RE-USE OF BUILDINGS AND SPACES IN A CIRCULAR ECONOMY: INNOVATIVE URBAN POLICIES AND TOOLS

Cities are increasingly moving to actions aimed at reconsidering settlement models and preferring solutions based on the re-use, the recycle and the devel-opment of innovative and creative communities. The challenge is the re-use and the transformation of existing unused buildings and spaces, with the logic to create new economic and social opportunities, without consuming new land (fol-lowing the paradigm of the no net land take); to improve the environmental per-formance of buildings in their entire life cycle; to propose new urban scenarios. The aim of this paper is to describe the early concept of the new designed Index of Re-usability of buildings and the best practices carried out by the Municipali-ty of Prato in its urban planning. At present, the Municipality of Prato is the Ital-ian representative in the EU’s “Urban Agenda: Circular Economy Partnership” initiative. Within the Partnership, the Municipality of Prato leads the debates re-garding wastewater reuse and the one on sustainable buildings. Therefore, circu-lar economy in Prato also means the reuse and the transformation of existing building, in particular the dismissed ones situated in former industrial areas.