Abstract
COVID 19 has led us to change our way of life. We went from a dynamic model, accelerated with high consumption to a static one (all at home), at moderate speed and with reduced consumption (negative price of oil). Above all, we discovered how to manage differently another resource: time. This resource suddenly filled with culture. Culture (books, music, cinema…) as a lifeline, but also as a source for founding resilient actions and meaningful references on how to continue structuring our existential path. In the same way, cultural heritage can open up integrated and sustainable development prospects for the contemporary city. This paper reports the approach of ROCK (Regeneration and Optimization of Cultural Heritage (CH) in creative and Knowledge-based Cities), a European H2020-funded project. ROCK focuses on historic city centres as extraordinary laboratories to demonstrate how CH can be a unique and powerful engine of regeneration for the whole city. Therefore, the project focuses on three major and interconnected engines of urban development, i.e. 1. city and the public spaces as a common heritage 2. the tangible and intangible assets (past, contemporary and in progress) of the cultural heritage 3. innovative technologies at the service of the city. The ROCK experimentation involved many important European cities, playing the roles of Models and Replicators: Athens, Bologna, Cluj, Eindhoven, Lisbon, Liverpool, Lyon, Skopje, Turin, Vilnius, the partnership being completed by SMEs, research centres and universities. A virtual market was created to match the real problems of the cities with offers from companies that promote innovations and products for smart cities, among which we will focus upon people flow analytics, people perception, as well as outdoor monitoring tool. The integration of innovative tools and technology in the cultural heritage environment is not an easy job. This paper focuses its attention on how to optimize the dialogue between city demand and offers from the market, while respecting the diversity of the urban contexts of reference. Lastly, it shows a methodology for improving the dialogue between business-solutions and sustainable urban management in the context of protection and enhancement of cultural heritage.
