Abstract:

The current research has been realized as an international collaboration within the continuing education course "Preservation Reuse Design" between Politecnico di Milano and IDA “Italian Designers Association” based in Shenzhen, China. The aim of this experience is to define an analysis and intervention methodology regarding the conservation and reuse of historic villages and buildings in the so called Urban villages (城中村). In recent years, the impressive urban transformations in different geographic and cultural contexts aroused a real interest in the reuse of existing architectures in high developed urban area.

The call for transformation that affects Italy and the Chinese region of Shenzhen has revealed the need for solutions taking into account both the historical and cultural issues as well as the urban and architectural features of the existing built environment.

Despite their different cultural and urban frameworks, both the environments share the need to adapt new assets to contemporaneity on an architectural, cultural and functional level. Two examples of transformation urgencies have been selected in the mentioned contexts to investigate how defining a universal methodology applicable in different domains.

The first subject stands on a former psychiatric hospital located in Mombello, in the suburbs of Milan, Italy. It counts a complex of abandoned buildings considered as an outstanding example of the Italian historical scenario. This case shows the urgency for an organic design in urban contexts.

The second field is the Guanlan village, an old village made of semi-abandoned buildings in the outskirts of Shenzhen city in Bao'an district that requires to be re-qualified to protect the historical heritage from the continuous advancement of the contemporary city.

Organizing the analysis in sequential steps, the purpose of this research is to define a methodological approach where the best practices and paradigms can be outlined in order to be used in different scenarios.

The first section consists in identifying and analyzing a series of case studies in northern Italy distinguished among their intervention characteristics. Particular attention is given to the conservative approach and their deal between the new constructions within the existing environment.

The second chapter of the paper is focused on the identification of the paradigms outlining the the interpretation of case studies above mentioned. In particular, a cognitive map will allow to investigate the buildings features according with their urban relation with the context, the state of original conservation before the intervention, the analysis of today's needs, SWOT analysis, the design choices and finally the architectural constructive intervention.

The third phase deals with the definition of metadesign scenarios as a result of the previous analysis steps. Thanks to the comparison between the results obtained, it will be possible to set up the guidelines for restoring the original urban network according to the contemporary requests.

The last stage of the research shows the application of this methodology on the two above mentioned examples in order to test the effectiveness of the proposed process.

Keywords:

Transformation, preservation, reuse design, educational approach, multidisciplinarity methodology.