Demolition-reconstruction interventions and deep renovation interventions are the main strategies implemented with the aim of adapting the existing residential heritage. In particular, the deep renovation interventions are at the centre of a cultural debate, as evidenced by the research carried out on large modernist peripheral settlements. In this context, it is interesting to investigate how this approach can be applied to those historic urban tissues and smaller centres that strongly characterise the Italian and European territory. Starting from the analysis of several case studies identified in the Belgian context, the work codifies archetypes of intervention on technological units and analyses their limits and potential of application to the Italian context with the aim of opening a debate between conservation approaches and adaptation approaches.