Gli effetti del consolidamento strutturale nel tessuto edilizio minore: alcune riflessioni a valle del sisma Centro Italia 2016

Five years after the 2016 Central Italy earthquake, the debate on how to rebuild historical centres is still open and topical. Those centres are the result of recurring reconstruction processes following seismic events. The latest one gave the chance to question the effectiveness of structural interventions applied to masonry buildings in the last forty years. Nowadays, seismic codes upgraded the safety levels to be reached; conversely, intervention protocols aimed at preserving a building’s structural and aesthetical identity are still lacking. In this study, based on onsite inspections of the 2016 seismic area, the authors propose five categories of residential masonry buildings, which refer to various combinations of structural interventions. Each category was evaluated in terms of appearance and structure preservation, and structural safety level. Their behaviour during the earthquake demonstrated the inadequacy of incompatible concrete tampering, whereas overall interventions led to satisfactorily performances. The best behaviour was reached by dwellings rebuilt with new materials, questioning the opportunity to apply this technique to the detriment of a centre’s historical identity.