Rossana Paparella

Demolition is recognised as a strategic construction process enabling the transition between an asset and a building cycle. Rather than removing a structure, it requires a design and management approach that preserves safety, material quality, traceability, and environmental performance. This paper develops a demolition-management framework linking pre-demolition assessment, method selection, hazardous-material control, waste classification, logistics, safety measures, environmental mitigation, and documentation-based traceability. The framework is applied to the partial demolition of a precast reinforced-concrete storage building within an industrial compound in Treviso, Italy. The project involved time constraints, limited working space, adjacent structures, and asbestos–cement components. The case study illustrates a phased process including asbestos abatement, perimeter slab cutting, crane-assisted dismantling, controlled top-down mechanical demolition, dust suppression, and coordinated temporary storage and waste transport documentation. Results show that safety and circular-economy objectives are mutually reinforcing when demolition is planned as an integrated and auditable end-of-life construction-management process, focused on removing, separating, classifying, and routing materials through pathways. In constrained industrial settings, sequencing, staging areas, specialised subcontracting, and documentation readiness are decisive for reducing interference, maintaining operational continuity, and supporting material recovery. The study proposes a workflow, while acknowledging the limitations of a single-case design and the absence of multi-project quantitative data.

Construction site machinery plays a crucial role in the execution of building and infrastructure works, while also representing an important source of risk for workers and for overall site safety. Within the European regulatory framework, machinery has long been governed by Directive 2006/42/EC, but the adoption of Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 has introduced a new legal scenario that will become fully applicable from 20 January 2027. Against this background, the present study examines the transition from the Machinery Directive to the new Machinery Regulation, with particular attention to its implications for the construction sector. The analysis is based on a qualitative review of the relevant legislative framework, supported by the examination of regulatory provisions, technical requirements, and sector-specific considerations concerning construction site machinery. The study focuses on the main innovations introduced by the new Regulation, including the revision of essential health and safety requirements, the broader definition of the obligations of economic operators, and the increasing relevance of issues related to artificial intelligence, connected systems, and cybersecurity. The findings show that the new Regulation represents not merely a formal legislative replacement, but a broader regulatory development aimed at addressing both traditional machinery risks and the challenges generated by technological innovation. Since the new framework has been formally established, but is not yet fully applicable in everyday practice, this study should be understood as an interpretative and preparatory contribution. In this sense, it aims to support an early understanding of the regulatory transition and to foster a more informed discussion on the adjustments that construction stakeholders may need to undertake in view of the forthcoming legal and technological changes.

Workplace safety, particularly in the construction industry, is a moral and legal imperative, prioritizing the protection of workers’ health and well-being. In Italy, Legislative Decree 81/08 (and subsequent modifications) serves as a regulatory framework for workplace safety, defining the duties of employers and employees and promoting accident prevention measures. Building information modeling technology, which has revolutionized the global construction industry by offering an integrated approach to design, construction, and management through intelligent digital models, has only recently started gaining traction in Italy as part of Industry 4.0. This article examines the potential of integrating the current prevention strategies with BIM technology to optimize safety design on construction sites. A case study demonstrates the use of the BIM software REVIT to model a water reservoir for an aqueduct, including structural and plant components, the surrounding context, and proposed construction site organization. The research methodology involves creating a contextualized 3D model to support preliminary safety assessments, work process organization, and the drafting of a safety and coordination plan. Through detailed analysis and critical discussion, this work contributes to understanding how the interaction of regulations and BIM technology can improve construction site safety, offering insights that are applicable beyond the Italian context to the global construction industry.

This paper presents a methodology to improve energy efficiency and sustainability in urban environments. The ongoing climate change is causing increasingly important consequences for cities and their inhabitants. Temperatures are rising and human thermal comfort conditions are becoming worse. For this reason, it is essential to evaluate how parts of cities react to these phenomena and how they could improve their behavior. To do this, the area of interest has to be analyzed from various aspects, starting with an assessment of the microclimatic conditions. Through these analyses, it is possible to observe the interactions between climate and the urban context on a macro-scale. The actual results, such as surface temperature and air temperature, will be useful for hypothesizing where different paved surfaces need to be restored with mitigative actions. Another aspect that needs to be considered for a comprehensive analysis of the area’s potential concerns the study of solar potential. We will describe how this topic was approached, making in-depth evaluations of the quality of the results obtained through the analysis of simplified models. The portability of these data within a spatial domain was also evaluated, integrating the values on a territorial database. Another important topic that needs to be analyzed to plan an improvement of an area in terms of energy production is the installation of new solar active production systems. The appropriate inclusion of photovoltaic panels could lead to the near self-sustainability of buildings by decreasing the external energy demand. The results obtained by applying the methodology in a case study highlight that all these aspects must be taken into account simultaneously to improve the existing conditions of entire city areas, leading to a more sustainable urban environment.

