Regeneration of landscape architecture: requalification of Scardamiano seafront in Aci Castello, Sicily (italy)

Regeneration is defined as «reconnection, or reconstruction of a crucial relationship for the quality and suitability of the building fabric and its landscape: reconnection or reconciliation" between the identity elements of the place, "reanimation of an area deprived of its original functions». Regeneration, recalls a wider range of actions and becomes a network of knowledge and techniques that sets in motion with several different figures and tasks. The architect, in this sense, is still the bearer of solutions but is invited to compare them with other figures and other knowledge. The economic crisis, with the reduction of the services provided, offers a model of city and territory of entrepreneurial type, in which the activities must be rethought to attract resources. Cities therefore become competitive because they must decide, independently, their future and increasingly involve representatives of the private sector, small and large owners, businesses and institutions for the achievement of their end. Urban re-generation process put into play the user requests, to involve them in decision-making, to share and discuss with them the architectural and redevelopment choices. Users are the community, made up of older people whose knowledge is helpful to identify the changes, young people to understand what they would like in the future, the adults to understand the problems of the place. Urban regeneration cannot take place without actions and policies that recognise the basic rights of all citizens to the satisfaction of fundamental needs: work, education, health, housing, participation in the public sphere, recognition of different cultural identities». The intention is to give back the soul of the city, a civil city, ecological, welcoming and alive, thanks to the new materials that the end of the last century has produced. The study case is the Scardamian seafront in Aci Castello, a small village that falls in the metropolitan area of Catania and that has now been incorporated. The seafront Scardamiano joins Aci Castello to the fishing village of Aci Trezza, today thriving tourist village, full of gastronomic, tourist and accommodation activities, as well as bathing. This stretch of coast has undergone considerable transformations: once there were elegant Art Nouveau villas, today some are still alive but crushed between tall and imposing buildings. The area along the sea, rich in ancient rocks of thousands of years, not at all valued, is used for bathing, for pleasure, for different uses, without a common purpose. The research intends to propose design strategies for the seafront, through dynamics of participatory design and feasibility assessments, in terms of appreciation by users. The basis is the use of that functional mix that is the fundamental element for the realization of effective interventions.