Enhancement strategies for historic towns. A proposal for the village of San Giovanni Lipioni.

In Italy, but also in the East Europe, many small and medium residential areas have to face different challenges, i.e. depopulation process due to working needs and the increasing in ageing of permanents residents combined with the economic recession. According to recent statistics, in a few decades from now about three thousand municipalities will undergo desertification processes at the expense of the loss of local traditions and cultural identities. Even if a national law, into force since 2017, focuses on the needs of permanent residents in small municipalities in order to foster demographic balance and optimize built heritage, a collaborative solving approach is not available yet. The main purpose of the paper proposal is to describe the role of new digital technologies in the territorial analysis, in order to widen the built heritage awareness and to support the urban social economic development. The illustrative case study has been identified in San Giovanni Lipioni, a small residential area in province of Chieti, where only 150 people live today. The strategy proposed consists of an expeditious survey of the urban routes by shooting and filming the small residential center using drones and action cameras. This process would create a system of virtual itineraries that allows a full immersion in the village context, accessible by using web platforms. Moreover, the state of conservation of a group of uninhabited buildings will be evaluated and analyzed. The study of technical and architectural solutions aims to elaborate synthetic factsheets to be completed with information about the state of preservation, construction characteristics and other useful contents in order to outline the interventions needed for the functional refurbishment of the examined building. This innovative knowledge framework wants to enhance social and cultural territory valorization in accordance with the development of sustainable principles and environmental compatibility and, at the same time, to strengthen local communities spirit.