Per un restauro sostenibile. Conservazione e miglioramento energetico nel centro storico di Piazza Armerina

The challenge for a sustainable built-up environment must unavoidably face the huge amount of existing buildings. Qualified contributions have now demonstrated the substantial convergence of interests and objectives between the conservative culture and a sustainable approach to construction. Such a convergence can been evidenced in the assessment of the compatibility of materials and constructional solutions, in the attention to the reversibility of interventions, in the interest for the preservation of the building heritage and in the research for minimal interventions. Combining the needs of restoration with those of sustainability does not mean just to answer an increasingly urgent need of our present, but to open up new ways of reading, understanding and preserving the †œenvironmental stratification†� represented by the built historical heritage, where †œthe spirit of the places inhabited manifests itself with respect to culture, technique, the materials used, the building sensibility and the presence of specific approaches regarding consumption of energy†�. This research deals with the issue of the relationship between conservation and sustainability, starting from the case-study of the †œMonte†� quarter in Piazza Armerina. On the basis of the most recent literature on this subject, the first part of the study discusses and determines criteria and methods to address the issue of energy efficiency in existing buildings. Then, the second part presents the results of the preliminary analyses and of the first considerations following the implementation of energetic improvement systems in the buildings of the historic quarter.