SOFIA: An Interreg Italy-France Project to Promote Accessible Tourism

This paper, highlighting the potential of accessible tourism, details the recent and significant experience of an Interreg Italy-France project called SOFIA. Through this project, dozens of young Italian and French tourism enterprises received advice and training to improve the accessibility of their establishments and services with a view to tourism for all

Project for a renewable energy research centre

In Liguria, where sustainable approaches to the design, construction and management of buildings enjoy scant currency, the idea of a company from Milan (FERA s.r.l.) setting up a research centre for studies into renewable energy resources, could well open up very interesting development opportunities.The project includes: environmental rehabilitation (restoration) projects; strategies for the protection of water resources and waste management systems; passive and active solar systems (solar thermal and experiments with thermodynamic solar energy); hyperinsulation systems, passive cooling of buildings; use of natural materials; bio-climatic use of vegetation. The author describes the project content within the context of the multidisciplinary work that has gone into it

Rethinking social housing: behavioural patterns and technological innovations

The building sector accounts for 40% of energy use and 25% of CO2 emissions, mainly due to inefficient building practices and energy consumption during the operational phase of buildings. Social housing accounts for a significant proportion of the European building stock and about 50% of the existing buildings are likely to require large-scale renovations in the coming years, meeting the current EPBD directive. This could represent an opportunity to renovate the affordable building stock, often characterized by premature disrepair, resulting in a bad perception from inhabitants and community. Significant European experiences have already shown the importance of an integrated approach finalized to the construction or renovation of social housing, leveraging on environmental sustainability, creating urban identity, adopting measures to face social disadvantage, offering at the same time quality housing standard. In this regard, it seems necessary to match technological advancements and knowledge in energy retrofitting with social needs and habits. The implementation of energy-efficiency improvements in social housing requests support and participation of the final energy consumer. The paper investigates how to deal with knowledge gaps in the relationship between retrofit technologies and users\u2019 behaviour and possible strategic measures to increase awareness between tenants through two case studies

Urban regeneration. Benefits of nature-based solutions

Today’s urban environment features several critical issues related to what in Italy is called ‘cementification’: among the main ones, the phenomenon of heat islands, the cause of several problems related to citizens’ health, especially for the weaker population groups such as children and elderly people. This paper presents the results of a research focused on identifying a combination of nature-based solutions, offering good benefits both from the point of view of improving microclimate comfort and from the point of view of psychological comfort for the people who will use the regenerated areas

High resilience prefabricated systems for the industrial buildings in seismic areas

This article deals with the topic of seismic vulnerability of single-storey industrial buildings, proposing the design of a new system able to support the movement of the load-bearing structure during earthquakes. The targets of this solution at greater resilience, designed with prefabricated elements and innovative structure-cladding junctions, are the improvement of the performances of the industrial buildings in case of earthquake and the structural optimization of their load-bearing system with possible consequences for environmental sustainability, considering the possible reduction of construction material and energy during the production and transport phase

Progetto di un centro di ricerca sulle risorse energetiche rinnovabili; Project for a renewable energy research centre

Nella realt\ue0 ligure, dove poco spazio sembra poter avere un approccio sostenibile alla progettazione, costruzione e gestione degli edifici, l\u2019idea di una Societ\ue0 milanese, di realizzare un centro di ricerca per le energie rinnovabili, sembra poter aprire prospettive di sviluppo di grande interesse. Il progetto prevede: interventi di riqualificazione ambientale; strategie di tutela della risorsa idrica e gestione dei rifiuti; sistemi solari passivi e attivi (solare termico e sperimentazioni sul solare termodinamico); sistemi di iper-isolamento, raffrescamento passivo degli edifici; impiego di materiali \u201cnaturali\u201d; uso bioclimatico della vegetazione. L\u2019autore del progetto ne descrive i contenuti con riferimento all\u2019impostazione multidisciplinare del lavoro svolto