Z E M C H 2 0 1 2 I n t e r n a t i o n a l C o n f e r e n c e
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An Italian domain for application and research in sustainability is housing. This type
declines itself with more flexibility towards sustainable reuse and succeeds to approach
to this theme both for its use destination, which remains the same but needs to be
renewed, and for its typological characteristics. These ones are particularly disposed to
be conjoint to ex-novo elements and to bioclimatic strategies.
Halls of residences: a case-study
An interesting remark on this typologies effect deals with a particular category, for which
there was a significant increase in recent years: halls of residence. This fact interests
Italy, because of a national policy to increase the supply of housing with the purpose to
approach European standards. This diffusion is due to the growth of the university
population, both for the renewed accessibility to higher education, both for the
proliferation of local locations, connected to the expansion of education.
A new motivation, also due to recent system based on credits and on active frequency
from students, turns the halls of residence domain into an interesting field of
experimental design. The innovative spirit regards both new forms of housing and the
reuse of existing buildings. Even the Italian legislation, L. N. 14 November 2000 338,
deals with sustainability issues, in terms of "maximum maintainability, durability and
interchangeability of components and materials, in order to optimize the overall cost of
the intervention." The topic places itself in the full dynamics development that
characterize Enna’s area, a young growing research hub settled in the middle of Sicily
and in the center of the Mediterranean Basin, oriented to train students often coming
from other cities and countries. The need to receive an increasing number of students
raises questions about how to receive them and also how to provide the socio-cultural
integration which has to be reserved to every student.
The points concern various aspects, by the opportunity to saturate empty spaces still
characterizing the city built, facing with construction times, until solution aimed at
strengthening the relation between the University and the upper city, still preferred by
some students as a residence. From this point of view, according to what stated before,
the issue deals with building recovery also in relation to the many resources that
characterize the area of Enna, full of buildings of cultural interest. A true heritage not
enhanced, in opposition with the further increase in tourist flows determined by the return
home of the Venus of Morgantina. That becomes more interesting compared with some
buildings whose distribution territory represents an added value, both in terms of
potential reuse and as energy "resource". It deals with obsolete railway building stock
(storages, locomotive depots, residences) constructed to support the railway tracks of
the late nineteenth century. The whole system was based primarily on the streets of
sulfur and it’s still waiting for an organic reuse program. Specifically is being studied an
abandoned housing complex belonging to the Nineteenth-century railway station. This
complex was originally used as dorm and support structure for the train crew and lends
itself to the new allocation of halls of residence of the “Kore” University. The railway
complex was realized in 1870, when the town was still called Castrogiovanni (fig. 1) and
turns out to be a strategic place both for its position, few miles from the University,
between the old and the new town, and for its possible links through the nearby station,
included the high-speed rail program.
This solution would support and repair the historic bipolarity between the ancient high
city and the lower young and growing city.
The object of this study is located in the climatic zone E (GG 2248 kWh/m² year). A new
destination has been identified for each building after an analysis conducted both
through inspections and in situ verifications, and a study of railway construction type in
order to identify the structural techniques and materials. The reuse intervention also
evaluated the transmittance of the vertical and horizontal enclosures and the possible
ameliorative interventions. The railway station complex is characterized by the presence
