ABANDON AND REOCCUPATION

The abandon of industrial sites is one of the most important expressions of contemporary socio-economic dynamics. Today, the global economic crisis prefigures scenarios where large industrial regions will be involved in the changes of productive forms and activities, giving these areas new urban values and meanings through processes of urban regeneration and transformation. The factory, lost its meaning and connotation of settled place for the production of material assets, becomes a place of memory, symbol of values, resource for new design dimensions and experimentations. This process of regeneration has been defined reoccupation of an abandoned area; it is interpreted as the achievement of social missions, obtained through processes of strong participation and cooperation, and able to reach a balance between private interests and communities, assuring constructional and environmental quality in the transformation of industrial sites.