In recent decades, the debate concerning the conservation of built heritage has begun to acknowledge the benefits of involving local communities in this process. Despite this recognition, however, the role played by local communities in heritage affairs in practice remains marginal, and the idea of ‘heritage communities’ proposed by the Faro Convention has not yet become a reality. An effective change in this paradigm that focuses on identifying local communities as focal entities in the process of the conservation of built heritage must involve a recognition of their heritage resources and, thus, the availability of appropriate value bases that can help local communities recognise the social value of built heritage assets. Indeed, this value dimension continues to be viewed as less notable than other values that have been recognised as ‘essential’ with respect to conservation. In light of these premises, this paper aims to overcome existing differences and conflicts in the discourse concerning heritage social value by providing a comprehensive framework of value types that can guide efforts to assess the social value of built heritage. In this sense, a multidisciplinary review and investigation of different theoretical domains that have addressed the topic of social value are proposed. Such an investigation can provide a basic reference for efforts to overcome this gap and explore the influences, connections, and contradictions that occur among different disciplines, thus providing a comprehensive theoretical framework in this context. Finally, the paper discusses various opportunities, limitations, and future challenges pertaining to efforts to identify the social value of built heritage as the core of decision processes concerning conservation.

Digital recording of historic buildings and sites in mountainous areas could be challenging. The paper considers and discusses the case of historical defensive structures in the Italian Alps, designed and built to be not accessible. Drone images and photogrammetric techniques for 3D modeling play a fundamental role in the digital documentation of fortified constructions with non-contact techniques. This manuscript describes the use of drones for reconstructing the external surfaces of some fortified structures using traditional photogrammetric/SfM solutions and novel methods based on NeRFs. The case of direct orientation based on PPK and traditional GCPs placed on the ground is also discussed, considering the difficulties in placing and measuring control points in such environments.

A workflow for editing and rendering 360° images (also called spherical or equirectangular images) is illustrated and discussed. The aim was to develop a novel procedure able to overcome limitations induced by deformations in images acquired with low-cost 360° cameras. Editing and rendering are carried on equirectangular projections using a dynamic procedure that turns images into traditional central perspectives, enabling the user to change viewing directions, modify digital content, and store the changes in the original files. Integration of the rendered projections with traditional outputs of digital recording operations as well as other deliverables of the architectural restoration project is also discussed. Finally, the development of a web-GIS application that stores and shares multiple deliverables (including the newly proposed renders) is presented.

In recent times, widespread reflection on the destiny of inner areas has arisen. New approaches, particularly in the economic, social and "territorialist" fields tend to consider fragile areas-it matters not if they are mountain or hilly areas, rural or urban peripheral areas, monumental sites or areas whose values are to be found in memories and stratifications which time had transcribed onto "what remains"- as strategic places for the care of the territory, to hinder civil and economic inequalities, and those which stem from climate change. The prevailing idea is that fragility or marginality of the so called "places that don't matter", which conserve important cultural capital but where more and more often very worrying social and political demands mature, can become an important resource if only we try to reconstruct the connections between places and dwelt-in communities, which with time, for diverse reasons, have been rayed. In the wake of this new vision, the main objective of this essay is to investigate not so much the fragility which regards the physical degradation of buildings and settlements, which is the consequence of the marginalization of territories, but, more in general, and with more ambitious aims, to investigate how the crisis of the system of relationships between man and his habitat, which underlies every kind of fragility, has a consequence on the lack of memory and significance of architectural heritage. The paper also analyses a perspective that has already been studied in other fields, but which has been less studied in the field of architectural restoration. According to this perspective, the programme of reconstruction, more than on the tangible aspect of this heritage and on the possibility of re-use, should intervene on the relationships that over time have transformed these places and buildings in important "reserves for meanings".

Neglected and abandoned heritage sites are a complex research topic, which always requires a thorough understanding of the site’s past and current condition. This article examines how research on history, architecture, and participation can contribute to creating a suitable re-use project for such heritage sites, focusing on a single case study: the Royal Citadel of Messina, Italy. Within the field of history, the city and fortification’s past underscores the importance of the site’s architectural and historical value. An urban analysis and documentation campaign were carried out during the field architecture. The urban analysis focused on the site as a remarkable natural landscape with industrial surroundings. The digital documentation, concentrating on the so-called cistern, emphasized the site’s values. Within a revalorization process, community participation is vital and is, therefore, one of the suggestions to consider in further developments. The last applied method is a comparative case study, namely, the submarine base at Saint-Nazaire, France. Considering the complexity and fragilities of the site, a framework is designed that provides suggestions for the conservation, revalorization, and re-use of the site of the Royal Citadel.