Sustainability as a Requirement in Recovery of Traditional Buildings. The Hotel des Baign in Acireale (Catania, Italy): Thinkings and Proposals

Contemporary culture see to link the sustanibility term to any human activity and, consequently, to every scale of intervention (from territory to building). If is common opinion that a sustanibility strategy find a natural application in building recovery practices (from traditional buildings to modern ones), it is necessary to step forward assessing other particular aspects of the building process. We have to think about a design approach which lead to a building sustainability recovery that is consiuous of the impact that the planning choices cause on environment. In fact when for traditional building is defined a new use, or is adjusted the existing one to the needs of contemporary society, it is necessary to consider the peculiarity of an existing building because it express a geometric-spatial feature, a technical-constructive apparatus and a specific request for energy to construction and management phases. These planning data have to be analyzed by a thermodynamic point of view, according to a systemic logic. This paper propose some observations about the application of sustainability principles in design recovery of traditional buildings. It produce as a case study, the Hotel des Baign, a building erected in Acireale (CT) at the end of XIX century. Now it ask for an adjustment to new needs of contemporaneity.