Demolire o Riqualificare? LCA e Analisi Multi-Criteria per il caso della ricostruzione post-sisma / Demolish or Redevelop? LCA and Multi-Criteria Analysis for the case of post-earthquake reconstruction

The debate on demolition and reconstruction, as an alternative to the building redevelopment of existing residential buildings, certainly has been an issue of capital importance for operators and researchers of residential construction sector for several decades, at a national and international level. It is a question, indeed, of evaluating whether the demolition process and consequent reconstruction of an existing building with better technological performances from an energy and seismic point of view, is more environmentally sustainable than the deep renovation process. The scientific evidence in favor of one or the other approach is still object of debate and actually is uncertain. Actually, building sustainability is a critical point in this evaluation and Life Cycle Assessment - LCA is the most important approach to assess building sustainability. Nevertheless, some other sustainability – related indicators can be defined, therefore a Multi-Criteria approach is needed. The case study of a deep renovation of an existing residential building damaged by the earthquake of Emilia Romagna of 2012 is addressed. By simulating the demolition and re-construction project and comparing it with the actual deep renovation project, the LCA approach is used to evalute the most sustainable building strategy. Analitic Hierachic Process is used as a multi – criteria analysis to take into account other important sustainability indicators.