Clean Energy for All Europeans, Green Deal and Fit for 55 at European level and the Piano Nazionale Integrato per l’Energia e il Clima have identified essential decarbonisation goals that are achievable by broadening the audience of actors involved and the ability to innovate in terms of the evolution of products/services and production processes. In this sense, decentralised energy production technologies together with Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) and bottom-up initiatives play a strategic role in the establishment of local energy systems. The objective of the paper is to illustrate these dynamisms within the territorial system, and the characteristics of local initiatives and RECs as means of energy transition and economic development.

The issue of urban regeneration has taken a strong centrality in recent European and national debates, particularly applied in the transformation of suburban settlements. Urban regeneration practices represent a potential tool to steer transformations toward criteria of environmental sustainability and resilience, resulting in reduced land consumption from decreased demand for new urbanization, and increased urban quality and collective well-being. The redevelopment of public housing requires a comprehensive rethinking of its use pattern and integrated and social cohesion tools to act with targeted measures in situations of marginality and physical, social and economic degradation. Working on these pieces of the city becomes fertile ground and a catalyst for opportunities in terms of regeneration of the urban fabric, with benefits and positive impacts, from the local level to a broader scale, driving ambitious measures to combat climate change. The research, articulated on closely related layers − public space and private space, outdoor space and indoor space − from the urban to the architectural scale aims to formulate meta-project guidelines applied to the case study of San Basilio, a suburban settlement of public housing within the city of Rome.

Adaptive reuse is increasingly central to the conservation and enhancement of twentieth-century architectural heritage, where contemporary functions and regulatory requirements must be reconciled with architectural and cultural values. This study investigates how these demands are reconciled in four buildings of different scales, spatial configurations, and original functions within the UNESCO World Heritage site “Ivrea, Industrial City of the 20th Century”. A qualitative multiple-case study was carried out through archival and bibliographic research, architectural drawings, technical documentation, direct observation, and interviews. For each case study, the original configuration (T0) was systematically compared with the post-reuse current configuration (T1). The resulting transformations were assessed through a common interdisciplinary framework comprising eight indicators related to spatial and functional adaptability, social and urban impacts, heritage integrity and conservation, and environmental and technological performance. The cross-case analysis identified recurring strategies and context-specific differences in the adaptive reuse process. The findings suggest that continued use of contemporary heritage buildings depends not only on the preservation of their material fabric, but also on the capacity of reuse interventions to accommodate new or renewed programs without undermining the buildings’ spatial structure, constructional logic, architectural identity, and relationship with their wider urban context. The study therefore conceptualizes cultural continuity as a multidimensional condition encompassing material, spatial, functional, social, and territorial dimensions, and provides an operational framework for critically evaluating adaptive reuse interventions in modern architectural heritage.