Progettazione Struttural e Funzione Sociale dello Spazio quale vulnerabilita e soluzione al terrorismo urbano

This article presents the knowledge gaps and the methodological steps inherent the process of standardization of the terrorist threat in urban environments for the structural design and rehabilitation of buildings for civilian use. The necessity for a revision of the current technical codes for building constructions which shall include also the terrorist threat, appears as cogent in light of the progression in number and harshness, of the terrorist attacks recently involving soft targets inserted in highly urbanized environments of European cities, with the aim of provoking the highest number of civilian victims within their everyday life. The normative integration of the terrorist threat in the design process of civil constructions implies performing a number of delicate methodological steps. In fact, the physical-mechanical nature of impact waves referred to explosions or hyper-velocity impacts is different from the ones associated to dynamic loadings already known and properly treated within design codes for civilian buildings, such as earthquakes (or wind). The peculiarity of the threat is reflected in the different behavior which the different types of dynamic loadings provoke on the same structure, requiring an update not simply to the validations currently employed within the structural design, but also including the approach itself inherent the anti-seismic philosophy of design when dealing with terrorism. The unique phenomenology of the terrorist threat with reference to the involved target, primarily lies on the social function of the spatial distributions and relative interactions of the urban fabric of the city in which the target is inserted, that the terrorist attack is primarily aimed to disaggregate. This unique feature requires also the comprehension and subsequent quali-quantitative assessment of the social function of the target and of the social dimension of the attacker (the carrier of the terrorist threat), within the standardization process of the terrorist input. However, this source of vulnerability to man-made threat, intrinsic to most of the buildings and constructions in Europe, potentially rises as promoter of the recovery of an urban harmony often neglected within the Architecture of the contemporary city, toward a philosophy of design of the single building which includes the humanistic function of the architectural and urbanistic elements in which it is inserted. http://www.sicurezzaterrorismosocieta.it/fascicolo-8-2018/