In the framework ofthe National Research Plan2008-2011, our research poses estrategy for the design and evaluation of plans and programmes of urban integrated regeneration. The objective is to develop a study on the role of rehabilitation of buildings in concepts like urban integration, social cohesion and environmental responsibility.



The research proposes a methodological tool for evaluating urban regeneration processes from a holistic perspective that can serve as a guide for governments and technical teams to address intervention in consolidated urban areas with physical and socio-economic problems.



The development of the tool has inevitably led to delve into different areas where you can intervene but has not lost sight of the complex interplay of factors involved in the process.It is an open source tool to visualize Urban Integrated Rehabilitation processes

González García, Isabel

Hernández Aja, Agustín

Tamayo Palacios, Alejandro

Servicio de Coordinación de Bibliotecas de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

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The role of rehabilitation of buildings in the urban integration, 
social cohesion and environmental responsibility. 
Abstract: In the framework ofthe National Research Plan2008-2011, our research poses estrategy for 
the design and evaluation of plans and programmes of urban integrated regeneration. The objective is 
to develop a study on the role of rehabilitation of buildings in concepts like urban integration, social 
cohesion and environmental responsibility. 
 
The research proposes a methodological tool for evaluating urban regeneration processes from a 
holistic perspective that can serve as a guide for governments and technical teams to address 
intervention in consolidated urban areas with physical and socio-economic problems. 
 
