issues for aviation and immense damages to ground-mounted structures. Thunderstorm winds present characteristics completely different from the stationary Gaussian synoptic winds, which largely affect the mid-latitude areas of the globe in the form of extra-tropical cyclones. Downbursts are very localized winds in both space and time. It follows that their statistical investigation, by means of classical full scale anemometric recordings, is often inadequate in the view of accurately reconstruct the transient nature of the phenomenon. Wind tunnel tests in ad-hoc laboratories can fill this gap. Furthermore, downbursts never occur as isolated system in nature; they occur, in fact, embedded into the background Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) flow and are influenced by the thunderstorm cell translation. In nature, the decomposition of the recorded downburst signals into component signals associated with the aforementioned contributions is often challenging or unfeasible. This study presents the results of the largest experimental campaign performed so far on downburst winds, where the physical behavior of downburst-like flows, simulated by means of the impinging jet technique, was thoroughly investigated in the spatiotemporal domain. The experiments were conducted in the Wind Engineering, Energy and Environment (WinEEE) Dome at Western University which allows the simultaneous generation of downburst and background ABL winds along with the simulation of the parent thunderstorm translation. For the first time, a clear understanding of the overall downburst dynamics and of the interactions that take place during the occurrence of the phenomenon is presented. Later, this study investigates, as a structural application, the aerodynamic behavior of two cylinders subject to the experimentally produced downburst winds at the WindEEE Dome. Finally, the thesis describes the vertical profile time-evolution of full-scale downburst events recorded by means of the state-of-the-art LiDAR profiler, installed within the large wind monitoring network developed along the northern Tyrrhenian coasts during the European Project “Wind and Ports”, with the aim of comparing the respective wind fields with those reproduced at the WindEEE Dome. Common characteristics concerning the transiency of the phenomenon in terms of mean and turbulent part of the wind speed signals are found and reported in statistical manner. It is found that the direction can be dealt as invariant with the height, the height of the maximum velocity drops in correspondence of the absolute peak velocity, and turbulence presents its maxima shortly before the occurrence of the peak velocity. The implications of these findings in terms of structural response can be crucial. This study is part of the wider project THUNDERR, whose Principal Investigator is Prof. Giovanni Solari, funded by an ERC Advanced Grant 2016. The project aims at finding a proper model of representation of thunderstorm winds, from the joint combination of physical, numerical, and analytical investigations, to be implemented in the calculation framework to assess the loading and response of structures to thunderstorm winds. The inclusion of an independent model for thunderstorm winds in the structural design codes, where the wind-structure interaction is still evaluated based on the synoptic-scale extra-tropical cyclones, would indeed represent a decisive turn. The problem is even more crucial in the view of the severe climate changes that are affecting the earth planet, which induce, as a consequence, a rising intensification and sharp increase in frequency of the extreme wind events, such as thunderstorms.

The main topic of this doctoral thesis is the co-benefit concept, here applied as an assessment paradigm to innovative urban projects. In this research, a co-benefit is defined as any positive impact or effect, regardless of the intentionality, exceeding the primary project goal. More specifically, because the projects here analyzed are those aiming at (re)developing smart and sustainable energy districts, CO2 emission reduction and energy savings are considered the twin primary goals. To investigate the applicability of the assessment paradigm, the work focuses both on methodological and operative issues, each developed in a single research. The general topic and the four papers are summarized in chapter 1 “Introduction and research papers presentation”, also including a brief overview of complementary research activities, and then further developed in as many chapters. The core of the work starts with two general investigations concerning (i) the co-benefits identification and classification under the smart-city perspective, and (ii) the application to them of the most suitable monetization techniques. Then, it concludes with two instances of investigative fieldwork into co-benefits, about (iii) the marginal implicit value of energy performance in residential properties, and (iv) the priorities declared by houseowners as they consider a deep-energy retrofit. To identify and classify the co-benefits, with respect to the various project activities, it is necessary to establish a common lexicon among the various expressions and definitions employed by projects. This phase is also needed to define the boundaries of the investigation, as well as the reference scale, and to avoid double counting. In chapter 2 “Overview and taxonomy of co-benefits based on European experiences”, I propose a classification rooted in practical experiences reported by projects dealing with the implementation of green neighborhoods and urban renewable-energy systems. Due to the vastness and diversity of urban projects labeled as smart, sustainable, or both, it was also necessary to identify a subset of them having similar characteristics, here named Smart and Sustainable Energy-District Projects (SSEDPs). Thus, the focus was on 36 finished or still-running SSEDPs funded by the European Union (EU) within two relevant initiatives: “Concerto” and “Smart Cities and Communities”. The anticipated or already experienced co-benefits were extracted by accessing official sources (e.g., websites, reports) and reviewing them with respect to the specialized literature, obtaining 156 different expressions referring to positive impacts. After a thorough and iterative comparison by a group of experts, a short list of 19 key urban co-benefits is extracted. Finally, to show how relevant is the contribution of these projects to improving the quality of life of citizens and urban competitiveness, a smart-city-based taxonomy is elaborated, by sorting the co-benefits into seven groupings: smart natural environment, smart services, smart community, smart governance, smart economy, smart built environment, and smart mobility. Chapter 3 “Economic assessment methodologies” faces the issue of providing an overview of suitable methodologies for economic assessment, and of creating a framework for evaluating the key urban co-benefits recognized by EU-funded SSEDPs. The aim is to explore the feasibility of a co-benefit approach to a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) being applied to the decision-making framework by quantifying, in monetary terms, all the positive effects (benefits or inflow), as well as the negatives (costs or outflow). Due to the specificity of some co-benefits, besides direct-market value, non-market techniques have been identified as applicable to price them. Such techniques investigate consumers’ preferences starting from individual purchasing habits (revealed preferences) or asking them directly about their preferences (stated preferences). It showed that, for a minority of co-benefits, even the monetization of the human capital should be assessed to complete the whole picture. As a result, looking at the reference literature and involving a multidisciplinary team of experts, an “assessment menu” is developed, suggesting indicators and techniques. The menu also includes some estimated values reported by other studies, examples of practical application in similar contexts, and techniques or approaches suggested by analogy to the reference literature. The chapter 4 “A hedonic price model of energy performance of buildings” is tested in the city of Bolzano. This estimation technique identifies price factors (transactions or asking prices) according to the premise that an asset’s price is determined both by the intrinsic characteristics of the good being sold and extrinsic ones. The research constitutes the first attempt at breaking down the local residential property price and including, among the relevant factors, internal characteristics such as the energy performance certificate (EPC) class. By accessing a specialized real-estate website, 1,130 selling advertisements are collected, then geolocated, and analyzed by using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. The aim was to test the presence of spatial autocorrelation, and to eventually correct the estimation based on the ordinary least-squares (OLS) method. In fact, a neglected consideration of spatial relationships, in the presence of spatial dependence would lead to biased results. After a careful refinement of the sample, the evaluation of the marginal contribution of EPC class in the determination of the asking price has been estimated in a 6.3% price premium, moving from lowest class (G) to middle classes (C or D), and a 9.5% when reaching the highest classes (A or B), ceteris paribus. Finally, the OLS-regression result is confirmed, after checking for spatial autocorrelation and testing the Spatial Lag model (the GIS software ArcMap and GeoDa were used). In chapter 5 “A multiple benefits approach to understanding citizen priorities for deep-energy retrofitting”, the focus shifts from a specific co-benefit to a specific target group. Here, priorities declared by houseowners approaching a deep-energy retrofit are shown and weighted, adopting a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method. According to the test-phase results, a decision tree with five criteria and 15 subcriteria has been designed: four in “thermal and hygrometric comfort”; three in “design and architectural quality”, “acoustic comfort”, and “economic benefits”; and two in “sustainability”. Then, a pool of ten experts in the field of energy refurbishment and building works (selected among those working in South Tyrol) has been interviewed by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique, which enables evaluation of qualitative criteria through pairwise comparison. The “Super Decisions” software was used, which is specifically designed to support the data collection and results’ validation of AHP. Not surprisingly, the “economic-benefits” side plays a relevant role (38% of the global importance). However, a cross-sector analysis of expected benefits dealing with better health and well-being of occupants reveals that they cover 41% of the overall motivation. These points should be carefully considered not only in the design phase of a private project but also in the communication strategies and within each participatory phase of any project where the decision-maker (private or public) differs from the occupant. The thesis culminates with chapter 6 “Conclusions”, where achieved results of all the four previously described investigations are briefly summarized and further developments are proposed as an impetus for deeper investigations or cross-cutting research.
