Reconnecting the Urban Fabric: Adaptive Reuse of Industrial Sites through Strategic Bridge Integration

The former OSI-Ghia factory in Turin, once a symbol of industrial and automotive excellence, today represents one of the city’s most significant brownfield challenges. Severed from its surroundings by railway lines and urban voids, the site illustrates both the spatial fragmentation and socio-economic shifts that characterize many post-industrial landscapes in Europe. Rather than viewing such places as obsolete, this thesis proposes their potential transformation into sustainable and inclusive urban environments, capable of contributing to broader strategies of regeneration.This research explores how the adaptive reuse of industrial heritage anchored in a deep understanding of architectural identity, historical memory, and urban dynamics can respond to contemporary needs. The study focuses on integrating the ex-OSI-Ghia area into Turin’s urban system by addressing critical issues such as mobility, accessibility, and functional diversification. The project approach merges historical analysis with urban design experimentation, considering spatial connections with adjacent neighborhoods, key institutions like the Mauriziano Hospital, and surrounding residential districts.From a methodological perspective, the thesis adopts a systemic and multidisciplinary framework that combines urban analysis, case study comparisons, and sustainable design strategies. The proposal includes targeted interventions: two new bridges reconnecting the site across urban barriers, demolition of underused volumes to generate public space, and a reprogramming of the area with student housing, co-working spaces, green zones, and shared facilities. These elements are coordinated through a circulation network that reestablishes permeability and introduces new social and ecological functions.By transforming a disused industrial complex into an active urban node, the project demonstrates how brownfield redevelopment can balance heritage conservation with innovation, and spatial repair with community value. The thesis aims to provide a transferable model that highlights the strategic importance of mobility-driven design and the role of industrial memory in shaping future-ready urban environments.