The dissertation began with questioning the current redevelopment and transformation approaches applied to brownfield sites in the Alpine region. The accent was posed on the fact that brownfield sites in mountain areas present very different contextual conditions, compared to traditional urban brownfields located in densely urbanised and economically developed regions. Exactly the acknowledgement of the higher relevance of the context over the content of the site, and thus the incorporation of the contextual conditions in the redevelopment process itself, was advanced as the conceptual shift required to effectively tackle the brownfield issue in mountain regions. Several examples of incomplete transformations, which leave unsolved either socioeconomic or environmental key questions, were included to support this statement. In response to the underestimated yet emerging challenge of brownfield redevelopment in the Alpine region, it was proposed to assume an outward, context-centred perspective on transformation, in which the brownfield site should be assumed as “a ‘hub’ of relational systems reaching out on the territory […] an integral part of a wider landscape, with which it establishes physical and functional relationships, generating recognisable topographies and specific environments mutually influencing the site actual conditions as well as its future transformation”Footnote 1. Indeed, this view brings forward a strong ‘infrastructural’ understanding of mountain brownfields, in which these are no more seen as isolated (and thus problematic) entities, but rather they are considered as critical nodes of a larger, hosting territorial structure. To sustain and develop this idea, and to facilitate its concrete implementation, it was proposed to assume a holistic landscape approach, capable of integrating nature and culture in the physical (living) environment, as well as space and society in a defined territory. This was assumed as necessary, in particular, to deal with the spatial, visual and especially cultural detachment of industrial brownfield sites from the Alpine context, which is indeed the source of major shortcomings in both research and practice when it comes to identify, define and transform mountain brownfields.

On these premises, the research addressed two causally interrelated questions, here briefly recalled:

  1. (1)

    quantify and characterise Alpine industrial brownfield sites, providing a first, necessary overview on the ‘size’ and the ‘shape’ of the problem;

  2. (2)

    develop and test a context-based, reliable and transferable transformation approach, capable of effectively sustaining the complex redevelopment process of Alpine brownfields.

The research was not limited to just ‘solve’ the transformation and development question of mountain brownfield sites, representing indeed the core issue on stake, but was aimed also and specially to frame the problem itself, to measure its significance. The interrelation between these two research objectives was synthesises and expressed by means of the following hypothesis:

The challenging redevelopment process of complex brownfield sites in mountain regions can only be successfully managed through an inclusive, adaptable and affordable landscape approach based on structural-systemic principles.

The effectiveness (usability and transferability) of such an approach is directly related to its capacity of integrating, in a structured but flexible way, the typological site specificity with the given environmental, economic and social contextual conditions.

Based on this hypothesis statement, a research methodology was designed and developed, articulated around two main forms of knowledge production.

A first, theoretical part aimed to deepen the two ‘variables’ of the hypothesis—“the challenging redevelopment process of complex brownfield sites in mountain regions” and “an inclusive, adaptable and affordable landscape approach based on structural-systemic principles”—by means of existing and available research on the topics. On the one hand, it was analysed in how far the Alps can be considered the context of “complex brownfield sites”, meaning to find out why brownfield sites can be found exactly there (a by-product of context-specific industrialisation and deindustrialisation processes) and how their redevelopment is challenged by the current economic, social and environmental conditions of the Alpine region itself. On these basis, Alpine brownfields were given a definition as ‘territorial infrastructures’, a form of territorial capital that is spatially well-integrated and defined (key nodes of a cultural landscape) yet functionally disconnected (temporarily useless yet suitable for reactivation). On the other hand, it was analysed what does it mean to approach brownfield transformation from a landscape-oriented perspective, and especially what does imply to deal with former industrial sites in a landscape ‘infrastructural’ way. In doing so, the focus was moved temporarily away from the Alpine region to review the main approaches to brownfield transformation developed so far, their cultural and disciplinary backgrounds and the influence on concrete planning and design outcomes. Accordingly, ‘structures’ and ‘systems’ were highlighted as key paradigms in approaching brownfields from a holistic landscape perspective, as two distinct yet strongly interwoven ways of interpreting the infrastructural qualities of these particular sites.