Il tema principale di questa tesi di dottorato è costituito dal concetto di “co-beneficio” (in inglese co-benefit), qui inteso come un paradigma di valutazione di progetti urbani innovativi. In questa ricerca, il co-beneficio è definito come un qualsiasi impatto o effetto po-sitivo che ecceda l'obiettivo primario del progetto, indipendentemente dalla intenzionalità o meno con cui esso si manifesta. Nello specifico, poiché i progetti qui analizzati sono volti alla creazione di distretti energetici intelligenti e sostenibili (in inglese Smart and Sustainable Energy District Projects – SSEDPs) o alla rigenerazione di quartieri esistenti, il loro obiettivo primario può essere considerato duplice: riduzione delle emissioni di CO2 e raggiungimento di risparmi energetici. Per studiare l'applicabilità del paradigma di valutazione, il lavoro di tesi si concentra sia su questioni metodologiche che operative, ognuna sviluppata in una singola ricerca. Il tema generale e le quattro ricerche specifiche sono riassunti nel capitolo 1 "Introduzione e presentazione dei research papers", che offre inoltre un breve excursus su attività di ricerca complementari. Poi, le quattro ricerche sono sviluppate in altrettanti capitoli della tesi. Il nucleo del lavoro si apre con due indagini generali relative a (i) identificazione co-benefici e loro classificazione in una logica di smart city, e (ii) definizione delle più opportune tecniche di monetizzazione a loro applicabili. Da qui il lavoro procede con due attività di investigazione e analisi sul campo dei co-benefici, ovvero (iii) determinazione del valore marginale implicito della prestazione energetica nel prezzo di offerta degli immobili residenziali, e (iv) pesatura dei benefici attesi dichiarati dai proprietari immobiliari nel commissionare una ristrutturazione energetica radicale (in inglese deep energy retrofit) della propria residenza. Per identificare e classificare i co-benefici, in relazione alle differenti attività di progetto, è stato necessario stabilire un lessico comune tra le varie espressioni e definizioni rintracciabili in diversi contesti. Si è reso inoltre necessario, nella fase preliminare, definire i confini della ricerca, così come la dimensione di riferimento, per evitare un doppio conteggio dello stesso co-beneficio. Nel capitolo 2 "Descrizione e tassonomia dei co-benefici sulla base delle esperienze europee", si propone una classificazione fondata sulle evidenze riportate dai progetti riguardanti la realizzazione di quartieri sostenibili e di sistemi energetici urbani con integrazione di fonti energetiche rinnovabili. Data la vastità e diversità dei progetti urbani definiti smart, sostenibili, o da entrambe i termini, è stato necessario individuare un sottoinsieme di progetti con caratteristiche simili ed equiparabili. Ad essi è stata attribuita la dicitura di Smart and Sustainable Energy District Projects – SSEDPs. In tal modo, l'attenzione della ricerca si è concentrata su 36 SSEDPs, alcuni già conclusi, altri ancora in esecuzione, finanziati dall’Unione Europea (UE) all’interno di due importanti iniziative: "Concerto" e "Smart Cities and Communities". I co-benefici, attesi o già riscontrati, sono stati ottenuti accedendo alle fonti ufficiali (quali siti web e report) e incrociandoli rispetto alla letteratura specializzata di settore. Si sono così ottenute 156 diverse espressioni riferibili agli impatti positivi. Dopo un confronto approfondito e iterativo condotto da un gruppo di esperti, si è giunti alla formulazione di una lista sintetica di 19 co-benefici urbani di preminente interesse. Infine, per mostrare quanto rilevante sia il contributo di questi progetti al miglioramento della qualità della vita dei cittadini e della competitività urbana, è stata elaborata una tassonomia dei co-benefici basata sulle sette dimensioni della smart city (ambiente naturale, servizi, comunità, governance, economia, ambiente costruito, mobilità). Il capitolo 3 "Metodologie di valutazione economica" affronta il problema di fornire una panoramica di quali possano essere le metodologie adeguate per la valutazione economica dei co-benefici, e di creare un quadro di riferimento applicabile ai principali co-be-nefici urbani evidenziati dagli SSEDPs finanziati dalla UE. L'obiettivo è quello di esplorare la fattibilità di un approccio allargato, incorporante i co-benefici, nella formulazione di ana-lisi costi-benefici (in inglese Cost-Benefit Analysis - CBA), e pertanto di offrire al quadro decisionale una quantificazione monetaria di tutti gli effetti positivi e negativi. A causa della specificità di alcuni co-benefici, oltre alla identificazione diretta del valore di mercato, sono state ipotizzate le tecniche non di mercato strategicamente applicabili per la definizione del loro valore. Tali tecniche permettono di indagare le preferenze dei consumatori a partire da singole abitudini di acquisto (preferenze rivelate) o chiedendo loro diretta-mente di esprimersi sulle preferenze (preferenze dichiarate). Per una minoranza di co-benefici, anche una monetizzazione del valore del capitale umano dovrebbe essere inclusa per completare l'intero quadro. Come risultato, ancora una volta riferendosi alla letteratura scientifica specializzata e coinvolgendo un team multidisciplinare di esperti nel dibattito, è stato possibile sviluppare un "menù di valutazione", suggerendo indicatori e tecniche applicabili ai progetti esaminati. Il menù comprende anche alcuni valori stimati riportati da altri studi, esempi di applicazione pratica in contesti simili, e le tecniche o approcci suggeriti per analogia alla letteratura di riferimento. Nel capitolo 4 "Un modello di prezzo edonico per l’analisi della prestazione energetica negli edifici" è testato nella città di Bolzano. Questa tecnica di stima individua i fattori determinanti il prezzo dell’immobile (applicabile alle transazioni quanto ai prezzi di offerta, come in questo caso) in base alla premessa che esso sia determinato da caratteristiche intrinseche del bene stesso posto in vendita e da caratteristiche estrinseche. La ricerca costituisce un primo tentativo di scomporre il prezzo di offerta degli immobili residenziali di Bolzano comprendendo tra i fattori rilevanti intrinseci anche la classe riportata dall'attestato di certificazione energetica (in inglese Energy performance certificate - EPC). Ac-cedendo a un portale internet immobiliare specializzato, sono stati raccolti 1.130 annunci, successivamente geolocalizzati e analizzati utilizzando sistemi informativi geografici (in inglese Geographic Information System - GIS). Lo scopo di questo passaggio, aggiuntivo rispetto ad un classico modello edonico, è stato quello di verificare la presenza di auto-correlazione spaziale, ed eventualmente correggere la stima ottenuta sulla base del metodo dei minimi quadrati (in inglese Ordinary Least Squares - OLS). Questo poiché, come evidenziato dalla letteratura, una non considerazione delle relazioni spaziali, in presenza di forte dipendenza spaziale, porterebbe a risultati distorti della stima. Dopo un attento affinamento del campione, il contributo marginale della classe energetica nella determinazione del prezzo di offerta, prendendo come base di riferimento gli immobili in classe peggiore (G), è stato stimato in un aumento del 6,3% per le classi medie (C o D), e del 9,5% per le classi più elevate (A o B), ceteris paribus. Infine, il risultato del modello di regressione dei minimi quadrati è stato confermato, dopo averlo verificato nella componente di autocorrelazione spaziale testando il modello spatial-Lag (per queste fasi sono stati utilizzati i software GIS ArcMap e GeoDa). Nel capitolo 5 "Un approccio basato sui benefici multipli per la comprensione delle priorità dei cittadini nelle ristrutturazioni energetiche", l'attenzione è stata spostata dall’analisi di un co-beneficio specifico a quella di un target specifico. Qui, le priorità dichiarate dai proprietari di immobili residenziali che si approcciano ad un deep energy retrofit della propria abitazione sono espresse e ponderate adottando un metodo di analisi di decisone multi-criteri (in inglese Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis - MCDA). Sulla base dei risultati di una prima fase test, è stato disegnato un albero del processo decisionale articolato in cinque criteri e 15 sotto-criteri, così suddivisi: quattro in "comfort termico e igrometrico"; tre in "design e qualità architettonica", "comfort acustico", "benefici economici"; due in "sostenibilità". Successivamente, un gruppo di dieci esperti nel campo della ristrutturazione energetica e nel settore dell’edilizia residenziale (selezionati tra quelli attivi in Alto Adige), è stato intervistato applicando la tecnica dell’Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), che con-sente la valutazione di criteri qualitativi attraverso il confronto a coppie. In questo studio è stato utilizzato il software "Superdecision", che è specificamente progettato per suppor-tare la raccolta dei dati e la validazione dei risultati AHP. Dai risultati ottenuti emerge, come era intuibile dato il contesto normativo attuale, che la dimensione dei "benefici economici" gioca un ruolo considerevole nella scelta (38% della rilevanza globale). Tuttavia, un'analisi trasversale dei benefici attesi che coinvolgono aspetti della salute e del benessere degli occupanti rivela che questi coprono il 41% della motivazione complessiva. Lo studio evidenzia quindi come tali punti debbano essere attentamente considerati non solo in fase di redazione dei singoli progetti, ma anche nelle strategie di comunicazione e all'interno di ciascuna fase di partecipazione nel caso di progetti nei quali il decisore (pubblico o privato) non corrisponda all'occupante. La tesi termina con il capitolo 6 "Conclusioni", dove sonno riepilogati i percorsi delle quattro indagini precedentemente descritte e sono brevemente riassunti i risultati. Sono inoltre evidenziati possibili sviluppi futuri, proposti come un impulso per indagini più approfondite o per ricerche trasversali.

