Accessibility and usability of the architectural heritage: chances for a "social" sustainability of the building restoration

The topic of accessibility and usability of the historical-architectural heritage is becoming increasingly important at a national and European level, also for the important functions that are normally inserted in buildings with high cultural and documentary value, often located in the historical centre of the towns or in areas of high environmental value. This writing proposes general reflections on the "social" importance of the accessibility to the historic building heritage and offers suggestions for an approach to the design of accessibility according to a method aware of the complexity of the subject, participated and multidisciplinary. The text is completed with the report of two applied researches lone to the urban scale and one to the construction scale) developed according to this method.