A Philological Digital Platform to Experimental Preservation: Upcycling the Prefabricated School Buildings Heritage

In Europe, the increasing demand for public education between the 1950s and 1960s prompted extensive school-building programs. The design of these new schools was supported by updated pedagogical theories, which inspired a rethinking of building layouts. From a technological point of view, intensive experimentation with prefabricated construction systems was carried out to meet emerging design concepts for school buildings, as well as to accelerate construction and reduce costs. Nowadays, late 20th-century school buildings have emerged as fragile architectural heritage, characterized by experimental technological solutions that require the development of customized preservation approaches. This contribution presents a philological digital platform to document and analyze exemplary late 20th-century school buildings: this platform aims to support the conception of a novel preservation strategy driven by the principles of the circular economy. The analysis is framed within the broader scenario of participatory practices for the experimental preservation of late 20th-century public building heritage.