Cave di pietra sono state scavate da lungo tempo in Cisgiordania per soddisfare la crescente domanda di materiale da costruzione. Fino ad oggi non sono noti piani di gestione per l'uso post-estrazione dei siti abbandonati. Cave abbandonate senza trattamento dopo la chiusura possono causare dissesti al territorio ed esercitare significativi impatti ambientali. Questi impatti vanno dalla rimozione degli ecosistemi originari, a significative variazioni della topografia originaria del territorio, fino alla rottura irreversibile dei rapporti ecologici fondamentali e alla conseguente riduzione della biodiversità. La presente tesi di dottorato riguarda la valutazione dei rischi ambientali provocati dalle cave di pietra nella regione meridionale della Cisgiordania e le prospettive di riutilizzo di cave abbandonate nel territorio di designazione. L'area di interesse di 80 km2 è stata determinata e delineata sulla base della distribuzione delle cave e dei distretti urbani circostanti. I siti delle cave sono stati suddivisi in nove gruppi oltre ad una quarantina di cave al di fuori di questi cluster. Ogni cluster è stato delineato e descritto in termini di area e di numero di cave. La posizione di ciascuna cava all'interno e all'esterno del cluster è stata anche determinata utilizzando fotografie aeree. Per fornire i dati necessari per la valutazione dei rischi ambientali e gli strumenti di pianificazione dell'uso del territorio, la situazione fisica e demografica della zona è stata descritta. Le cave sono state esaminate e i potenziali impatti sul terreno circostante derivanti dall’utilizzo delle cave stesse sono stati individuati nel corso di visite a ciascun sito della zona. Diverse caratteristiche geografiche sono state incluse nell'analisi e nella valutazione degli impatti ambientali negativi delle cave. Gli seguenti impatti ambientali sono stati esaminati in base ai dati raccolti :-( Inquinamento ambientale che comprende "l'inquinamento dell'aria / Inquinamento acustico / inquinamento delle acque / inquinamento del suolo"; effetti sull’uso dei terreni; effetti sulla biodiversità, gli effetti sul paesaggio e gli effetti socio-economici) . Durante il periodo di studio, molte visite sul campo sono state effettuate a diverse cave abbandonate nell'area di studio. Inoltre, diverse visite ai Comuni delle tre principali città dell’area di studio sono state effettuate. Un’analisi della letteratura scientifica pubblicata da diversi Enti e Ministeri, incluso l’ufficio centrale di statistica della Palestina), relativa al settore del marmo e della pietra è stata effettuata dall'inizio della ricerca. Per quanto riguarda la delimitazione dell'area di studio, un progetto dettagliato utilizzando il Geographical Information System (GIS) è stato fatto per descrivere gli aspetti fisici e demografici dell'area comprendente i siti di cava.Caratteristiche fisiche e dati sulla popolazione per l'intera area sono stati raccolti e inseriti nella struttura GIS. Questi dati possono essere catalogati come segue :-( Copertura del suolo / uso, topografia, suolo, geologia, strade principali e locali e aree urbane). Raccomandazioni finali sono state suddivise in commenti generali a lungo termine rivolti a enti governativi e di pianificazione e raccomandazioni pratiche a breve termine rivolte a qualsiasi organizzazione che può sponsorizzare la realizzazione di programmi di riabilitazione di alcuni siti specifici. La classifica di usi post-chiusura proposti in questo studio per rispondere alle specifiche esigenze di utilizzo del territorio sono: bonifica dei terreni a fini agricoli o progetti di sviluppo (campi da gioco con i servizi al dettaglio, giardini, impianti di compostaggio, serbatoi d'acqua temporanei, unità abitative e centri di salute). Secondo i dati raccolti e le analisi condotte, l'uso ottimale del suolo di queste cave abbandonate è stato determinato in base alle caratteristiche dell’ ambiente circostante e il loro stato fisico e demografico. Nel presente studio, una banca dati ambientale è stata creata utilizzando i Sistemi Informativi Geografici (GIS) e mediante la verifica incrociata dei dati riguardanti le cave abbandonate e la loro localizzazione, sulla base di diverse aree di pianificazione designate con le priorità di sviluppo della località e le priorità che sono state stabilite dalle autorità amministrative delle zone circostanti. I risultati della ricerca mostrano che la maggior parte delle cave abbandonate si trova in aree designate per la conservazione rispetto alle aree destinate a progetti di sviluppo. Pertanto, cave abbandonate che si trovano in zone di conservazione devono essere riabilitate come spazi aperti. Quelli nelle zone urbane e rurali dovrebbero essere riabilitate come progetti di sviluppo, o come spazi aperti per usi agricoli o combinati.
The stone quarries in the West Bank were long excavated to meet the increasing demand for building material. Until to date of this search, there exist no plans for post-quarrying use of the abandoned sites. Quarries that are left untreated after closure cause extensive land disturbances and have negative safety and environmental impacts. The impact is ranging from the removal of the original ecosystems, the significant change of the original topography, the irreversible disruption of the fundamental ecological relations, and the reduced biodiversity. The core of this study is the evaluation of the environmental risks resulted from the stone quarries in the southern part of the West Bank are and the aspects of rehabilitating abandoned quarries and their future designation land use, emphasizing the theme of abandoned quarries in the study area. The area of interest of 80 km2 was determined and delineated based on the distribution of quarries and the surrounding urbanized clusters. Quarrying sites are divided into nine clusters and about fourty quarries outside these clusters. Each cluster was delineated and described in terms of its area and the number of quarries. The location of each quarry outside and inside cluster was also determined using aerial photographs. To provide the data necessary for the assessment of environmental risks and land-use planning tools, the physical and demographic statuses of the area were described. The quarry were examined and potential impacts on the surrounding land-uses were identified during a site visits to the area. Various thematic geographic features have been included in the analysis and evaluation of the quarries negative environmental impacts. The following environmental impacts were addressed according to the collected data:-(Environmental Pollution which includes”air pollution/Noise pollution/water pollution/soil pollution”;effects on land use;effects on biodiversity;effects on landscape and socio-economical effects). During the study period, many site and field visits were carried out to several abandoned quarries in the study area. In the other hand, several visits to the Municipalities of the main three cites of our study area were carried out. A literature survey for all the related material to stone and marble industry was carried out since the beginning of the research. It included the publications of the Stone and Marble Industry Union and other applied researches published by researchers from the local universities and scientific institutions, publications of the Environmental Quality Authority (EQA), Ministry of National Economy, Ministry of Agriculture ,Municipalities of the four towns and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). As to the area delineation part, a detailed, intensive and comprehensive work using the Geographical Information System (GIS) was done, the physical and demographic statuses of the area were being described. The quarry sites and their areas have been examined. Physical features and population data for the whole area were collected and inserted into the GIS structure. These data could be displayed as follows:-(Land cover/use, topography, soil, geology, main and local roads and the built up area clusters). Final recommendations have been divided into general long term addressed to governmental and planning bodies and Practical short term recommendations are addressed for any organization which can sponsor implementing rehabilitation programs for some of the recommended sites. The ranked post-closure uses proposed in this study response to the specific land use needs are: land reclamation for agricultural purposes or development projects (playing fields with retail services, gardens, composting facility, temporary water reservoir, housing units and health center). According to the collected data and analysis, the optimal land use of these abandoned quarries was determined according to the characteristics of their nearby environment and their physical and demographic status. In the present study, an environmental database was created by using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and by cross-checking data of abandoned quarries and their location according to different designated planning areas with the locality development priorities and needs that were set by the administrative authorities of the surrounding area. The research findings show that more abandoned quarries are located in areas designated for conservation than in areas intended for development projects. Therefore, abandoned quarries that are located in conservation areas should be rehabilitated as open spaces. Those in urban and rural areas should be rehabilitated as development projects, or as open spaces and agricultural land uses, or as combined land uses.

