Urban spaces and the levels of the historic city

Ponencia presentada a Session 8: Dimensiones psicosociales de la arquitectura y el urbanismo / Psycological dimensions of architecture and plannin

Beliefs about Polypharmacy among Home-Dwelling Older Adults Living with Multiple Chronic Conditions, Informal Caregivers and Healthcare Professionals: A Qualitative Study

Although home-dwelling older adults are frequently assisted with polypharmacy management by their informal caregivers, they can still face medication-related problems. Identifying older adults’ and their informal caregivers’ beliefs about medication is a gateway to understanding and improving medication adherence. This study aimed to analyse beliefs about polypharmacy among home-dwelling older adults with multiple chronic conditions and their informal caregivers, focusing on their daily medication practices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 older adults, 17 informal caregivers, but also 13 healthcare professionals. Based on an inductive methodological approach, data were analysed using thematic content analysis. Interviews revealed the different attitudes adopted by older adults and their informal caregivers in relation to the treatment information provided by healthcare professionals. A variety of beliefs were identified and linked to medication adherence by examining daily medication practices. Polypharmacy was experienced as a habit but also an obligation, highlighting some of the strategies and negotiations underlying medication use at home. Collecting viewpoints from multiple stakeholders is an innovative way of accessing and analysing beliefs about polypharmacy. Daily medication practices provided information about medication beliefs and may contribute to developing targeted professional interventions that improve medication adherence

New life cycles for modern ruins

The transformation of modern industrial ruins, “machine-buildings ” belonging to a relatively recent past – now devoid of their original meaning and use – allows an argument to be established on the role of the project as the intrusion of a “new life ” within these architectures. Topics such as the reuse, recycling and rehabilitation of the productive heritage may be declined through the concepts of novelty and originality: an original re-reading of the pre-existences can produce a new spatial interpretation, capable of generating an authentic innovation, even through limited interventions. Starting from these premises, the proposed reasoning focuses on two projects – both partly realized – meant as the media to clarify the theoretical position assumed: the Washery at the Argentiera in Sassari, intended to accommodate the Mining Museum, and the Mill-Garden at the Zolfara in Tufo, designed to host the Wine Museum. In a time span ranging from the late nineteenth century to the sixties, these productive buildings – related to the mining assets – have had a parallel life: for many years the industrial activities have bee

Innovative Forms of Cultural Tourism in the Territories of Archaeology

The presence of some major archaeological sites in Italy and in many regions of Europe triggers interesting issues for theoretical reflection and concrete experimentation on the relation between the safeguard of heritage and the promotion of innovative forms of cultural tourism, in order to release these very peculiar territories from the conditions of immobility and isolation they face. An emblematic and paradigmatic example is constituted by the case of Pompeii, involved in feasibility studies promoted by the Municipality, aiming to engage a process of development through the drafting of a program of “regeneration” of a wide area, but in full respect of the landscape and constraints. The specific object of the proposed study consists in a region of about 1 square kilometer in the north-western portion of the archaeological excavations of Pompeii. Over the past decades, the main tourist streams of ancient Pompeii did not exert any influence on this territory, which is extremely relevant in terms of landscape, culture and history, but weakly organized and qualified. This part of the Pompeian area has been interpreted as an "experimental" park featuring a new accessibility, even through the re-opening of the northern "gate" of Porta Vesuvio. In the construction of the park, the issues of agriculture and archeology have been widened with further potential detectable in the area - from the sport activities to the tourist-recreational and cultural ones - giving new functions to a heritage often underused and abandoned. The park will assume the connotation of "gateway" to the National Park of Vesuvius, as an element of great tourist attraction. Its relevant peculiarities will mainly involve - besides the dominant archaeological aspect - the set of "Villae rusticae" not yet fully unveiled by the interrupted excavations and the widespread fabric of abandoned manor farms dipped into a vast agricultural heritage. The experimental character of the design processings - due to the networking of different scales and various involved actors - has allowed to combine the requirements of environmental protection and those of development, reuniting heritage and cultural tourism in an indissoluble weaving

Innovative Forms of Cultural Tourism in the Territories of Archaeology

The presence of some major archaeological sites in Italy and in many regions of Europe triggers interesting issues for theoretical reflection and concrete experimentation on the relation between the safeguard of heritage and the promotion of innovative forms of cultural tourism, in order to release these very peculiar territories from the conditions of immobility and isolation they face. An emblematic and paradigmatic example is constituted by the case of Pompeii, involved in feasibility studies promoted by the Municipality, aiming to engage a process of development through the drafting of a program of “regeneration” of a wide area, but in full respect of the landscape and constraints. The specific object of the proposed study consists in a region of about 1 square kilometer in the north-western portion of the archaeological excavations of Pompeii. Over the past decades, the main tourist streams of ancient Pompeii did not exert any influence on this territory, which is extremely relevant in terms of landscape, culture and history, but weakly organized and qualified. This part of the Pompeian area has been interpreted as an "experimental" park featuring a new accessibility, even through the re-opening of the northern "gate" of Porta Vesuvio. In the construction of the park, the issues of agriculture and archeology have been widened with further potential detectable in the area - from the sport activities to the tourist-recreational and cultural ones - giving new functions to a heritage often underused and abandoned. The park will assume the connotation of "gateway" to the National Park of Vesuvius, as an element of great tourist attraction. Its relevant peculiarities will mainly involve - besides the dominant archaeological aspect - the set of "Villae rusticae" not yet fully unveiled by the interrupted excavations and the widespread fabric of abandoned manor farms dipped into a vast agricultural heritage. The experimental character of the design processings - due to the networking of different scales and various involved actors - has allowed to combine the requirements of environmental protection and those of development, reuniting heritage and cultural tourism in an indissoluble weaving