Following that, the empirical part of the research was developed with the aim to collect the evidence in support of the hypothesis, and especially in regard to the second hypothesis statement on the requirements of the proposed approach. To approach the complexity of the task, well expressed by the hypothesis and the twofold research aim—quantification/qualification of Alpine brownfields and development/testing of an appropriate transformation strategy—an incremental, multi-scalar analysis was carefully planned, set up and conducted. This encompassed three main scales: a first Alpine-wide territorial census of brownfield sites, an intermediate study of landscape typologies of most representative brownfield sites and a final design-based testing of transformation on four real-world case study sites. As foreseeable, this shifting between scales required the use of many different methods, tools and, generally speaking, it implied a careful handling of phases, related results and their interpretative interlinkages. Concerning the results, in particular, the multi-scalar empirical analysis was conceived in a way that the preliminary outcomes from each single scale could be directly illustrated and discussed immediately after the data collection. In this way, the structuring of the empirical part already partially included some of the conclusion of the research, or at least some of the most relevant key findings. In order to ease the comprehension of the following conclusive sections, these key findings are here briefly recalled:

  • the territorial census of Alpine industrial sites in traditional heavy and manufacturing sectors has revealed, through its figures, the extraordinary yet challenging relevance of the brownfield issue in this particular mountain region. Although partially expected, this first result comes actually ‘out of the blue’ if we consider that most of the existing research as well as national and transnational regional policies focusing on the Alpine region are not mentioning the question of brownfields at all, or at least they do superficially and with a too narrow local view;

  • attached to the geography of current and potentially future Alpine brownfields, the insights provided by local and regional stakeholders confirmed a general underestimation of the problem, but at the same time they helped to clarify why the redevelopment process is so problematic there. Not only financial, technical and management shortcomings of small-sized municipalities and local networks, but also and especially the limited ‘impulse’ of these fragile socioeconomic systems make the redevelopment of large and complex disused industrial sites very difficult. Furthermore, the stakeholders and representatives of affected communities and regions strongly addressed the economic relevance of these sites for the wider hosting territories, putting in fact in the background other most felt issues such as e.g. environmental and ecological concerns. This specific aspect was quite a surprise at first glance, as it clearly downturned the claim that in mountain regions and rural regions in general there is no pressure (interest) in redeveloping and reusing brownfield sites. The sites are there, and in huge numbers. The pressure is also there, with variable implications from context to context. The difficulty lies, therefore, in conveying this demand on the sites themselves, i.e. on delivering expectations in/through their transformation and ‘re-programming’;

  • Alpine brownfields are definitely not isolated entities, or better, not just in terms of site and surroundings. The distribution of the sites across the Alpine space, as emerged from the mapping process, described a geography which is clearly ‘territorialised’, where specific categories of sites (either closed, downsized or still active) are clustered on a regional basis. The spatial concentration of some industries than others, and the ratio between active and closed or downsized sites within the same sector, helped to outline recurring regional types, to which a specific relevance of brownfields was associated. This regional geography proved to be particularly useful to illustrate how each single Alpine brownfield is indeed part of a larger yet very specific territorial system, which is in turn capable of influencing (indirectly) the redevelopment process of every belonging site;

  • as resulted from the typological study of the landscape structures of Alpine industries, it was found how apparently different sites—located far from each other and developed in very diverse cultural contexts and environmental conditions—do actually share the same spatial organisation and footprint, thus interacting similarly with the surroundings. Far from wanting to ‘flatten’ the specificity and singularity of each Alpine brownfield, this remarkable finding clearly demonstrates the need, advanced in the hypothesis, of a transferable approach to transformation and redevelopment. Built architectures may vary by forms and age, as their status does, vegetational patterns and covers may also vary, depending on e.g. the climate conditions, but two disused cement factories located on the opposite sides of the Alps (either north-south or east-west) will always present the same landscape structure, the organisational logic of elements in space. This confirms what was addressed in the first pages of this work, that is, the much greater relevance of the relationships between the site and its surroundings over the content of the site itself. The recognisable landscape structures associated to specific Alpine industries, and thus brownfields, are at the same time the ‘common ground’ of analysis and the ‘variable’ of transformation.

These findings were conveyed, re-elaborated and somehow verified in the detailed design-based analysis of the case study sites. Presented as four very different ‘brownfield stories’, yet united in their analytical processing, the case studies constituted the most relevant empirical work of the entire research. On them and by them, the theoretical and empirical knowledge accumulated before was condensed and tested by means of a specifically designed methodological approach, involving a clear sequence of steps and procedures. At the end of the case study analysis, and through the comparison of the achieved results, different ‘evaluation’ pathways opened up. Those most immediate, and functional to the research construction, were the outlining of a taxonomy of transformative interventions as well as its further integration into a redevelopment matrix—a way to systematise the three scales of analysis (mapping, characterising and testing). However, the most prominent result of the thorough, field-based case study analysis was indeed that landscape approach already advanced in the hypothesis, now to be defined.

