PhD Seminar – Donatella Rita Fiorino – “Protection and reuse of military sites. Research tools for sustainable redevelopment”
The Architecture Departments of Lusófona University of Lisbon and Oporto are organizing a seminar – Architecture: Design and Research – for the current academic year.
This friday:
28 May 2021
14:30 (Lisbon Time)
Please, feel invited to participate: Zoom (class): https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/84986977917
Synopsis
The lecture will illustrate recent and innovative methodologies developed in the field of conservation in order to support the process of sustainable reconversion of military heritage, with specific regards on the so-called ‘difficult’ heritage.
The first part of the lecture will be dedicated to an overview on European approaches, emerging from the 2017 Conference Military Landscapes, a future for Military Heritage’, with specific regards to XIX and XX century architecture, including bunkers.
We will see, as examples of good practices, some international research programmes, peculiar design interventions and institutional plans for protection and enhancements of military networks. From the international comparison, the vulnerability of this ‘difficult’ heritage clearly emerges, as well as the hope of a ‘possible and sustainable’ future, testified by some interesting examples – historicized and contemporary – of reuse of artefacts, of re-signification of places and reinterpretation of the military sites.
Then, we will look into the Italian situation and specifically on what we are doing with an important agreement signed between the Ministry of Defence and some academic institutions, including the University of Cagliari.
This synergy could provide a specific beneficial effect on reducing the so-called ‘time in between’, that is the time between the disposal and the reuse, characterized by a damaging abandonment or, even worse, by harmful occupations. Specifically, academic researchers can help in planning reconversion, showing feasibility – both financial and technical one – of new uses and defining guidelines to support professionals in their design activity.
Biographical Note
Donatella Rita Fiorino is Associate Professor of Restoration, member of the PhD College in Engineering and Architecture at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architecture Engineering (DICAAR) of the University of Cagliari. She is Engineer, PhD in Conservation of architectural Heritage, specialist in Restoration of Monuments, and she worked as an ‘Architect’ for the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Tourism (permanent position 2010-2018).
She has an extensive scientific production. Her studies cover a wide range of topics, but she has focused her studies on the recognition and analysis of military heritage, developing and testing innovative trans-scalar protocols of documentation and assessment of historical buildings for the identification of sustainable intervention for their redevelopment and reuse. She has also developed national and international projects and multidisciplinary researches, carried out with universities and public institutions, such as “Military Landscapes, a future for military heritage” (2017).
Since 2018 she has been the referent of the collaboration agreement signed between the Italian Ministry of Defense and the University of Cagliari for the activation of research and training programs aimed at the restoration, redevelopment and functional and performance adaptation of the historic buildings, including civil reconversions and “dual-use” scenarios. Parallel to the academic activity, she has constant and intense collaboration with the professional’s world and cultural associations (ASSIRCCO, ICOMOS member, Expert Member for Italy of ICOFORT, member of the National Scientific Council of the Italian Institute of Castles, member of SIRA – Italian Society of Architectural Restoration).
