According to the latest data released by Cresme, less and less construction is being done in Italy but more and more existing buildings are being recovered: in 2013, only 51 billion euros were invested in new buildings and 115 for recovery, between ordinary and extraordinary maintenance. Investment in new residential construction has fallen by almost 60%; asset maintenance and recovery activities grew by more than 11 percentage points. It is for this reason that we decided to interview the president of the National Council of Architects, Planners, Landscapers and Conservationists, Leopoldo Freyrie, to find out about the 'state of health' of the Order and the future of the aforementioned professions.
What does the Order of Architects ask for in the Plan for sustainable urban regeneration?
The scenario of the construction sector – thanks, on the one hand, to the profound crisis that has been affecting the construction sector for years and, on the other, to the state of decay of cities and territories – has profoundly changed. To enhance this change and to restart the sector, a trend reversal in the approaches to urban policies is needed, but it is also necessary, indeed it is now unavoidable, to give life to a new system of alliances between all the protagonists of the building supply chain. It is with this aim that the Italian architects have launched - together with Ance and Legambiente - the Plan for sustainable urban regeneration and recently signed the Protocol for sustainable urban regeneration with the building trade unions, to redevelop the heritage in a sustainable key. starting from schools, and to support "green" professions.
Reopening the construction sites for the redevelopment of the building stock and cities is the way to return to creating jobs, hooking up the recovery and providing answers to the problems of families by exploiting the opportunities from the resources envisaged by the European programming 2014-2020 precisely for energy efficiency and urban areas. The priority now is to test these alliances in the school building program launched by the Government.
Recovering schools that - like 40% of public and private buildings - are falling apart, represents a real emergency: on design methods and procedures, on how to guarantee the rapid completion of well-done works, sustainable, in compliance with the rules and quality of work, architects can represent a resource of knowledge and professionalism for the Government.
What is the future of the profession?
It is – but this applies not only to the profession of architect – in the reuse of cities. The data itself speaks very eloquently: if the value of investments in traditional construction fell by 2006% between 2013 and 32 and in the last seven years the weight of the maintenance and recovery of the existing assets on the total value of the production in construction has grown by over 11 percentage points, the way forward is to focus on the redevelopment of existing and often abandoned buildings.
This represents a benefit for the environment and the habitat as investments in urban regeneration activities would put a stop to soil consumption - and it should be remembered that 5 hectares of land "disappear" every day in our country - allowing the Municipalities to use well over 5% of the land area that is currently used for public parks.
The mission of Italian architects is to contribute – we can and we know how to do it – to transform the Italian territory and our cities into a mine of culture, education and beauty. We are ready – and we have proved it in recent years – to solve the problems of the condition of the Italian building heritage, to innovate the models and techniques of living, to promote ecological and economic sustainability.
In the letter sent to Renzi, the category underlined the importance of reinvesting in schools, suburbs and cities because 80% of GDP is concentrated there. What is your program about it?
Our program, but I don't want to repeat myself, is reuse, the sustainable urban regeneration of cities. But there is another aspect on which I would like to dwell, which is just as fundamental for making a change in territorial policies. It is represented by the proposal, presented by the Renzi Government, to amend Title V of the Constitution which lists the "government of the territory" among the matters of exclusive competence of the State. It is undoubtedly an indispensable reform which – without prejudice to the role of the Regions – will make it possible to re-establish the fundamental principle that administrative borders have no geographical, landscape or cultural coincidence with the territory to be governed.
The new constitutional framework will allow for unambiguous and national rules on the subject of limiting soil consumption, reuse and urban regeneration, a current and decisive issue but also held back up to now by the regions. It will be possible to streamline and simplify, with general national regulations, the decommissioning and enhancement of public buildings, which are now lost in the supply chains of local urban planning policies.
Once the supremacy of the state has been re-established, it will be necessary to approve a new national planning law – the current one dates back to 1942 – which is able to overcome the jungle of building and property regulations. This measure is essential to restart the construction market, but always in the logic of recovery and efficiency of the existing.