1 A Landscape Approach

By considering landscape in its inherent holistic nature, as “a complex whole that is more than the sum of its composing parts” (Antrop 2006: 35) where “all elements in the spatial structure […] are related to each other and form one complex system” (Ibid.), the landscape itself becomes the conceptual framework as well as the action space for guiding large and small territorial transformations. This principle was established in the beginning of the research, as the source of a potentially useful approach to deal with the complex planning challenge of redeveloping Alpine brownfields. The specific ‘environmental’ conditions of mountain landscapes—namely the over-relevance of topographical and ecological features, the dispersed yet concentrated urbanisation pattern and the prevalence of semi-natural open spaces over built ones—operate in fact a radical re-contextualisation of former industrial sites here located. As the focus necessarily shifts from the site to the complex relationships established with the surroundings, the mountain brownfield can be rightly perceived as integral part of wider, hosting landscape structure, of which it is not just a key structuring element, but in most cases also the cause behind that specific structure. This was clearly evidenced first in the Characterisation phase (Chapter 7), where the landscape structure of twenty-four Alpine industrial sites showed, in all cases, how their variable spatial footprint is indeed generated from the time-wise interaction between the physical surroundings and the previous industrial activities. Furthermore, the same mutual influencing was confirmed in the Testing phase on the four case studies (Chapter 8), and especially with reference to their diachronic landscape analysis and the on-site photographic study. This specific ‘outer-oriented’ condition of the brownfield site was considered, since the beginning of the research, as the key to address its problematic transformation. Already advanced in Chapter 3, the view of Alpine brownfields as territorial infrastructures, spatially embedded (already there) in a changing cultural landscape yet functionally disconnected from it, provides the reason for tackling their challenging redevelopment by means of a holistic landscape approach. The latter can be defined as such only if capable of effectively integrating the context into the site transformation process, not as a mere situational background or source of programmatic inputs, but rather as a structural and systemic extension of the site itself. Apparently more challenging than just the single site transformation, this passage is however extremely practical in its purpose. By assuming an holistic landscape view, integrative of all the components of landscape—artificial and natural, built and open, architectural and ecological, designed and accidental, linear and areal –, the complexity underlying the (missed) brownfield transformation can be broken down into minimum factors, enabling therefore their logical and factual ‘placement’ into the main planning process, as well as their functional integration into side-processes not directly related to the specific site (yet influential). In this way, not only the feasibility of the site transformation is substantially improved, but the process itself is finally (and rightly) integrated into those wider territorial dynamics to which it naturally belongs. The re-contextualisation of the brownfield site acts therefore as lever to also re-contextualise (review) its challenging redevelopment as a planning and design process. In this regard, the holistic landscape approach here developed proved to work effectively as both a conceptual framework—brownfield sites in mountain regions as territorial infrastructures, key nodes of a wider landscape structure—and an operative procedure—a system-based and performative guidance to the redevelopment process. These two aspects cannot be separated one from each other: while on the one hand the conceptual redefinition of Alpine brownfields as territorial infrastructure can be only fulfilled through a systemic transformation, on the other hand this procedural design model finds its reason only if these sites are considered as part of a larger context.

Developed and tested on the four case study sites, the holistic landscape approach to brownfield redevelopment in mountain contexts sets out as an iterative analytical-design process. This encompasses at least seven consequential phases, each building on the previous ones, as in a sort of progressive cognitive exploration aimed at outlining and guiding, as result, the overall site transformation (Fig. 9.1). The procedure can be exemplified as such:

  1. 1)

    Acquisition of the necessary knowledge on the regional context (geographic features, accessibility, socio-demographic features, economic features, environmental features, spatial development features).

  2. 2)

    Acquisition of the necessary knowledge on the site (historical background including elements on the former productive process, most recent developments including eventual plans and programs, future challenges and expectations).

  3. 3)

    Remote analysis of landscape change (diachronic study of the site physical evolution in relation to its surroundings, by means of aerial views and maps), based on (1) (2).

