Phd in ARCHITECTURE AND CONSTRUCTION

Thesis title: Un approccio integrato per la valorizzazione del patrimonio immobiliare dismesso: proposta di un indice sintetico a supporto della riconversione degli edifici per usi sanitari

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the structural fragilities of contemporary healthcare systems, highlighting in particular the inadequacy of hospital-centric models in addressing widespread, prolonged, and complex health needs. In Italy, the public health emergency accelerated a reform process of the National Health Service (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale – SSN), aimed at strengthening community-based care and building a more integrated, resilient system attuned to the needs of local populations. Within this framework, Mission 6 – Health of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) promotes the creation of Community Health Centres (Case della Comunità – CdC) as low-complexity, proximity-based healthcare facilities, also to be implemented through the adaptive reuse of disused public buildings. The planning and location of CdCs represent a multidimensional decision-making problem, involving clinical, architectural, territorial, financial, and organisational aspects. While traditional economic and financial evaluations remain essential, they often prove insufficient to fully capture the complexity and intangibility of many of the benefits associated with such interventions. This research aims to bridge this gap through the development and testing of a Decision Support System (DSS) based on a composite evaluation index. The purpose of the tool is to assess, ex ante, the locational, structural, functional, socio-health, and economic suitability of buildings that may be converted into CdCs. The model integrates multi-criteria techniques with indicators derived from statistical sources, technical documentation, and consultation with domain experts. The criteria considered include building characteristics, territorial accessibility, socio-demographic context, epidemiological pressure, and financial feasibility. The DSS was applied to a real case study – a former nursery school located in the municipality of Noicattaro (BA), currently undergoing conversion into a CdC as part of the CIS (Institutional Development Contract) promoted by the Apulia Region – to test its internal coherence, operational viability, and practical relevance for public administration. The index produces an overall score for each property, disaggregated by analytical dimension, to support selection and strategic planning. The results confirm the validity of the tool in promoting transparent, replicable, and rational public decision-making.