The research opens a new chapter about the studies conducted until now on the traditional architecture of the smaller towns in Sardinia, which I have been part from 2007 to 2010 and has been completed with the editing of Manuals Retrieval of the historical centers of Sardinia. The research started from a socio-anthropological knowledge of the characters, urban and technological centers and from the study of the traditional Sardinian architecture. Furthermore, having the opportunity to meet the Mediterranean architecture on the same viewpoints, the research investigates the archetypal elements of traditional architecture under the aspect of composition. It looks at the ways in which the contemporary design strategies, released by ideological references, take them over elaborating them, comparing with the memory of places, beyond of every stylistic affiliation. Belonging to minimalist positions, regionalist or post-modern resuming solutions, contextualizing and reinterpreting them in a practical and empirical way, even trying to see which characters and modes could be identified as typical and recurrent. This kind of research, which specifically aims to verify the composition and some elements of the experience of this project, needs to be based on the knowledge of the culture and the debate which marked the activity of designers in the near past, from the first modernity trying to recognize which characters were conditioners, which continue to influence the present and which are typical and original in the actuality. For this reason, the research has an introductory part which incorporates some emblematic moments of the debate on the architecture of the twentieth century, referring to reality and figures of the Mediterranean. One is the myth of modernity celebrated from the first rationalism, especially in Italy and Spain, the other one is the debate about the historical centers of the late twentieth century, still typical of our country: in the first season the traditional Mediterranean architecture is transformed into a progressive ideal used to specify shapes and intentions of the new architecture, especially in its character of anonymity and puristic reduction. The first part of the research, introduces the relationship between modern architecture and Mediterranean inspiration and deepens in a critical manner, the weakness of the concept of Mediterranean, founded on one hand in a sham and on the other on how rationalism looks at the historical landscape searching for a radical overhaul of the style of architecture. The Mediterranean myth in the Italian architecture is mainly influenced by the idea of the correspondence of the formal themes of modernity and is used for political reasons in order to find a place of modern Italian positions within the regime. The Mediterranean architecture is not, therefore, re-interpreted conservatively, but revised into a new paradigm, a new way of imagining the architecture. In the second part, by the pre-war myth, still literary and idealized, we move to a more critical and accurate knowledge to the empirical verification and philological sort order, losing the progressive tension of the first season and building a system of strict preservation rules, revealed, too deterministic and inhibitory. The weakness of the rationalist positions, reveals the architecture of the Second World War, who looked to the Mediterranean, devoid by now, of the ideal tension during the rationalism: it is less parallelism between cutting-edge research and charm of the Mediterranean landscape and the question begins to focus more on the relationship with the towns, with the existing environment, and for a certain range of the debate, with the preservation of historic centers, up to produce more and become part of the theories of critical regionalism, political manifesto, as Frampton says, of resistance towards globalization. The enhancement of local realities is no longer specific to the Mediterranean, but is extended: it is as if the great architecture of Mediterranean figures lost part of the universal value, which instead is recognized during rationalism. In the present, after the crisis of the great paradigms interpretive, the debate about relationship between new and old loses strength and becomes eccentric compared to issues considered preeminent. Some great works receive media attention representing particular methodologies, these are exceptional circumstances, related to charismatic personalities who avoid to define a strong theory. This research select a field of attentive investigation to the works of medium size on which you can recognize an empirical approach (not programmatic), which could be recognized as typical of this period. An approach that addresses issues that in the past were strongly ideological - the relation between modernity and tradition and continuity and rupture with the figures of history - out of those programmatic intentions and norms: in this way many architects of the younger generation, active in the Mediterranean territories, they built a sensitive and imaginative dialogue between the elements inherited from the context and strategies - even radical - of contemporary design, defining a fertile scene and interesting to build new methodologies and practices of intervention. Currently there is no attention to the great paradigm, but an open and practical approach. I will approach the scope of this study as part of the Mediterranean, in order to understand the outcome of discussions which are the current approaches and isolating a specific subject of the tradition, one of the most characteristic, trying to figure out how the projects chosen take up and rework the issue. The modulation of the light, treated according to the manner in which you relate to some elements of tradition: the dematerialization of the building mass, the dimming systems, gaps in the patio and courtyard and places of shade. Each of the examples treated, shows that there is a traditional way to control the light that has characterized the Mediterranean architecture of the past and that has been expressed by the categories identified. I prove that there are contemporary projects which reflect those solutions contextualizing and reinterpreting them in an empirical and practical way: this is very interesting because it demonstrates the vitality of the relationship between contemporary architecture and history and how certain paradigms of the Mediterranean tradition have survived as a cultural and architectural legacy, in the attempt to offer a possible answer to the complexity of the problems posed by the existing historic and how have been reinterpreted. Beyond each "nuovismo", as well as the obsession of memory, which often gave rise to an analytical mummification that carries with it the nostalgic for the unachievable quality of the ancient city and the assurance of the absence of quality of the city modern-contemporary, can be an alternative based on the careful study of places to go back to the essential qualities that the architectures are realized in it.