  4. 4)

    On-site analysis of landscape forms, features and visual interactions (planned and prolonged fieldwork focusing on the site and its context, to be thoroughly and carefully documented by means of geo-localised photography), based on (1) (2) (3)—Ex-ante evaluation of landscape transformation potential as complementary activity to fieldwork documentation (review of captured images with support of explorative sketches and annotations).

  5. 5)

    Outline of the landscape structure (site-centred map describing the composing elements and their spatial organisation), based on (3) (4).

  6. 6)

    Design and development of landscape transformation systems (site-centred diagrammatic maps describing the prospected transformation process through a 3-system strategy—backbone, borders, core), based on (1) (2) (3) (4) (5).

  7. 7)

    Assessment and implementationFootnote 2 (feasibility check with interested parties and formalisation into a site redevelopment plan), based on (6) + (1) (2).

The site and its context are clearly distinguished only in the first two phases, which are indeed aimed at setting the knowledge foundations of the entire process by means of collecting specific and relevant information on each of the two ‘scales’. From the third phase onwards, the site and the context are merged into a physical, tangible landscape, which constitutes the actual test field of both the following analytical and design activities. This shift in scale and perspective is strongly required in order to face brownfield transformation through a holistic landscape approach, that is, to consider right from the beginning, from the first stages of analysis, the formal and factual integration of the former industrial site into the surrounding landscape. It might sound banal in a way, but the tendency to consider the brownfield site as ‘other’ than its mountain context is real and common, as demonstrated by the failed redevelopment approaches occurred so far. In order to actualise this fundamental change of view, a highly explorative and photography-based fieldwork has to be introduced and operated. By focusing on the spatial and visual interactions between the site and its surroundings, recording them by means of a georeferenced landscape photographic approach, the differences between the former industrial site and what lays around it are indeed flattened and almost cancelled. Of course, this does not mean that planning-relevant issue such as land ownership or spatial regulatory rights and restrictions are avoided, but indeed during this perceptive and documentary diving into the landscape these are temporarily set aside, to be then recovered during the design phase.

Fig. 9.1
figure 1

Landscape approach, the procedure

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The fourth step constitutes the ‘keystone’ of the entire process, as it bounds together in space the previous analytical steps with the upcoming design and development ones. Specifically, the placement of this step halfway into the process constitutes one of the most innovative as well as relevant aspects of this methodology, compared to the usual way of approaching brownfields transformation. On-site analysis and fieldwork activities are normally occurring in the early stages of the process: in regular planning procedures but also in design commitments and competitions as well, the site visit is often perceived as a first, necessary contact with the ‘object’ of transformation, which is then rapidly explored and documented by means of highly subjective and spontaneous photography—acting as a ‘fake’ documentation, where to be documented are just the aspects that are interesting for the viewer and for his own view on future transformation. The prolonged fieldwork proposed in this new approach is evidently time- and cost-intensive, but also very democratic, as it does not require at all that the investigator shall be a professional photographer. Exactly the placement of the site visit and fieldwork after three key analytical stages—acquisition of knowledge on the context and the site, and remote analysis of landscape change—makes the investigator well-informed on what to see, to check and to document on-site. Going on site with a clear idea of what to expect and record, almost being already familiar with the site and its ‘landscape of embedment’, allows the planner-designer investigator to be highly pragmatic in his view and considerations on the future transformation. In other words, the fieldwork turns from being a mere site visit into a preliminary, ‘mental’ testing of the transformation that will occur. As a complementary, almost parallel activity to photographic documentation, the evaluation of the transformation potential of the site is carried on while visiting it, getting acquainted with the concrete spatial nature of the problems and issues already identified and defined in the previous stages. In this sense, photography acts as both a documentary tool, recording the actual ‘state of things’, and a design-oriented tool, rendering visible where, what and how change can take place. To allow this latter function of photography, it is necessary, again, to clearly ‘inform’ the photographic work in advance, i.e. to carefully plan the fieldwork activities according to the previous steps. The site visit, which includes indeed repeated and prolonged explorations of the site and its surroundings, should not be approached as just an aesthetic experience of pure observation, as if letting ourselves being totally absorbed by the landscape as a Romantic flaneur, but more as an objective evaluation practice, aimed at testing our knowledge of the ‘already there’ and, based on visual verification, prefiguring the change.

