Enhancing the consolidated public space for social well-being. Interventions on the historic centre of Trecastagni, Sicily.

Enhancement means taking actions aimed at giving value. It is a cultural operation that can promote conservation interventions, reserved for the maintenance of the place. In smaller urban contexts, the value is represented by the whole and the enhancement has objectives focused on public heritage. Today, enhancement connects the past with the future and provides an occasion to highlight the tangible and intangible resources safeguarded by such heritage. Public space is the social space; it exists in any urban, suburban or rural reality. Public space is able to influence the psycho-physical well-being of man, but also social well-being, made of meetings, distraction, socialization. The study aims to highlight how the enhancement of an existing public space can positively affect the well-being of man. The spasmodic search for places outside the house, where to spend peaceful hours, makes the public space the perfect element for social well-being. The case study is Trecastagni, a small town near Catania, Sicily, Italy, at the foot of Mount Etna. The city has an interesting old town consisting of small palaces built almost all after the earthquake of 1693 and beautiful churches even older. This research is aimed at retrieving the urban space in the existing place, to bring out the memory and identity that time has made us forget, but also to create an attractive and inclusive place, but also to give life to a community and its heritage, promoting sociality, well-being, relaxation but also life, the economy.