Preserving memory while reusing spaces: the ‘English way’ to regeneration by Urban Space Management Team

Abstract

Urban regeneration and industrial archaeology, dating back between the fourties and the fifties of the 20th century, has drawn attention to architecture, equipment and evidence of human manufacturing, widening the scope of Heritage Preservation in Europe and all over the world. Scholars detected an overall and quite similar development of the approach to industrial Heritage throughout time in the western world, from an early spontaneus interest, through an exploitation mostly based on economic purposes, towards a more recent preservative and inclusive attitude in regenerating buildings and sites, that has a strong support from the voluntary sector in UK. This paper reports the concept and main achievements of a team that, since the seventies, has being pioneering an interdisciplinary, cost-effective and yet preservative approach to abandoned production sites. Blending economic return and true attention to people and site specificity, innovation and campaigns for protection and proper reuse, this approach has been proving to be able to decline the different acceptations of sustainability and, as for conceptual and operational aspects, presents some interesting food for thought.