REturn

Is it possible to transform former abandoned and dismissed industrial areas into a growth opportunity for cities? This thesis combines the architectural intervention with the optimal social and economic strategy to return Officine Reggiane, not only to the city of Reggio Emilia, but to the whole Emilia Romagna region.

A first approach to the intervention site took place through the direct experience of the area. From one hand we had the chance to take part to several events concerning the Reggiane and to visit the construction site managed by the Urban Development Company. On the other it was possible to subscribe and be an active part in various inspections and personal perceptions of spaces. We could lay the foundations design goal for the development of the next restoration work. Being aware of the complexities and the challenges of this project, mainly due to the vastness and the current status of the area, the thesis work has pushed us to investigate various possibilities in order to combine the architectural intervention with the optimal economic strategy. The alternative operation carried out by us allowed us to test economic and financial instruments, management models and spatial relations. First of all, we approached the project from two different perspectives. On one hand the creation of a business plan with multiple economic scenarios to define a feasible general time schedule and on the other hand the realization of a masterplan with the application of the layers strategy. To assume this operation we took charge of feasibility reasoning already applied by different institutions and we considered a realistic scenario. It also was important to take a precautionary approach and to verify it in the most critical conditions. Afterwards, a specific deep dive on the first phase of the general time schedule has been developed, to propose a detailed solution for two out of the eight disused buildings. The former sheds 22 and 25 dialogue with the neighboring Knowledge, Innovation and Creativity Park and they can be respectively transformed into a Music Hub and a set of laboratories, offices and exhibition spaces. The architectural choices have been strongly influenced by the knowledge of the area and by the maintenance of the external modular image. In that way we insert an independent constructive system in order to conjugate historical memory and innovation.