Analysis of the industrial building stock of Mugello in Toscana: a methodological framework using GIS

The research deals with the theme of industrial buildings integrated redevelopment presenting a methodology to be implemented in the early phase of typological characterization of the building stock of interest. The region of Mugello, in Tuscany, was chosen as test-case due to its wide territorial extent and its building stock peculiarities, showing influences of construction techniques widely adopted in northern Italy. GIS software was used to create a georeferenced database acting like a repository of data collected during digital and on-field surveys and addressing geometry, architectural and systems features of manufacturing facilities. The post-processing procedures lead to the identification of the general characteristics of the existing heritage with productive intended use and to the identification of different typological variants for this kind of building according to their time of construction and the technologies adopted. The analysis was later on extended to an urban-scale detection of industrial districts to point out their composition in terms of buildings characteristics and morphological layout. The old age of industrial buildings currently used for production activities was assessed as well as the presence of poor performing envelope components also containing asbestos. The need of installing active systems for energy production also emerged. The method developed, integrating GIS tools for the classification of the built heritage to clearly highlight the most recurrent issues and the amount of facilities requiring interventions, can be regarded to as a first step toward the definition of a comprehensive protocols for redevelopment measures to be applied on industrial buildings to improve their overall energy-environmental performance.