The new rehabilitation strategies of architecture: The building of the new University of Messina

The city and its buildings are an expression of the history and the socio-cultural context shaping their forms and interior meanings. The archival documentation allows to walk backwards along the milestones influencing the design process, giving the possibility of understanding all the motivations driving its continuous development. The system of buildings forming the original nucleus of the New University of Messina, built immediately after the 1908 earthquake and, in particular, one of the buildings in question, represents the research object of this contribution. The comparative reading of the original project with the recent surveys has become an opportunity to set up a strategy aiming to improve the level of comfort of its environments by adapting the building to the new standards. Indeed, by applying such exegetical process we will try to investigate the construction methodologies putting them in relation to the needs of main users; the building under investigation had in fact to fulfill the "specialist" function of the headquarter of university institutes integrating among the other functions of laboratory type. After having analyzed the transformations that have occurred over time and the relative adaptation to new uses, the objective of the research is to formulate design hypotheses aimed at the "rehabilitation" of the building through the combined application of the tools of representation (survey, graphic analysis and 3D modeling) which will allow, in the first phase of the work, to formulate hypotheses for the re functionalization of the environments. Subsequently, the remodulation of the spaces analyzed according to the new comfort needs will be foreseen, applying innovative technologies in the field of environmental improvement, optimization of the dimensions and furnishings in relation to the work activities that take place there. All this invokes the civil role of architecture in response to great contemporary needs, where the redesign of workspaces, through the use of some fundamental steps, allows for the creation of a simple, comfortable, dynamic, multifunctional, technological and compliant workplace and productivity. The perception of the work space, single or shared, is gradually changing also due to a series of dynamics that involve our lives: the advancement of technology, the emergence of more flexible forms of work, growing attention to sustainability and greater interest in the health of users.