Over the past decades, public concern about global environmental change has grown, following the progressive increase in both frequency and intensity of extreme events. Even though the problem is global, it has proved to have very different societal and environmental impacts at local level, further widening the gap between disadvantaged and advantaged communities, according to the degree of vulnerability of their social, economic and environmental systems. Among the various anthropogenic activities, the agricultural sector is particularly linked to global environmental change by a two-way relationship: on the one hand, intensive mono-cultures, together with intensive livestock production, compromise the environment and produce huge CO$_2$ emissions (one of the most important factors behind global warming); on the other hand, smallholder farming is one of the most endangered sectors by global environmental change, precisely because it depends heavily on the natural resources of the territory, including favourable weather and climate. Scientific research, supported by international institutions, has been working on this subject for several decades, analysing phenomena at global and local scale and providing medium and long-term forecasts capable of directing economic and political strategies. Such complex investigations become even more complex in contexts lacking reliable environmental data, where their low-quality and low representativeness weaken their reliability, compromising the reliability of the outcomes as well. This thesis seeks to respond to the increasing need of realistically addressing environmental phenomena that threaten rural communities and the environment on which they depend in low-income countries, by investigating two of the main environmental factors affecting tropical farming practices: river-floodplain dynamics and climate change. Despite data-related constraints, the environment of tropical rural areas still provides a unique opportunity to study several near-natural processes, such as the morphodynamics of mostly free-flowing rivers. Especially in foothill regions, unconfined or partially confined conditions of tropical rivers allow evaluating the natural dynamics of erodible river corridors, with erosion and accretion shaping their interactions with the adjacent floodplain and related human activities. At the same time, the complex terrain characterizing the river valleys at the foothills of high mountain chains also offers the opportunity to study interesting local meteorological processes, especially considering the interaction between synoptic-scale dynamics and local convective phenomena. In this context, local bottom-up initiatives and new and tailored-to-context strategies for adaptation to the ongoing environmental change are deepened following a multidisciplinary approach. This PhD research has been framed within an international cooperation project entitled “Sustainable Development and Fight against Climate Change in the Upper Huallaga basin (Peru)”, promoted by Mandacarù ONLUS, and funded by the Autonomous Province of Trento. The project aimed to enhance the resilience of the local farmers of the Upper Huallaga valley (Peru), facing the consequences of climate change and implementing new agricultural initiatives with a special attention to plantain and banana fields. Thanks to the support of the involved partners (Redesign by PROMER s.a.c., the Universidad Agraria Nacional de la Selva de Tingo Maria, in Peru, and the Edmund Mach Foundation of San Michele all’Adige, in Italy), the project provided the opportunity to carry out a consistent set of fieldwork activities over an 8-months period collecting hydro-morphological data, interviewing the local population, and installing two weather stations. The PhD thesis has been structured along two main parts, related to to the assessment of climate change effects on local agricultural practices, and the interplay between river-floodplain dynamics and floodplain agriculture. The part on the assessment of climate change includes two main research elements. First, a novel approach is used to evaluate climate change in data-scarce contexts: non-conventional data sources (population survey) are compared with conventional data sources (few local historical weather stations and global reanalysis data series – ERA5), to better account for the sub-daily time scale (local conventional sources only provide daily data), correlating weather changes perceived by farmers (more thunderstorms and longer drought periods) with climate variations deduced from quantitative data. Second, after having determined the most impacting meteorological variables on crops through the survey, a weather early-warning system has been developed to provide agro-meteorological forecasts to the \textit{bananeros} (banana farmers) of the Upper Huallaga valley. The system, based on the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, and enhanced with the assimilation of real-time observations from local meteorological stations installed during the project fieldwork, issues an alert when the predicted wind speed exceeds thresholds related to potential damage to the harvest, and spreads the warning via text messages. Such alerting system contains several novel features in relation to the socio-environmental context, allowing to discuss its potential for replication in analogous, vulnerable situations. The part on river-floodplain dynamics also includes two main research elements. First, a remote-sensing analysis is conducted at reach scale in two different reaches of the Huallaga River, quantifying geomorphological river trajectories and land use changes in the adjacent floodplain. The outcomes show that river morphology reacts differently depending on the agricultural systems (extensive or intensive) in the nearby floodplain, revealing a high geomorphological sensitivity of such a near-natural, highly dynamic river reach. Second, riverine agriculture within the erodible river corridor is analysed in association with riverine islands dynamics, at the geomorphic unit scale, evaluating the morphological evolution and agricultural suitability of two cultivated fluvial islands. The three main drivers of agricultural suitability within river erodible corridors, i.e. river disturbance, cultivation windows of opportunity, and soil suitability are quantified, allowing to generalize a process-based conceptual model of riverine islands as complex-adaptive-systems.

La condizione digitale che ha gradualmente ibridato le nostre esistenze, trasformando atomi in bit, si è oggi cementificata sulla nostra società, arricchendone la postmodernità e determinando una nuova liquidità acuitasi con l’avvento di internet. Un momento storico segnato da una nuova maturità del digitale, evidente nel nostro diverso rapporto con i dati, e nella diffusione di metodi di machine learning avanzato, che promettono una nuova capacità di comprensione della complessità contemporanea e nel frattempo contribuiscono alla propagazione dell’apparato tecnico sul mondo. Questi cambiamenti, tanto profondi da toccare la nostra cultura, stanno modificando il nostro modo di interpretare e istituire lo spazio, e quindi di abitarlo: condizioni che hanno sicuramente delle ripercussioni sul progetto di architettura nella sua qualità di attività umana rivolta all’uomo. L’incremento di complessità che ha toccato la nostra disciplina con la postmodernità ha nel frattempo trovato nuovo sostegno nella decostruzione Derridiana, in un momento storico segnato da una grande enfasi sulle opportunità degli strumenti digitali, che abbiamo accolto all’interno della nostra disciplina dapprima esclusivamente come mezzi di rappresentazione e che hanno poi determinato l’emergere di nuovi approcci basati sulle potenzialità inclusive di continuità e variazione. Nessuno tra i protagonisti della prima svolta digitale immaginava probabilmente, gli effetti che la cultura digitale produce oggi sul progetto di architettura, forte di quasi trent’anni di sperimentazioni e cambiamenti, tanto metodologici e formali quanto organizzativi e strumentali, a partire dalla ascesa del BIM sino alle nuove possibilità algoritmiche ben rappresentate dai linguaggi di programmazione visuale e dalle simulazioni numeriche. Strumenti su cui si è concentrato lo slancio verso il digitale, che intanto in architettura ha vissuto una seconda svolta, identificata da Carpo negli approcci progettuali oggi possibili grazie a una nuova disponibilità di dati. Una condizione che inevitabilmente tocca tanto la scienza quanto l’architettura, e che non è tuttavia sufficiente a descrivere una contemporaneità in cui la tecnica dispiega le ali sull’architettura, incidendo il significato del nostro ruolo all’interno della società. A partire da queste ramificate considerazioni, consapevole della complessità con cui dobbiamo dialogare nel tentativo di ricostruire una visione il più possibile neutrale, storica e organica della fase che l’architettura sta vivendo, è necessario, a mio avviso, un approccio olistico: inclusivo, capace tanto di estendersi fino ad acquisire una prospettiva filosofica, così come di scendere verso il dettaglio tecnico, operativo, metodologico, strumentale e relazionale. Un proposito che cerco di mantenere vivo all’interno di tutto il mio lavoro di tesi, condensazione di tre anni di ricerca, che nelle sue diverse fasi guarda alle mutazioni che la tecnica digitale sta producendo nella società e quindi nel progetto di architettura. Il mio percorso è arricchito da dieci interviste raccolte con importanti protagonisti dell’architettura contemporanea, che ringrazio sin da ora per la loro grande disponibilità. Queste testimonianze mi hanno permesso di toccare con mano le complessità della progettazione contemporanea e rappresentano un polo di questa tesi, ugualmente volta a fornire un’interpretazione storica delle sfide poste in essere dalla contemporaneità e quindi all’identificazione delle responsabilità che dobbiamo assumerci per mantenere l’uomo al centro del nostro fare.
The digital condition that has gradually hybridized our lives, transforming atoms into bits, has now cemented itself in our society, enriching post-modernity and determining a new form of liquidity that has sharpened with the advent of the internet. It is a historical moment marked by a new digital maturity, evident in our diverse relationship to data and in the spread of advanced machine learning methods, which both promise a new understanding of contemporary complexity as well as contribute to the propagation of the technical apparatus throughout the world. These changes, so profound as to affect our culture, are changing our way of perceiving space, and therefore of inhabiting it: conditions that undoubtedly have repercussions on architectural design in its capacity as a human activity geared towards human beings. The increased complexity that has touched our discipline with Postmodernism has meanwhile found new support in Derridian deconstruction, in a historical moment marked by great emphasis on the opportunities that digital tools offer. These are means we first welcomed into our discipline exclusively as tools for representation, and ones that then themselves determined the emergence of new approaches based on the inclusive potential of continuity and variation. None of the protagonists of the first digital turn could probably have imagined the effects that digital culture would now be having on architectural design. A digital culture that has become increasingly stronger due to almost thirty years of both methodological and formal experimentation, as well as to organizational and instrumental changes, starting with the rise of BIM to new algorithmic possibilities represented by visual programming languages and numerical simulations. These have been the primary tools of concentration in the push towards digital, a digital which today has reached a second turn in the field of architecture, identified by Carpo in new design approaches that are now possible thanks to the larger availability of data. A condition that inevitably affects both science and architectural design, but which, nevertheless, fails to fully share a contemporaneity where technology spreads its wings as far as architecture is concerned, thus affecting the meaning of our role within society. With these multifaceted considerations as a starting point, and fully aware of how complex the dialogue we must engage in in order to reconstruct a neutral, historical, and organic as possible vision of the phase that architecture is experiencing, it is my opinion a holistic approach must be established by us. One that is both inclusive and capable of expanding to the point of acquiring a philosophical perspective, as well as being able to attend to areas that cover technical, operational, methodological, instrumental, and relational details. This objective is one I have striven to keep alive throughout the three years of my doctoral research, which in its various phases looks at the mutations that digital technology is producing in society and therefore in architectural design. My research is enriched by the inclusion of ten interviews with prominent protagonists of contemporary architecture, for whose time and availability I am grateful. These testimonials allowed me to see the complexities of contemporary design up close and personal, and they represent a central part of this thesis, which equally aims to provide a historical interpretation of the challenges posed by contemporaneity and to identify the responsibilities that we must uphold for human beings to remain at the centre of our work.

