MULTI-CRITERIA ANALYSIS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF TEMPORARY REUSE OF SPACES

Abstract. Urban change has always marked the way of rethinking cities, bringing continuous studies aimed at urban regeneration. In contrast to traditional approaches, centered on the duality of demolition and construction, the temporary reuse of spaces addresses the issue of urban transformation with a multi-criteria approach involving the participation of community representatives.

Analytic-hierarchical methods are support systems based on multiple criteria able to process a large number of different factors. Analytic-Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a specific instance of the general methods by means of which weights and quantities of an element, respect to the category taken into consideration, are assigned.

The multi-criteria fuzzy criterion, applied in a study-case to three different alternatives (hypotheses) of reusing industrial ex-spaces abandoned in a municipality of the Milan province (Italy,) allows one to select the best alternatives in all cases in which many selection choices (spaces typology, required functions, benefits, timing) are possible and the optimal choice can be achieved by analyzing the different scopes of each criterion and sub-criterion as well as the relevant weights. Criteria are mutually compared in terms of the global objective while the alternatives are compared as function of the criterion. As outcome of this operative sequence the most sustainable solution, among the three different alternatives of the temporary re-use of the urban spaces addressed in the study-case, measures the relative priority of the alternatives existing at the lower level with respect to the achievement of the main objective and it is implemented according to the lowest economic cost.