The amount of knowledge accumulated until this stage, an interwoven set of background information and direct experience, are then transferred into the last two stages, the design-oriented ones. In this regards, structural and systemic paradigms are introduced to respectively describe and address the complexity of the brownfield site as embedded in its hosting landscape. Although not referring to the Alpine context at all, the structuralist and systemic approaches to brownfield transformation discussed in Chapter 4 are indeed forming the thinking pattern for the development of specifically ‘Alpine’ structures and systems, useful and used to outline the transformation of brownfields here located. As defined already in the introduction of Chapter 7, before the case study analysis, the landscape structure of mountain brownfields is understood as “the composition of spatial elements on the land, defined according to their actual characteristics and interdependencies”, while associated landscape systems are each “the infra-structural configuration of spatial elements defined according to their performances and transformative interactions”. The structure is omnipresent, it defines the current conditions and describes the materiality of ‘participating’ elements as well as their organisation in space. Depicted by a territorial sample of 2,5 km diameter, centred on the brownfield site, the landscape structure shows very clearly how the site and its contexts are indeed fully integrated in the same structural organisation of the land. The site is not emerging as a different entity, as the sole object of transformation, but rather its presence is subtly dissolved in the context, as it is in reality. This way of prefiguring and depicting the landscape structure of mountain brownfields is also quite innovative, if compared to usual planning and design representations marking very strongly the site boundaries and its spatial ‘otherness’. In addition, such a different representation of a spatially embedded site can also help to better manage other transformation areas within the same mountain context, not necessarily of industrial origin.

Last but not least, the ‘infra-structural’ 3-system strategy for organising and representing the site transformation has proved to succeed very well in the challenging incorporation and elaboration of the information collected so far. As in the fieldwork analysis, where the photographic documentation of the site is logically developed through three oriented focuses (framescape, hardscape and softscape), also in the transformative design phase the complexity of the task is addressed by means of three landscape systems, i.e. variable configurations of spatial elements: backbone, borders and core (Fig. 9.2). The sequencing is not casual, as it emphasises the infrastructural quality of landscape and especially the key placement of brownfield sites in that one. Depending on the specific landscape structure, in turn related to the site typology and its contextual conditions (location), the three systems act very flexibly as a comprehensive planning device to identify and outline where and how transformation takes place. In other words, the systems so conceived help to set down the whole range of interventions required to reactivate the brownfield site as a territorial infrastructure. The systems orchestrate the interventions ‘organically’ in space, but not in time, or not at all in time. The latter, in particular, is another key innovative point of the whole approach: the complex redevelopment of brownfield sites is usually a time-wise process, for which a careful phasing is always outlined. While this is correct, necessary and by no means disputable, the landscape approach here developed makes indeed a step backward, prioritising the logical and functional identification of interventions in space over their planning over time. This choice has two main reasons: first, the focus and frame of the research are not meant to provide concrete designs for the case study sites, but instead the aim is, once more, to develop a methodology capable of coping with the ‘infrastructural’ nature of mountain brownfields; secondly, the phasing of a brownfield transformation can only be developed when the whole set of interventions, i.e. their required effort and its spatial footprint, is extremely clear, otherwise it would just end up in that vague timeline often used to ‘thicken’ many landscape planning and design projects. Based on the wide range of interventions as described through the 3-system strategy, and after having discussed and evaluated their feasibility with the stakeholders and involved parties, a concrete phasing can be outlined.

Fig. 9.2
figure 2

The 3-system strategy (exemplification)

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So conceived, this structural-systemic approach perfectly fulfils the three main requirements addressed in the introduction, and specifically in the first hypothesis statement:

  • it is inclusive, as it brings together, in the landscape structure and thus in the derived systems, different spatial elements belonging to both the brownfield site itself and the surroundings, thus generating a highly flexible transformation area whose shape is determined by current and future interactions;

  • it is adaptable, as the 3-system strategy can be easily applied to very different brownfield sites and related landscape structures, as clearly demonstrated in the case studies. Depending on the specific landscape structure and contextual conditions, the systems will incorporate different spaces, yet organising them for future transformation with the same logic. The backbone always includes a variable mix of ‘structuring’ entities, both buildings, open spaces and infrastructures. The borders always deal with the outer frame of the brownfield site, the edges and attached liminal spaces, in some cases reaching out vastly in the surroundings. The core, finally, always focuses on the hardscape of the brownfield site, its built-up inner area, which often corresponds to the effective brownfield site as identified in local and regional planning schemes;

  • it is also quite affordable, as it turns the overwhelming initial complexity of the site transformation into micro-interventions and independent little steps. These can be arranged and re-arranged in space and time according to the specific framework conditions (e.g. financial, technical or planning-related ones), as well as easily achieved by means of a joint cooperation of private and public, local and regional stakeholders. The indication of the key stakeholders to be involved in each step of the three systems aims exactly at that programmatic feasibility.

