Reclamation of a mining village, L’Argentiera, Italy

The project envisions the sustainable refurbishment of a whole abandoned industrial site, with implications on territorial scale. The extension and character of the site offer an opportunity to formulate a program at a broad scale, involving sustainable building restoration, energy production, tourism and landscape.

This competition entry has for us a pivotal role, as it brings the previous experiences to a more complex level, bringing the line of research on sustainable refurbishment to converge with the thoughts on urban quality of life in scarcely populated areas. It helped us to shift our attention from bare energy efficiency to broader considerations about the value of embedded energy, on a bigger scale. Although the project formulates a comprehensive proposal to reclaim the whole area, the authorities preferred a different kind of approach, more focused on a particular spot.
Few months later in 2008, the project was accepted in a call of projects for the “Environmental Tectonics v2.0” exhibition, Architectural Association EES Research Cluster, London.

Interdisciplinary team “Architettura & Pianificazione s.r.l.”, Spin-Off of the Faculty of Architecture , University of Sassari. Team leader: Giovanni Maciocco
Project leader: Francesco Spanedda
with Domenico Bianco, Alessandra Casu, Giovanni Maria Filindeu, Sebastiano Gaias, Aldo Lino, Paola Pittaluga, Gianfranco Sanna, Silvia Serreli, Stefan Tischer.
Consultants: S. Dettori (agriculture), E. Farris (Botanics), V. Mannazzu (Maritime transportation), G. Oggiano (Geology), G. Onni (Toursim), A. Serra (Energy).

Collaborators: Marcello Bertelli, Massimiliano Campus, Rita Sanna, Valentina Madrau.