The Assessment of Damages to Scientific Building: The Case of the Science Centre Museum in Naples, Italy

The present paper presents the results of a study on the assessment of the damages caused by the arson that in March 2013 severely damaged the building of the "Science Centre" museum located in the western part of the city of Naples. The case is contextualized in the broader thematic of the evaluation of damages caused by intentional events to real estate assets. The peculiarity of the case under analysis appears particularly interesting both for the extend of damages caused by the fire and the methodological approach to be adopted for the “quantum” determination. The model implemented is based on the cost approach criterion, considering the physical and technological depreciation in the “status quo ante” the event. In particular, we will test a “functional component” approach to determine the depreciation function for each component due to the specificity of the scientific building under analysis. The results of the study confirmed that the proposed approach appears to be adequate to estimate the damage to the real estate assets, managing to capture the different components that contribute to determining the market value of the property at hand.