Urban regeneration has to be based on rigorous methodological frameworks able to find a balance among preservation instances, economic development, urban quality and the well-being of the population. Considering these premises, this research is focused on the definition of the decision-aiding process for the reuse of an abandoned health care facility with several historic buildings. Both public and private interests have been taken into consideration, since they play an important role for the urban regeneration project and for the definition of urban regeneration policies. Given the complexity of this issue, the evaluation process has been structured by combining different methodologies to support the policy cycle: Stakeholder Analysis, to identify the actors engaged (Social sustainability); Nara Grid for the values elicitation of the Built Cultural Heritage (Cultural and environmental sustainability); and the subsequent definition of different sustainable scenarios evaluated by the Discounted Cash Flow Analysis (Economic sustainability). Four alternatives have been assessed with the support of a Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) aimed at defining the most balanced one considering heritage significance retention and urban regeneration. This work contributes to the literature on soft OR by exploring interactions among different stakeholders and addresses policy instances by providing a transparent methodology based on value elicitation.

Heritage buildings and the precious artworks contained therein, represent inestimable cultural and artistic evidence from the past that must be properly preserved for future generations. In the last decades, climate change has gained relevance and is becoming crucial to assess the building performance under such effect to provide timely mitigation actions to preserve our cultural heritage. In this regard, this paper outlines a method that combines different experimental activities and tools to forecast possible future risks due to climate change for the conservation of the artworks and provide its application in a relevant case study in Italy, the Duomo di Milano. In detail, the suggested method consists of the monitoring of the building indoor climate to validate a simulation model, defining possible future scenarios based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections, and evaluation of the future conservation risks of the main artworks. The results of the analysis carried out, show that for some artworks (e.g., stone sculptures, some organic materials, etc.), the conservation conditions will not worsen compared to the current situation, while for others (e.g., paintings, wooden objects, etc.) the risk of deterioration is expected to increase substantially. This study helps to understand how the future climate can affect the indoor environment of a huge masonry building and allow to plan targeted mitigation strategies aimed to reduce the future risks.

In the last years it has been progressively invested many efforts in the cultural heritage digitization: surveying, modeling activities, diagnostic analysis and historic data collection of architectural heritage. Such actions have been mainly acquired for the preservation process, during the restoration and construction site. Unfortunately, many of them are left abandoned in a latent status without any connection with the long life cycle of the historic architectures or connection to the dissemination. The paper presents the case of an informative model for the Basilica di Collemaggio generated on high resolution surveying (laser scanning, photogrammetric point clouds and IRT Infrared Thermography) to manage the knowledge acquired on the geometry and the collected information on materials, construction technology and decay analysis for the design and conservation after the earthquake occurred at L’Aquila. The paper illustrates the HBIM (Heritage Building Information Model) achieved to support the restoration process funded by EniServizi within the project ‘Restart from Collemaggio’. It is described the generative modelling process implemented to embody the complexity and specificity of the morphology related to the collected information on the state of the art, the sum of the current damages and transformations during the centuries, for the preservation plan of the monument. Many damaged structures as in the case of the north wall with the Holy Door and of the arched naves with the ancient pillars have been restored preserving the maximum level of authenticity of the materials and construction techniques. The HBIM of the Basilica, re-opened to the public on December 2017, is ready to a sentinel role among past present and future.

The indoor climate of non-climatized churches is usually subject to cyclical fluctuations of temperature and relative humidity induced by external climate conditions which might be dampened by the high thermal capacity of their envelope. However, several phenomena affect their indoor climate (e.g., internal gains due to people and artificial lighting, air infiltration, etc.), which lead to environmental variations that might jeopardize the artworks contained within. In particular, one of the most influential parameters that may affect non-climatized churches is the massive and intermittent presence of people who constantly visit their spaces. In such regard, long-term monitoring allows the collection of environmental data with different building operation conditions and visitor fluxes. This paper analyses the indoor climate of the Milan Cathedral (Duomo di Milano) in Italy for three continuous years (including the lockdown period that occurred in 2020 caused by the COVID-19 pandemic), with a focus on visitors’ effects on the indoor environment and the conservation of the main artworks contained within. The results of the analysis have shown that spaces with huge volume are most influenced by the opening of the doors rather than the hygrothermal contribution of the intermittent presence of massive crowds. Moreover, the absence of visitors for a prolonged period correlates with an improvement in the indoor conservation conditions for artworks, especially those made of hygroscopic materials, due to the reduction in short, rapid climate fluctuations.