intervention strategies for renovation of social housing estates

Laurentino38. Example of deprived social housing estates in Rome. Chapter 7
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for energy savings are regulated by the national law on the building stock on the whole (Law
10 n. 46/1990).
Clearly, because of their costs and urgency in solving basic problems and damages,
additional improvements, like those directed at the functional quality, are not listed on the
agenda. This explains why interventions like, for example, adaptation of housing supply and
improvement of building recognizability are not implemented at all.
The only attempt to differentiate the insula involves external paintings of the blocks (see
Section 7.2.1). The Technical Department investigated alternatives for repainting the facade
of the bridge buildings with different colours. This helped to distinguish the red bridge from
the blue or the yellow one. Additional finances for restructuring of Laurentino38 came only
from CQII. But they do not substantially finance renovation on building level.
Physical measures on building and dwelling level did not improve the quality of the blocks.
Also, they did not alter the initial characteristics. Clearly, this means no changes of type and
size of dwellings, nor the accessibility of the building.
The most common interventions regarded rehabilitation of concrete panels, repainting,
restoration of roofs and demolition of the bridge buildings.
Technical interventions implemented so far only concerned improvement of thermal
insulation of the blocks owned by the cooperatives (financed by regional funds and not
included within the group of buildings managed by ATER).
No methods were used to assess quality of dwellings, but a group of technicians is updating
conditions of the whole housing stock managed by ATER.
Despite their efforts, buildings and dwellings conditions are not up to date.
According to a technician of the Technical Department the following items should be dealt
with in future interventions: water supply, structural problems (especially stability of the
blocks), sewerage system, thermal insulation of existing façade (following the example of the
cooperatives but solving thermal bridges and also substituting window frames and glazing),
management of public spaces and realization of all the facilities foreseen by the master plan
(they were not completed).
The fact that Laurentino 38 got additional funds for renovation (CQII and PRU) did not imply
any structural change in intervention strategy. Actions are still very superficial and focused
on solving limited problems. There is a lack of integration of interventions.
It is worth mentioning that factors listed as deserving further attention are those that in
principle should to be dealt with to guarantee minimum quality of living: water supply
system, structural stability and thermal insulation. Those factors underscore again the size
and relevance of the problem of renovation of social housing in Rome (See Chapter 3,
section 3.2).
Therefore the question that still arises is: what would be the best strategy to restructure
neighbourhoods like Laurentino 38 and change these neighbourhoods into nice places to live
in?
Considering the current context, there is no answer to this question. Indeed, the priority is
not on strategies for single neighbourhoods, like Laurentino 38, rather on substantial
transformations of the entire system (see Chapter 3). These changes are strongly related to
political power at a regional level. As it is structured now, ATER could not do much more.
CONCLUSIONS
In this chapter an example of deprived large social housing estates in Rome was presented.
Its physical characteristics and the historical background (mostly related to developments of
social housing in Rome) were presented in the first section.
To investigate problems at the neighbourhood level, three sources were used to analyse the
problem. That is: an article by the architect Pietro Barucci (the group leader of the Building
Department of the realization of the Laurentino38), and two documents on the restructuring
of the area by the Municipality of Rome, i.e. the Program for Urban Renewal “PRU” and the
24. G
PHYSICAL MEASURES
IN L38