INDUSTRIAL BROWNFIELD SITES AND THEIR URBAN REGENERATION

Abstract

This paper covers the problems related to the transformation of brownfield locations in the context of modern urban development and strategies of sustainable urbanism and urban regeneration. Specifically, preservation of the identity of the location and restoration of that industrial, cultural and architectural heritage, thus contributing to urban regeneration and improving the quality of living and working.

Adaptive regeneration stands out as a sustainable model for brownfield site regeneration. It implies the integration of abandoned industrial sites in an urban environment and their adaptation, repurposing and reconstruction in the context of modern trends and social and economic needs, meeting environmental criteria, etc. Due to this approach to the regeneration of these locations, which is mainly conditioned by the program for local economic development, the historical, spatial and cultural values, the urban memory of the inhabitants is neglected, which leads to the destruction of the urban identity of those locations. In addition to the goal of these abandoned, underutilized, often polluted complexes being economically profitable and contributing to a better image of the environment, we must not forget that they have a historical and cultural value that can help attract investments.

For this reason, a good sustained analysis of all parameters (economic, urban, ecological, property-legal, aesthetic and social, social, etc.) should be done beforehand, and then all the possibilities offered by a brownfield site should be considered, but in context of local economic development and the real needs of a city. In this way, positive effects can be achieved that would lead to a complete urban regeneration of a brownfield site.