Technology is not enough. Social sustainability in renovation of Social Housing buildings: towards a user-oriented strategy

The aim of this paper is to analyze the current condition of the Social Housing throughout Italy and Europe, seeking for a methodological answer to increase the variability and flexibility of the renovation process. The focus consists in investigating the various needs and desires of the users, trying to find out the existing conflicts between the current inhabitants and the existing buildings in order to achieve a socially sustainable revision of the buildings, going further the merely technological and architectural aspects. A collaboration between the Department of Architecture and Sociology of the University of Bologna1 has led to the definition of a questionnaire that has been used as core preliminary tool: the social character of the renovation has been considered as prerequisite and premise for the energetic, technical and architectural renovation. One of the italian pilot briefly illustrated with the experimental design outcome to illustrate the application of the proposed design methodology.