This work points out the development of the city of Casablanca, from the colonial period under the French Protectorate until nowadays. A multidisciplinary approach, from the history of architecture to sociology and visual ethnography, has been used to analyse the different urban policies developed for social housing and the inner meanings that the inhabitants link to their home and to the general idea of inhabiting. The analysis of National Archives sources in Morocco and French has been reinforced by a field research. The fieldwork has been carried out in two different moments: in 2015 and in 2017, with some people living in what we have defined as the main models of social housing, implemented during the French government: the slums, the cités ouvrières (workers gated community) and the collective buildings. These spaces have been in the past, and are still nowadays, battleground of social conflicts, in opposition to the dominant system of power. Casablanca, and Morocco in general, is carrying out a strong policy to eradicate slums and informal settlements and the idea of social housing has been implementing with a facilitation to the access of property, not always affordable for people with low incomes. At the same time, thanks to the stability of the monarchy, huge foreign investments are overcoming to finance the construction of international financial hubs and multinational offshore activities. We have then explored the question of what the role of the inhabitants within these processes is and mostly what their narration of the history that involves them is. The realization of an ethnographical documentary has helped us to investigate these subjects.

The first part of the work reports on the results of the investigations about users’ attitudes towards ARTS and conventional buses that have been carried out, within the CityMobil2 project, in twelve cities, through a common stated preference questionnaire. The related econometric analysis has been based on the estimation of a logit model with two alternatives considered: ARTS and minibus. Besides the contribution of the attributes of waiting time, riding time and fare, it has been estimated the alternative specific constant (ASC) of the ARTS, which represents the mean of all the unobserved attributes of the automated system affecting the choice; a positive value of the ASC, the observed attributes being the same, indicates a relatively higher preference for the ARTS. This is the situation for the cities where the ARTS is implemented inside a major facility. Instead, the effect of the socio-economic attributes of the users, turns out to be heterogeneous accross cities. The second part of the work reports on the technical and economic-financial analysis of an ARTS tested on a route on the seafront of Oristano (Sardinia, Italy). In particular, a cost-benefit analysis where ARTS is compared with conventional minibus is conducted. The differential consumer’s surplus is quantified employing site-specific values for waiting time, riding time and the ASC, derived from the estimation of the logit models. The results show the existence of several feasibility areas for the ARTS, depending on the potential demand level assumed.

L’ARCHITETTURA DELLE OPERE DI DIFESA DEL SUOLO COME RAFFORZAMENTO DEI CARATTERI IDENTITARI DEL PAESAGGIO La ricerca è incentrata sul valore che le architetture delle opere di difesa dai rischi assumono rispetto ai luoghi urbani e ai loro paesaggi aperti, intesi come "patrimonio" identitario da salvaguardare e valorizzare. Attraverso la ricerca si vuole mettere a punto e definire un metodo, che per analogia, indaga sui modi attraverso cui si riconoscano le buone pratiche o anche le criticità rispetto all’esperienza progettuale dell’architettura. La tesi è composta e si divide in tre parti. La prima parte fissa i temi d’approccio alla ricerca indagando sulle condizioni di fragilità dei territori legati al tema del rischio idrogeologico, e sui caratteri formali e espressivi assunti delle opere di difesa. La seconda parte ricerca invece tenta di definire attraverso un approccio morfologico, la relazione implicita che le scienze dure e le forme tecniche stabiliscono con le forme fisiche, rendendo questa relazione più evidente attraverso il disegno. Questo aspetto propedeutico al lavoro sul progetto si pone a metà tra la geografia fisica e l’ingegneria idraulica, e cerca di rendere più evidenti i legami morfologici tra le forme tecniche e le forme orografiche. La terza parte mette a punto un metodo per analogia, che definisca un metodo attraverso l’esperienza sul progetto della messa in sicurezza dal rischio idrogeologico, svolta nel dominio dell’architettura. Si tenta di esplicitare le forme fisiche e le forme tecniche descritte nella seconda parte con l’interpretazione e la definizione formale del progetto di architettura, basati sui principi definiti in ambito teorico e validati attraverso l’applicazione progettuale. Nello specifico i progetti scelti tentano di risolvere il problema di riuscire a convivere con la condizione dell’inondazione, nella definizione di forme che possono accompagnare la dinamica della trasformazione. Il riconoscimento delle operazioni architettoniche, prova a dare attraverso un ragionamento sulle forme, principi di adeguatezza o di inappropriatezza sul valore di queste opere. In questa prospettiva il progetto di messa in sicurezza viene considerato, piuttosto che come un insieme di "rimedi" puntuali slegati tra loro, come una opportunità di ripensamento e ridefinizione del paesaggio a scala urbana e territoriale. Attraverso il progetto mitigativo si vuole cogliere allora l'occasione per ripensare e rinnovare la forma di questi paesaggi, esaltando i loro caratteri identitari, e trasformandoli in luoghi sicuri, protetti e fruibili.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF SOIL DEFENSE WORKS AS A STRENGTHENING OF THE IDENTITY CHARACTERS OF THE LANDSCAPE The research focuses on the value that the architectures of risk-defending works assume with respect to urban places and their open landscapes, understood as identity "heritage" to be safeguarded and enhanced. The research aims to develop and define a method, which by analogy, investigates the ways in which good practices or even critical issues with respect to the project experience of architecture are recognized. The thesis is composed and is divided into three parts. The first part sets out the research approach themes by investigating the fragile conditions of the territories linked to the theme of hydrogeological risk, and the formal and expressive characteristics assumed of the defense works. The second part of the research instead attempts to define through a morphological approach, the implicit relationship that hard sciences and technical forms establish with physical forms, making this relationship more evident through drawing. This preparatory aspect to the work on the project is halfway between physical geography and hydraulic engineering, and seeks to make more evident the morphological links between technical forms and orographic forms. The third part develops a method by analogy, which defines a method through the experience on the project of safety from hydrogeological risk, carried out in the domain of architecture. An attempt is made to explain the physical forms and technical forms described in the second part with the interpretation and formal definition of the architectural project, based on the principles defined in the theoretical field and validated through the project application. Specifically, the projects chosen attempt to solve the problem of being able to live with the condition of flooding, in the definition of forms that can accompany the dynamics of the transformation. The recognition of architectural operations, tries to give through an argumentation on the forms, principles of adequacy or inappropriateness on the value of these works. In this perspective, the safety project is considered, rather than as a set of punctual "remedies" unrelated to each other, as an opportunity for rethinking and redefining the landscape on an urban and territorial scale. Through the mitigating project, we want to take the opportunity to rethink and renew the shape of these landscapes, enhancing their identity characteristics, and transforming them into safe, protected and usable places.