With these characteristics, the holistic landscape approach here developed provides a valuable methodological answer to the complex transformation and redevelopment of mountain brownfield sites. As always required by emerging planning challenges, in addition, this approach merges carefully selected and reinterpreted theoretical arguments with clear operative procedures, contributing therefore to increase the social function of science.

2 On Transferability

The transformative methodology previously outlined was developed and tested by means of four representative case study sites. As addressed in the introduction and expressed in the hypothesis, the effectiveness of such a landscape approach is measured not only through its capacity of actually figuring out the redevelopment process, but also and especially in terms of adaptability and replicability on a variety of different Alpine brownfields. The issue of transferability, clearly explained in the second hypothesis statement as the “capacity of integrating, in a structured but flexible way, the typological site specificity with the given environmental, economic and social contextual conditions”, was tackled in the empirical research by means of three scales of analysis (mapping, characterising, testing), and especially through the progressive integration of the interpretative findings from each of them. The latter can be achieved by shifting from general to particular, in a ‘deductive’ scaling-down of the Alpine brownfields’ geography into the concrete transformation of a few representative sites, as well as by shifting back from the particular to the general, through an ‘inductive’ definition of transformation principles and rules potentially valid for all the existing and future Alpine brownfields (Fig. 9.3).

In the first deductive process, the vast case system of Alpine brownfields was functionally broken down to specific types of industries, representing and grouping the majority of traditional heavy and manufacturing Alpine industries mostly affected by the crisis and closures—i.e. the primary ‘source’ of brownfields. From these sectors of types, a further selection of related industrial facilities served to identify the most relevant (industrial) landscape typologies, as resulting from the interaction between a certain industrial activity and the mountain context. This intermediate passage clearly showed the ‘compositional rule’ behind the similar types of Alpine brownfields, a determinant issue for what concerns the transferability of results. The typological analysis was then refined through the identification of four highly representative case study sites, resembling the different (common) conditions faced by Alpine brownfields. Approached from a theoretical yet well-grounded planning and design perspective, the transformation of these four sites has produced a set of recurring interventions, categorised into a taxonomy.

Starting from the latter, the inductive application of the case study results to the upper, more general analytical levels, verifies and enables the overall transferability. The transformative interventions outlined and tested on each of the four representative Alpine brownfield—again, very different in terms of actual state, contextual conditions and landscape typology—are theoretically transferable to other brownfields characterised by similar conditions. Of course, this transfer does not happen automatically, but it is rather ‘logically’ implemented on the basis of few independent variables, basically attributable to the typology-related landscape structure identified in the Characterisation phase. A similar landscape structure, i.e. a clear and recognisable composition of spatial elements on the land, is indeed the key that enables the transferability of transformative interventions to a multitude of other brownfields across the Alps, thus allowing a generalised feasibility of the process itself. In fact, as demonstrated in all the four case study sites, the landscape structure of mountain brownfields acts ‘naturally’ as the common ground for the programmatic inputs deriving from the regional context (the ‘framework’ of redevelopment) as well as for the transformative planning- and design-based interventions that the site requiresFootnote 3. The further and last step is the transfer of such a landscape-structural logic to the totality of current and potentially future Alpine brownfields, as identified in the Mapping phase. In this sense, ‘transformed’ landscape structures related to a specific brownfield typology can be almost infinitely replied (re-implemented) across a variety of regional and local contexts: the only changing variable will be in fact the programmatic input from the context, adaptively applied on the same site-related landscape structure.

Fig. 9.3
figure 3

Transferability scheme

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This apparently complex transferability scheme is indeed very simple in its functioning logic. In advancing and supporting the feasibility of the holistic landscape approach here developed, this scheme definitely proves the initial argumentation, expressed in the hypothesis, that the inherent infrastructural quality of landscape is the one and only interpretative key to deeply understand Alpine brownfields and to tackle their challenging transformation.