Socio-natural disasters are linked to the increase of weather events. This work analyses disaster risk transfer as well as clean technology production and transfer mechanisms in Latin American intermediate cities; our study case is the city Victoria of Durango, capital of the state by the same name in Mexico. In this regard, the theorizations on Climate Change (CC), Disaster Risk Transfer (DRT), Clean Technology Transfer (CTT), Sustainable Development (SD) and Resilience (Re) are reviewed. A mixed approach provided a complete understanding of the research, allowing the use of various tools for field work and the processing of the obtained data. The results reveal that Victoria de Durango, like the majority of Latin American's intermediate cities, shows potentialities for using its invaluable natural resources; but threats and weaknesses were also found: neither citizens nor institutions have a global understanding of risk for achieving sustainability, becoming resilient and being safe, whilst the capital of Durango must face two major risks such as floods and droughts. A Safe City Strategic Plan to face CC, incorporating DRT and CTT production strategies, would enable CC protection policies, as long as political will and active citizens exist.
The current climate and energy context is triggering the massive deployment of solar energy technologies in the short term. As a consequence, the number of Photovoltaic (PV) systems that will be set up in urban areas will drastically increase. Such large-scale integration must be guided by careful consideration of a diverse set of criteria, including energy resources and demand, as well as socio-economic and environmental factors. In this paper, a decision aiding approach is introduced to rank a set of buildings based on their suitability to host photovoltaic systems in the particular case of urban environments. The study takes place in the context of a Franco-Swiss project covering the Grand Genève (Greater Geneva) agglomeration. A list of decision criteria is defined and the ELECTRE III outranking method is used to solve the problem and provide efficient ranking of the different solutions.
The recovery of sports facilities, especially those considered particularly interesting from an historical and cultural perspective, appears today as one of the main challenges to the enhancement of the architectural heritage. In fact, alongside the issues linked to the maintenance of their formal characteristics, the conversion of these spaces into flexible, multifunctional and modern facilities is central to ensuring the economic sustainability of their management, increasingly entrusted to private investors. This paper presents a hypothesis for the enhancement of the Fausto Coppi Motovelodrome in Turin, a famous facility which was a landmark for cycling and sports lovers in the past century. Together the enhancement of the existing structures, the design proposal provides for the addition of a new building for sports and commercial use. The methodology applied aims at evaluating the benefits of the proposal through a preliminary estimate of the construction costs and the definition of a catchment area and of a possible management scheme, with its costs and revenues. Finally, by simulating alternative scenarios, the incidence of the increase of the commercial surface on the revenues is explored. Lastly, by pointing out which possible future scenarios are plausible for the recovery of the site, the main design proposal relates to the Feasibility Study and the Call for the assignment of the Motovelodrome, published by the Municipality of Turin in February 2020.
The residential heritage in Ivrea, built during the most successful years of famous Italian company Olivetti, is made up of assets that can be traced back to the Modern Movement of the Twentieth Century. The site "Ivrea, industrial city of the XX Century" was included in the World Heritage List in 2018, which shows the value and originality of the Ivrea experience and recognizes its identity as a city-laboratory. The aim of this article is to analyse the potential enhancement of the Olivetti villas of Ivrea within their fragile socio-economic context and to check whether their architectural quality and the “Olivetti connotation” is recognized by the real estate market. Furthermore, the energy efficiency upgrade of the residential heritage is investigated in order to understand if and how it is able to enhance the value of the buildings and influence listing prices in Ivrea’s real estate market. The influence of some intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics on listing prices was measured by creating a sample of residential units listed on the market and by applying a multiple linear regression model, which was used for both descriptive and predictive purposes. The results showed that the Ivrea’s real estate market can be more positively affected by energy retrofitting, despite the architectural quality of the buildings, which is monetized but with a considerably lower marginal price.