Il cambiamento climatico e l’intensa attività sismica sottolineano l'inadeguatezza del patrimonio edilizio esistente a proteggere la vita dei cittadini dai danni che possono verificarsi durante il ciclo di vita di un edificio. Più della metà degli edifici esistenti è stata costruita a partire dal 1950 senza adeguate caratteristiche tecniche e costruttive a causa della fretta di ricostruire le città danneggiate dalla guerra. Le criticità prestazionali che caratterizzano tali organismi sono legate a diversi fattori, quali l’insufficiente capacità strutturale dovuta alla cattiva progettazione dei dettagli tecnici, la presenza di materiali inadeguati e deteriorati, metodologie di esecuzione errate e mancanza di manutenzione. Negli ultimi anni, la politica di recupero attuata dagli Stati Membri dell’Unione Europea, è diventata la strategia a lungo termine principale per ridurre le emissioni di gas serra ed i costi energetici legati alla necessità di riscaldamento invernale e di raffrescamento estivo degli edifici. Il recupero energetico mira a trasformare le strutture esistenti in edifici a energia quasi zero (nZEB) al fine di migliorare il comfort indoor e proteggere la salute degli utenti. D'altra parte, adattare le strutture esistenti agli standard dei nuovi codici edilizi antisismici, ha lo scopo di mitigare le conseguenze legate all’intensa azione sismica. Attualmente, gli interventi tradizionali che mirano a limitare tali problematiche richiedono tempi e procedure di esecuzione lunghe, costose, talvolta pericolose ma soprattutto suddivise per categorie di lavoro ovvero a seconda del campo di applicazione per il quale sono richiesti. Questa tesi di dottorato, dunque, propone un’innovativa tecnologia di recupero basata su un sistema di pannelli prefabbricati innovativi dedicati all’ottimizzazione energetica e strutturale delle prestazioni degli edifici esistenti in cemento armato. Essa consiste nel rivestire l’edificio con moduli prefabbricati ad alte prestazioni termiche per mezzo di elementi metallici direttamente installati sulla facciata. La funzione di irrigidimento è garantita da un getto di calcestruzzo alleggerito nella cavità risultante tra la nuova facciata e l'edificio esistente, conferendo maggiore portanza e solidità alla struttura. La nuova tecnologia permette di integrare, già durante le fasi di installazione del sistema, dei sensori di monitoraggio atti a garantire il controllo delle prestazioni dell'edificio durante il suo ciclo di vita. Esso ha lo scopo di ridurre i tempi ed i costi di manutenzione e prevenire possibili danni irreversibili dell'edificio. Grazie ad un’attenta analisi dello stato dell'arte, all’osservazione delle procedure di prefabbricazione presso l'azienda partner del progetto, è stato possibile definire le condizioni e gli specifici obiettivi sul quale fondare il progetto del nuovo sistema tecnologico. In aggiunta, lo studio delle tipologie edilizie più diffuse all'interno del territorio Europeo e Nazionale ha condotto alla scelta del tipo di facciata meno performante dal punto di vista energetico per la quale approfondire la progettazione del sistema. Procedendo per scale di dettaglio a partire dalla caratterizzazione del materiale di isolamento del modulo prefabbricato, concepito con utilizzo di materiale proveniente dagli scarti industriali, si è giunti allo studio della configurazione dimensionale del pannello e della tecnologia di connessione con la facciata esistente, fornendo indicazioni sull’approccio di calcolo da utilizzare. Inoltre, grazie all'utilizzo di software di analisi agli elementi finiti, è stata fornita la metodologia preliminare per la verifica termo-igrometrica della stratigrafia in aggiunta all’approccio numerico di verifica del comportamento strutturale sotto l'azione sismica. Con la finalità di verificare preliminarmente il comportamento simulato del sistema applicato ad un edificio esistente, è stato selezionato un idoneo caso di studio italiano avente caratteristiche coerenti con la tipologia edilizia scelta per la progettazione del sistema tecnologico. Dai primi risultati è emerso che l’innovativo sistema di pannelli prefabbricati conferisce benefici in termini di riduzione delle dispersioni termiche, protezione dal rischio di formazione di ponti termici e irrigidimento strutturale a scapito però della duttilità dell'apparato portante. In seguito alla fase di progettazione e alla verifica preliminare delle prestazioni dell’innovativo sistema tecnologico si è passati alla validazione industriale dei componenti prefabbricati, delle procedure di fabbricazione e delle fasi di installazione del sistema, presso l’azienda partner del progetto. Pertanto, a partire dalla riproduzione su grande scala della nuova malta alleggerita, sono stati realizzati sei moduli prefabbricati, distinti secondo due categorie dimensionali al fine di comprendere le questioni legate alla loro movimentazione ed installazione. La simulazione di intervento di recupero è stata effettuata su un campione di muro costruito con le caratteristiche dell’edificio del secondo dopoguerra considerato nella fase di progettazione. L'esito positivo della prova di installazione e completamento dell’intervento, ha validato la procedura, i calcoli ed i dettagli costruttivi dell’innovativo sistema tecnologico.
Climate change and recent seismic activity have underlined the inadequacy of the existing RC building stock to protect people from damages that may occur during the building’s life cycle. More than 50% of the existing buildings, constructed in the second post-War World, does not present suitable technical and constructive features due to the haste of rebuilding the cities. They present criticalities regarding performance and durability related to many issues: insufficient structural capacity due to bad designed technical details, obsoleted, inadequate, and deteriorated materials, incorrect execution methods and lack of maintenance. The renovation of these buildings has become a primary long-term strategy in the European scenario. The energy retrofit have the aim to transform the existing buildings into nearly zero-energy buildings, reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and the energy costs related to the need for winter heating and summer cooling. It brings benefits to the internal environment and to the people health and safety. On the other hand, the purpose to adapt the existing structures to the anti-seismic building codes, is mitigating the damage caused by the earthquakes to property and people. Nowadays, there are many traditional interventions which aim to renovate the buildings, though they are expensive, involve long, difficult, and not prompt procedures, but above all, they are separated according to work categories. This doctoral thesis proposes an innovative building renovation system of novel precast concrete (PC) modules devoted to the optimization of the energy and structural performance of the existing RC buildings. It consists in covering the façade with the PC modules with high thermal performance, by means steel elements directly installed on the building. The structural strengthening is assured by a cast-onsite lightweight concrete in the resulting cavity between the novel and the existing wall. Moreover, the system project takes into account the possibility to insert into the stratigraphy, performance monitoring devises for the diagnosis and building automation already during the construction phases and inspect them anytime in case of maintenance. The aim is decreasing time and costs of maintenance, monitoring the building performance, and preventing the damages in case of bad functioning or structural uncertainty. The analysis of the existing building typologies has led to the choice of the less performed façade for which the system stratigraphy has been designed. It has been assumed that if the system improves the performance of the worst building façade for complying with the national codes, it is verified also for the other typologies for which a specific project is necessary. In compliance with the principles of environmental and economic sustainability, the PC panels contain materials from industrial wastes. In detail, an innovative lightweight mortar with recycled Extruded Sintered Polystyrene (rEPS) has been designed and tested in order to get a performed insulating material with high thermal properties. Initial simulated analyses have been performed to understand the system characteristics of thermal insulation, structural strengthening, thus, to apport improvements on technical details. Finiteelement- method models (FEM-models) have been realized with COMSOL Multiphysics software for thermal investigation and SAP2000 for structural assessment. An Italian meaningful case study has been considered in order to simulate the application of the system and estimate the benefits it provides in terms of thermal performance and structural strengthening. The results show deep improvements in thermal performance and stiffness of the building, although a reduction of ductile capacity occurs. Six prototypes of the PC panel have been realized in compliance with the project partner enterprise with the aim to comprehend the production procedure of the building component. The panels have been distinguished in two dimensional categories in function of the height to better understand the ease of transport and installation. A RC frame with brick infill wall has been constructed with features similar to which of the existing building typology selected to design the technology. The wall dimensions have been chosen for applying the six panels in two rows and three columns. Finally, the theoretical procedure for the technological system installation has been really applied to the sample in order to verify the suitability of the phases and the coupling of the panels along vertical and horizontal direction. The positive result of the installation test validated the procedure and the design details.
