Design experimentations for built environment's care

In view of necessary changes towards land use and buildings renewal, the research looks at the redevelopment of complex urban areas where different disciplines’ contributions collide towards the circular reuse of spaces and buildings. In the 2018 Eurostat "Waste generation" survey, construction waste is an obvious burden in Europe and a priority theme for the European Circular Economy Action Plan, while the recent Waste Framework Directive set a target for 70% waste recovery by 2020. These issues are presented through the Italian case study of the city of Prato but making comparisons with innovative projects in Europe and beyond. The need to think about best suited strategies of reuse and regeneration before the formulation of fully defined projects is clear. Universities can guide the res publica to achieve these goals in complex contexts, also encouraging partnerships with private or public investors. Prato Municipality had the foresight to address the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence to obtain support from the academic world. The resulting design experimentations were necessary before intervening in a dense of overlap of productive, residential, and social fabric, and obtained the honourable mention from the Common European Sustainable Built Environment Assessment in the category of developing retrofitting projects in 2019. These processes can foster participation in Horizon Europe 2021-2027 calls in a sustainable vision that places cities like Prato in the European network of circular cities. Prato’s urban plan uses building recovery as a tool for change supported by sociology, architecture, and art, based on the awareness that environmental sustainability can only take place if integrated with circular economy and urban resilience. The applied design experimentations aim to change traditional production-consumption-disposal processes into strategies of renew and recycle, from the material to the unfinished building to transform waste into a resource for the city.