No. 14 (2015): If voids do not fill

A little more than a decade ago a book entitled “Se i vuoti si riempiono” (If empty spaces fill) was published, regarding abandoned industrial areas turning out both as a problem and as a resource. Anyhow “urban voids” were an opportunity to be taken for transforming the city: unexpected occasions for reflecting upon the city and local development on the basis of new objectives, in particular sustainability objectives.

Brownfield phenomenon has concerned not only industrial sites but also areas and plants not directly related to production (through degradation and induced social costs), such as service industry, dumps, infrastructures, port, railway and military areas, which have been affected by swift processes of reorganisation, re-dimensioning and modernisation.

Actually the abandonment of sites and buildings is not a new phenomenon in itself, since it has always been within the physiological dynamics of the spatial organization of human activities, such as re-use. The novelties have been the extent of the phenomenon (so much to exceed the natural capacity of reusing spaces), its concentration in limited areas, the difficulty of recovering areas often contaminated by polluting agents and therefore in need of reclamation, the huge amount of funding to be invested for regeneration.

The study in depth of causes and effects of a phenomenon with dramatic effects, such as the closure of production plants or other urban structures, has been extremely important. Nevertheless, after several studies and debates for a time, the interest has waned and there is still uncertain opinion about the pre-eminence either of the structural feature or the cyclical one. After all, the extreme variability of the brownfield phenomenon, the multiplicity of its causes, the present crisis forecasting scenarios of swifter (and swifter) demise, make the subject very topical and innovative solutions urgent.

This issue of TRIA tries to take stock of the situation and to suggest solutions,