El cambio climático, unido a la intensa actividad sísmica, pone de manifiesto la falta de adecuación del patrimonio construido existente para proteger la vida de los ciudadanos ante los daños que pueden producirse durante el ciclo de vida de un edificio. Debido a la premura por reconstruir las ciudades tras la II Guerra Mundial, más de la mitad de los edificios existentes se construyeron a partir del 1950 sin las características técnicas adecuadas. Habitualmente, los problemas que caracterizan a estas construcciones se relacionan con su insuficiente capacidad estructural debido a detalles técnicos incorrectos, la presencia de materiales inadecuados y su progresivo deterioro, métodos de ejecución inapropiados, y la falta de mantenimiento. Además, en los últimos años, en materia de Edificación, las políticas de de la Unión Europea, y por ende de los Estados Miembros, se han focalizado en la reducción de las emisiones de gases del efecto invernadero de los edificios y de los costes energéticos relacionados con las necesidades de calefacción en invierno y refrigeración en verano. Estas estrategias energéticas tienen por objeto transformar las estructuras existentes en edificios de consumo casi nulo (nZEB), con el fin de mejorar el confort interior y proteger la salud de los usuarios. Por otra parte, adaptar las estructuras existentes a las normas de los nuevos códigos de construcción antisísmica persigue mitigar las consecuencias de eventos sísmicos. En la actualidad, las intervenciones tradicionales dirigidas a limitar estos problemas requieren plazos y procedimientos de ejecución largos, costosos, a veces peligrosos, pero sobre todo clasificados en base a los diferentes categorías de trabajo o según el ámbito de aplicación. Esta tesis doctoral propone una tecnología de intervención racionalizada basada en un sistema de paneles prefabricados innovadores orientados a la optimización de las prestaciones tanto energéticas como estructurales de edificios existentes con entramado resistente de hormigón armado. La metodología consiste en revestir el edificio con módulos prefabricados de altas prestaciones térmicas, referidos a la fachada mediante elementos metálicos directamente instalados sobre esta. La optimización de su desempeño estructural, a base de crear un comportamiento tipo caja, se materializa por el vertido in situ de un hormigón aligerado en la cavidad resultante entre la nueva fachada (paneles prefabricados) y la del edificio existente. Además, la nueva tecnología permite integrar, desde la fase de instalación del sistema, sensores para monitorizar el rendimiento del edificio durante su ciclo de vida. Con este nuevo sistema se pretende reducir el tiempo de materialización de la intervención, los costes de mantenimiento y prevenir posibles daños irreversibles al edificio. Gracias a un exhaustivo análisis del estado del arte y a la observación de los procedimientos de prefabricación en la empresa colaboradora del proyecto, ha sido posible definir las condiciones y los objetivos específicos en los cuales se fundamenta el proyecto del nuevo sistema tecnológico. Además, tras realizar un estudio detenido de los tipos edilicios más comunes existentes en Europa, especialmente en Italia y España, se ha escogido la tipología de fachada menos favorable desde el punto de vista energético con la finalidad de valorar la optimización obtenida por sistema diseñado.Mediante el empleo de software de análisis de elementos finitos se ha realizado tanto una verificación termo-higrométrica preliminar del sistema, como su comportamiento estructural bajo acción sísmica. Igualmente, se simuló el sistema propuesto aplicado a un edificio real localizado en Italia, con estructura de entramado resistente de hormigón armado y fachada de bajo rendimiento energético. De los resultados obtenidos se desprende que el sistema a base de paneles prefabricados aporta beneficios en términos de reducción de las dispersiones térmicas, protección contra el riesgo de formación de puentes térmicos y rigidez estructural, en detrimento de la ductilidad del sistema portante. Finalmente, tras la fase de diseño y la verificación previa de las prestaciones del sistema tecnológico, se describe la fase de prototipo en la que se realizó, en las instalaciones de la empresa asociada con el proyecto, la validación industrial de los componentes prefabricados, de los procedimientos de fabricación y de las fases de instalación del sistema en obra. Así, se han realizado seis módulos prefabricados distintos según dos categorías dimensionales, con el fin de comprender aspectos relacionados con su manipulación e instalación. La simulación de la instalación se llevó a cabo sobre una muestra de fachada recercada por una retícula de hormigón armado (haciendo las veces de vigas y pilares de una estructura de entramado resistente), construida con las características propias de un edificio de la posguerra. El resultado de la prueba de instalación fue satisfactorio, permitiendo validar el procedimiento y los detalles constructivos del innovador sistema tecnológico propuesto.

Abstract By considering project performance along the various phases of the project life-cycle, this paper aims to fill a gap in the literature on cost overruns and project management in Italy. Employing a large dataset of Italian transport infrastructure projects for roads, started and completed during the period 2000-2013, it applies the same methodology used by the construction management research regarding project types and phases. More specifically, the research goal is to assess the generating process of the magnitude of cost overruns in the sample, trying to evaluate the role of cost evolution by project phase distinguish between the costs of physical execution and the other costs. The findings show that contracting authorities seem to overestimate the extent of the final costs systematically. This behaviour was more important in term of financial coverage. The results can be relevant to explain the cost overruns in the execution stage suggesting the adoption of more stringent rules in budgeting and financial coverage of the projects.
Abstract This paper aims at analyzing the impact of the design phase on the performance in the realization of public works. In the literature, the design phase is largely recognized as one of the possible determinants of inefficiency in public works execution. Notwithstanding, empirical evidence on the topic remains scarce. Using a large dataset of public works awarded in Italy in the period 2008-2014, we investigate empirically the relationship between different choices made in the design phase and the performance in public works execution. Our empirical findings show that the presence of an external designer is associated with higher cost and time renegotiations. The issue is especially relevant for small municipalities that more heavily rely on external designers, possibly because of the limited expertise of their technical offices. From a public policy perspective, our findings offer some support to the recent reform of the Italian public procurement regulation that has introduced new accreditation requirements for the contracting authorities.
Abstract Cost overruns are an endemic feature of transport infrastructure provision all over the world. In the last decades, a considerable amount of studies has been devoted to assessing the magnitude and determinants of cost overruns in the transportation sector. However, empirical findings are scattered among different strands of literature, ranging from the fields of construction engineering and management to that of applied economics. To shed light on the determinants of cost overruns in the execution of transport infrastructure projects, we conduct a systematic review of the empirical literature on the topic. Of the 945 articles retrieved, 26 articles published between the years 2000 and 2016 meet our inclusion criteria. For them, we describe the different empirical approaches, provide a classification of the determinants employed in the analyses and summarise their impact on cost overruns. Finally, we discuss some directions and concerns for further research in the field.

Negli ultimi decenni è in atto una trasformazione nell’ambito dei beni culturali definibile come un processo di apertura dei luoghi della cultura (musei, siti archeologici, biblioteche, etc.) verso l’esterno, determinato dalle istituzioni stesse, con il loro differente modo di intendere la conservazione e di gestire la fruizione del patrimonio storico-artistico e dal sistema dei fruitori, con la loro diversa domanda del prodotto culturale, che si svolge in tempi e modi differenti rispetto al passato. D’altra parte, gli studiosi della cybercultura segnalano che il nostro tempo, con l’incalzante introduzione di nuove tecnologie e strumenti, apparterrebbe in realtà solo agli albori di una rivoluzione epocale nel dominio delle comunicazioni, della diffusione del sapere e, dunque, delle relazioni sociali e culturali. Più che mai nel settore culturale, l’innovazione tecnologica offre, infatti, opportunità di grande rilievo, non solo a sostegno del processo di formazione della conoscenza, ma anche – e forse soprattutto – attraverso il Web, in quanto strumento di enorme capacità per la divulgazione della conoscenza, dello scambio nella ricerca, nella didattica, nell’informazione dedicata. Più che mai, però, la forza dell’innovazione tecnologica può rischiare di travolgere significati fondamentali, nozioni culturali, in una parola l’identità stessa dei soggetti culturali. Come governare, allora, questa “rivoluzione della comunicazione” contemperando le grandi opportunità offerte dal mezzo e dal suo linguaggio con l’essenza autentica dei contenuti culturali? È possibile stabilire un modello, anch’esso innovativo e adeguato alle esigenze e alle richieste della nuova società dell’informazione e della conoscenza, senza perdere, ma piuttosto esaltando, la qualità dei contenuti culturali? In risposta a questi interrogativi, il presente lavoro di ricerca indaga sul tema della qualità dei siti Web culturali pubblici, nei suoi tanti aspetti legati alla ricerca, alla didattica, alla divulgazione, alla salvaguardia e alla promozione del patrimonio. Un tema, sostanzialmente nuovo che vede coinvolti, con le proprie espressioni concettuali, strumentali e di linguaggio, mondi e discipline lontani: da una parte il mondo della cultura, codificato da secoli di elaborazioni teoriche e pratiche, e dall’altra un ambito tecnologico (informatico) nuovo in rapida evoluzione, comunque di straordinario impatto nel vivere sociale. Si tratta di un incontro innovativo e tuttora in fase sperimentale, all’interno del quale però, il design della comunicazione (e della cultura del progetto grafico in generale) rischia di passare in secondo piano, quando, invece, come già sperimentato con successo nella comunicazione “offline” con i progetti innovativi di sistemi di identità visiva - ha giocato un ruolo strategico fondamentale. Ed è proprio su questo punto dell’identità (visiva) “on line” e dei servizi offerti dalle istituzioni culturali che si concentra il presente lavoro, con l’obiettivo di registrare le trasformazioni in atto, attraverso una schedatura di siti/portali internet nazionali e internazionali afferenti all’area culturale.