The development of the tool has inevitably led to delve into different areas where you can intervene 
but has not lost sight of the complex interplay of factors involved in the process.It is an open source 
tool to visualize Urban Integrated Rehabilitation processes. 
Urban Integrated Regeneration, Urban Sustainability, Social Cohesion, Deprived 
neighbourhoods. 
Urban Integrated Regeneration at European and Spanish framework 
The main objective of this paper is to introduce the methodology for integrated urban 
intervention in neighborhoods developed by GIAU +S (Grupo de Investigación en 
Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Sostenibilidad de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid). The role 
of cities in employment growth in Europe is well recognized; however, many urban areas 
have high rates of poverty, unemployment and social exclusion and poor quality housing, 
energy- inefficiency, and environmental degradation. 
Our interest is to highlight the role of Integrated Urban Regenerationas a fundamental 
instrument of intervention in the consolidated city in order to achieve the goals on integrated 
urban development which have been raised by the European Union in the framework of 
Cohesion policy for the coming years. Integrated Urban Regeneration seeks to articulate the 
different areas of the city promoting quality of life, retrieving the “right to the city”of the 
most deprived areas, and encouraging process of social and economic inclusion. 
Therefore, at European level, the Commission proposes specific investment priorities for 
urban areas, which concentrate funding for cities in a number of key strategic priorities, but 
always from an integrated approach. One of these strategic priorities is the economic and 
physical regeneration of deprived urban areas. 
In the Spanish context, distribution of legislative competences and management among the 
three levels of government (central state, autonomous regions and municipalities) is reflected 
in the way in which EU policies are implemented. At the central level, urban development - 
traditionally linked to Housing policies-depends right now on the Ministry of Public Works 
(Ministerio de Fomento), which sets thereferencelines for urban development policy. It also 
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represents the National Focal Point of the EUKN Network in Spain. On the other hand, the 
Ministry of Environment (Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente) 
promotes sustainability, amongothers, at the urban level. Thirdly, the Ministry of Finance 
(Ministerio de Hacienda y AdministracionesPúblicas) assumes the role of facilitator between 
the  different administrative levels in Spain, it also channels EU funds, especially the ERDF 
dedicated to integrated urban development initiaties (URBAN and Iniciativa URBANA). 
According to the Spanish Constitution, the Autonomous Community is the administrative 
level with competences for framing and managing territorial development policies in its 
territories. However, very few regions have developed tools or specific legislative 
frameworks to promote urban revitalization from an integrated perspective.The “Leyde 
Barrios” in Catalonia (2004) and Balearic Islands (2009) have been one notable exception at 
the regional level, introducing new management tools and funding and integrated vision for 
urban development. Similarly, IZARTU program promoted by the Basque Government is 
aterritorial cohesion regional initiative, which has supported since 2001 urban projects and 
integrated local development in a similaraproach in the line of URBAN projects. 
At state administrative level, urban regeneration and sustainable urban development in Spain 
is currently framed in a series of laws and national plansas:  Spanish Strategy for Climate and 
Clean Energy 2007-2012-2020 Strategy; Law8/2013 of 26 June, rehabilitation, regeneration 
and urban renewal; State Plan 2013-2016 to promote rental housing, rehabilitation, 
regeneration and urban renewal; National Action Planfor Energy Efficiency 2014-2020. 
However, so far, the actions have focused on improving neighborhoods from a sectorial 
perspective, primarily for the maintenance and preservation of housing. In order to address 
the problems at the scale of the neighborhood, new financial aid has been regulated 
specifically targeting these areas through the so-called "Integrated Rehabilitation Areas” 
(ARI) and "Urban Renewal Areas” (ARU) instruments. Although these proposals, focusing 
primarily on deprived neighborhoods, intend to take account of social, economic and 
environmental problems of neighborhoods, actions will mainly focus on the refurbishment of 
buildings, infrastructure works or physical accessibility improvements and new housing 
within the area. In this sense, these actions don´t really represent integrated urban 
development in the line of URBAN projects or European priorities.  
The need for new tools for a comprehensive approach. 
From this perspective, it seems necessary to discuss on the need for tools that allow us to 
visualize the degree of comprehensiveness of the proposals of intervention at neighborhood 
scale. In this line, our research group (GIAU+S /UPM) is currently working in a project 
called:“A strategy for designing and assessing plans and programs of  Integrated Urban 
Regeneration Intervention in Spanish peripheral urban areas through Integrated Rehabilitation 
Areas and URBAN program.” 
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Intervention in the consolidated city is an instrument in process of revision which requires the 
implementation of rehabilitation plans and programs that cope with the complexity of urban 
problems and the diversity of stakeholders. This method of viewing the comprehesiveness of 
the Integrated Urban Regeneration project is introduced as a response to this challenge. 
In order to make this easier, this project aims to define a strategy, in the form of a guiding 
tool, that facilitates the design and assessment of plans and programs of Integrated Urban 
Regeneration, taking into account the needs and priority of any intervention in all their 
aspects (urban environment, urban planning, housing and socio-economics), and all the 
involved stakeholders. 
This methodology is an open source tool that aims to facilitate decision making to visualize 
relationships between the different fields of action and show the priorities of the proposal. 
Therefore, it can serve as a basic tool for citizen participation in the processes of Urban 
Integrated Rehabilitation. 
This strategy, established from an urban planning point of view, is based on a legal analysis, 
considering all the related literature, the opinion of an Expert Panel and the study of existing 
experiences categorized in a Matrix in which all the items to be addressed by rehabilitation 
programs are arranged hierarchically. 
The guiding tool: an open source matrix. 
The proposed method avoids the models that seek to determine the valuation of the results 
through the allocation values to the different solutions and classify them according to them. 
Instead, complete visualization of the designed processes ensures that the agents involved in 
the process (political leaders, technicians and citizens) have to determine what actions are 
developed and which is relevant to delay or defer time based on priorities and available 
resources. Thus, the limitations and shortcomings of the proposal are not hidden but are 
displayed in order to assess the extent of the initial objectives. These objectives should seek 
better urban quality. 
The guide tool comprises a matrix of items grouped in categories which in turn are clustered 
in four different areas. One of the additional objectives of this work is to analyze the 
relationships between the areas, categories and items. 
The matrix is organized around the four major areas of intervention that all comprehensive 
approach must include: Regional and Urban Planning, Urban design and local environment, 
Building and Socioeconomic area. 
[OUT]_Regional and Urban Planning Area: 
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Since, according to the reference document of the Charter of Toledo, Integrated Urban 
Regeneration is a planned process to be addressed by the city as a whole and its parts function 
as components of the urban organism. Measures of social and economic intervention or 
measures physical- environmental intervention located in the neighbourhoodare not enough 
by themselves in isolation but must be linked into overall planning. In this perspective, the 
localized urban regeneration initiatives should be managed on a global planning framework 
guided by the basic criteria of the Urban Integrated Regeneration.That is, the planning should 
be directed to the discrete and comprehensive rehabilitation of the city, with special emphasis 
on the most deprived areas and the double dimension of planning processes: “political 
regeneration” (citizen participation in the decision-making) and “physical regeneration”. 
However, because of the overall design of the research project, this area refers only to the 
determination of spatial planning of urban or regional planning. 
[DMA]_Urban design and local environment Area: 
This area includes all aspects related to the physical environment and affecting the 
neighbourhood for intervention. It considers both the built environment and the natural 
environment. It also considers the relationship of neighbourhood with those aspects of the 
immediate environment they can influence the comfort and welfare of all stakeholders 
(residents, visitors, businesses, etc.). 
The main objective is to improve the quality of life and comfort of citizens through 
regeneration of outer space, both the immediate environment to housing as the rest of the 
public open space in the neighborhood or area of intervention. 
[ED]_Building Area: 
The building area is concerned with the analysis, diagnosis and proposals for action aimed at 
the qualification of living space built. The built environment includes, for all uses present in 
the area, both proprietary and collective spaces within the building, as the clearances legally 
bound to it. The intervention will focus on the built support, understood as the collective part 
of the building managed by (private or public) owners’communities and intended to be 
permanent. In proprietary spaces, the intervention could only be produced in cases of severe 
unsanitary conditions, uninhabitability and accessibility deficiencies. 
The objective is to determine the actions required to achieve at least the same benefits as the 
equivalent reference building. New building construction that is homologous to rehabilitate is 
considered equivalent reference building. For residential use, and in the absence of specific 
regulations for rehabilitation, the landmark building is the new construction of subsidized 
housing (VPO). 
 