Recent statistical reports highlight an accelerating phenomenon of radical urbanization, and the forecasts estimate that within the next ten years, about 70% of the world’s population will be located in urban areas, compared with 54% currently living there. This phenomenon will result in an increase in the constructed volume, with foreseeable adverse effects on the climate, the environment, and residents’ health. The resulting growth of the emissions and the use of energy resources, combined with changes in the soil condition and absorption characteristics, leads to a focus on issues related to the sustainable development of cities. The effects of anthropogenic activity influence the materials’ surface and air temperatures, contributing to the phenomenon of the increase of the average atmospheric temperatures near the earth’s surface, with the consequent generation of the phenomenon of the urban heat islands (UHIs). This paper aims to examine, in a neighborhood context, the effects of mitigation strategies implemented through the application of cool materials on urban surfaces. Through simulations carried out in a case study, with the support of software such as ENVI-met and tools for Grasshopper such as Ladybug, and with the observation of data related to the evolution of the surface temperatures, the air temperatures, and other microclimatic parameters, the outcomes obtained with the use of cool pavements were analyzed. Finally, the comparison between the two scenarios, the current and the projected, allowed the evaluation of the overall efficiency of the proposed interventions.

To evaluate the energy and solar potential of the building stock and address feasibility studies of building retrofit interventions information standards are required to ensure proper data flow from building and urban models to simulation environments. Energy performance data are gathered from different information containers and therefore the result of simulations needs to be shared in BIM/GIS environments to better address energy policies and decision-making processes. Solar potential and energy retrofit estimation, developed by means of urban models (U-BEM) are too rough to support a decision-making process, even if at a feasibility stage. On the opposite, strategic decisions are defined with reference to large building stocks that require a U-BEM approach. To increase the reliability of this kind of simulations the study proposes to integrate U-BEMS with BIM-based data that are aggregated and published at urban scale as average performance indicators of built systems. The interoperability problem is analyzed both for simulation tools that need to manage this kind of data and openBIM/GIS platforms that need to share performance indicators and simulation results

Unforeseen circumstances that occur anywhere in the world following natural disasters, humanitarian and health emergencies, armed conflicts, or in the presence of migratory flows, require adequate and immediate responses. This work aims to analyze the project requirements useful to realizing modular systems for residential, multifunctional, and hospital intended use, which, even if temporary, can ensure a high-performance standard in terms of comfort and energy efficiency, and at the same time guarantee the possibility of use in the widest possible range and in rapid execution times. The considered requirements have been those of settlement in the territory, energy efficiency, transportability, and re-usability. Temporary modular systems put in place with the abovementioned requirements are the basis of the design proposal; to realize this, they are made with dry technology to be reusable and energy-efficient. Furthermore, this enables the reduction of the minimum modules’ production and times of execution in applying both requirements of standardization and modular coordination. All these requirements also add to the ones relating to energy efficiency, transportability, and reusability, which are the pillars of the project for the achievement of performance above all in terms of standards and comfort levels as it is possible to find in the sustainable building of the living period.

This paper presents the results of the analysis conducted on six case studies related to solar energy integration in urban and rural environments located on the Italian territory. The analysis has been carried out within the Subtask C—Case Studies and Action Research of the International Energy Agency Solar Heating and Cooling Program Task 51 “Solar Energy in Urban Planning”. Three different environments hosting active and passive solar energy systems (existing urban areas, new urban areas, and agricultural/rural areas) have been investigated to attain lessons learned and recommendations. Findings suggest that (a) it is important to consider solar energy from the early stages of the design process onwards to achieve satisfactory levels of integration; (b) a higher level of awareness regarding solar potential at the beginning of a project permits acting on its morphology, achieving the best solution in terms of active and passive solar gains; (c) when properly designed, photovoltaic systems can act as characterizing elements and as a distinctive architectural material that is able to valorize the aesthetic of the entire urban intervention; (d) further significant outcomes include the importance of supporting the decision strategies with quantitative and qualitative analyses, the institution of coordinating bodies to facilitate the discussion between stakeholders, and the need for deep renovation projects to fully impact existing buildings’ stock; (e) when large solar installations are planned at the ground level, a landscape design approach should be chosen, while the ecological impact should be reduced by carefully planning the adoption of alternative solutions (e.g., agrivoltaics) compatible with the existing land use.