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[SE]_ Socioeconomic Area: 
Socioeconomic area deals with the necessary steps towards the achievement of social and 
economic model that seeks fairness and equal opportunity, including projects for local 
economic development, social inclusion and associative network support to enable their 
participation in decision-making. 
It aims to explain a proposal for socioeconomic development in the area of action, based on 
the strengths and opportunities offered by both the physical environment and the social and 
economic fabric.I t seeks to improve the integration of the area of action within the economic 
dynamics of the city or metropolitan area. The objective is to ensure convergence key 
indicators on vulnerability and social exclusion (unemployment, income, school failure, 
delinquency) with the mean values of the city or metropolitan area. All categories must attend 
to gender and age, which thus becomes a fundamental aspect that is incorporated transversely 
in different items. 
While it is an open source methodology, areas intended to be fixed while the category and all 
items are contextual and may be modified within the process of participation and discussion 
of proposals. Possible development of the matrix [image 1] on the next page is included. 
The second step of the disaggregation categories are related to those major themes that define 
each of the four areas. The more disaggregated level corresponds to the item where specific 
aspects are collected to evaluatethe intervention. 
A visualization tool of the proposals, an instrument for participation 
The matrix becomes a tool for discussion and participation of agents where priorities are 
displayed, on which aspects are involved and which are not. As such visualization tool should 
find a clear graphic image. 
The matrix becomes a tool for discussion and participation of agents where you can prioritize 
and decide on concrete interventions. The tool allows you to display those aspects that are 
included in the proposal and those who are outside. As such visualization tool should find a 
clear graphical representation. For this reason, the matrix will be shown in a diagram 
("Daisies") which is represented by a simple color code the qualitative assessment of the 
quality of each items, category or areas in the neighborhood. So the red color represents an 
unfavorable level; yellow an improved level; and blue, the acceptable level.  
This may be applied at different stages of urban intervention: diagnosis, proposed and final 
evaluation of the results. 
 
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Image. 1 
 
In 2011, the research group to which we belong (GIAU+S, UPM) with the group Tecnalia and 
caviar at the University of the Basque Country (UPV) in the “Diagnosis about intervention 
needs in the renovation of the building stock in the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC)” 
tendered by the Basque Goverment.The purpose of this project is to obtain an Inventory and 
Diagnosis of residential buildings, which were built before 1980 at the BAC, and its urban 
environment.The giau+s in this project developed an innovative methodology antecedent of 
the current for the development of comprehensive policies aimed at the rehabilitation and 
renovation of degraded urban areas. This methodology has been implemented in a pilot case, 
Zaramaga, a neighborhood of the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz, for which we have developed a 
specific intervention project. This proposal displaya similar systemwas used by the diagrams 
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(calleddaisies) for the diagnosis of the neighborhood and evaluate the impact of the Urban 
Integrated Regeneration proposal. [image 2]
 
Image.2: Daisis diagram. Zaramaga projec, diagnosis and proposals. 
 
Following a series of works developed by the Research Group in Architecture, Urbanism and 
Sustainability of the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid, the result of this 
research will be, on one hand, the design and assessment model described, and secondly, but 
not least, the establishment of a network of agents dedicated to urban rehabilitation, 
renovation and renewal, based on an web platform RE-HAB 
(http://www2.aq.upm.es/Departamentos/Urbanismo/blogs/re-hab), where the research 
findings will be published during the implementation of the project in order to increase 
knowledge and share experiences. 
 
Bibliography 
González, I. (2013) Una aproximación a la definición de variedad urbana desde la complejidad: aplicación al análisis 
urbanístico de tres barrios madrileños. Madrid: DUyOT- UPM. Tesis doctoral. 
Hernández Aja, A., Vázquez Espí, M., García Madruga, C., Matesanz Parellada, A., Moreno García, E., Alguacil Gómez, J., 
Camacho Gutiérrez, J., (2011). Análisis urbanístico de Barrios Vulnerables. Madrid, Spain. Available at: 
http://habitat.aq.upm.es/bbvv/bbvv.html (accessed 1.7.13) 
Hernández Aja,A. (2001). Informe sobre los Indicadores de Sostenibilidad Dirección General de la Vivienda, la Arquitectura 
y el Urbanismo; Ministerio de Fomento, Madrid. (I.S.B.N. 84-498-0714-X) 
Presidencia Española  Eu. 2010.  (2010) “Documento de referencia de Toledo sobre la regeneración urbana integrada y su 
potencial estratégico para un desarrollo urbano más inteligente, sostenible y socialmente inclusivo en Europa”, en Reunión 
informal de ministros de desarrollo urbano. Declaración.Toledo, 22 de Junio de 
2010.http://siu.vivienda.es/siu/infoWeb/barrios/agenda_urbana/6_declaracion_Toledo.pdf 
TECNALIA, (2011).Diagnóstico de las necesidades de intervención en la renovación del parque edificado de la capv. 
 
 
 


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