Unravelling Ostrom’s Design Principles Underpinning Sustainable Heritage Projects

Abstract

Heritage conservation projects involve diverse stakeholders, such as property owners, communities, NGOs, and governments, whose “misaligned” incentives produce high transaction costs and often pose persistent challenges. Considering heritage sites as analogous to common pool resources (CPR), this study examines whether sustainable heritage projects adhere to Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for managing CPRs. The UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation are used as a benchmark to identify best practices in private–public collaborations over the past two decades. Through content analysis of award application dossiers, the researchers assess whether the design principles are applied differently between successful and unsuccessful projects and evaluate the sufficiency of Ostrom’s principles in the heritage conservation context. The findings indicate that four design principles are more consistently balanced in award-winning projects: “Collective Choice Arrangements”, “Congruence with Local Conditions”, “Monitoring Mechanisms”, and “Minimum Recognition of Rights”. Additionally, successful projects tend to incorporate “people growth-oriented activities”, such as skills training and education for local workers and youth, benefiting current and future project beneficiaries. These insights suggest that adapting Ostrom’s design principles can enhance the sustainability of heritage conservation efforts by better aligning stakeholder incentives and addressing the “misalignment of incentives” challenge commonly encountered in such projects.

1. Introduction

Background

Heritage conservation projects usually involve multiple players or stakeholders. Stakeholders may include the government, business enterprises, property owners, not-for-profit organisations, religious bodies, education institutions, architects, and many more. Working for a common goal, the different players contribute to achieving conservation goals. However, the motivations and incentives of each player are far from aligned [1]. In the context of urban heritage conservation, projects often encounter a problem of “misalignment of incentives” among their stakeholders [1]. For instance, the state’s goal in conservation may not be as economically oriented as a business enterprise’s motivation in the same project. Similarly, the community where a built heritage is located may have a different value perception than the actual property owner. All these lead to difficulties in collaborating or collective action problems.

In neo-institutional economic parlance, collective action problems are due to the presence of varying degrees of transaction costs. The concept of transaction costs originated from the 1937 article about the Nature of the Firm by Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase, “Transaction costs include … any concomitant inefficiencies in production or misallocation that resulted from them” [2]. When at least two parties engage in an exchange or collaboration, it requires minimum “technological and institutional supports” to be able to happen, and these “entail costs” [3]. This cost covers “a spectrum of institutional costs including those of information, of negotiation, of drawing up and enforcing contracts, of delineating and policing property rights, of monitoring performance, and of changing institutional arrangements” (p. 77, [4]). When the transaction cost is high enough, “misalignment” of different stakeholders’ benefits and costs in carrying out the task occurs, and collaboration or market transactions may eventually be hampered. Applying this to heritage projects, a scenario involving high transaction costs makes it difficult to conserve and maintain a site sustainably and can even lead to governance issues [5,6,7].

Collective action may become even more challenging during the phase of sustaining the heritage project post facto. This phase is after the actual rehabilitation of the old buildings, where owners, funders, architects, and other partners work to transform a dilapidated structure into a usable one. After the initial excitement of the refurbishment, how can the involvement of the local community and visitors be sustained? How can operations be financed more reliably? Indeed, the project’s viability after the architectural repair and transformation increasingly focuses on evaluating how various beneficiaries and contributors interact to keep the project alive. It is the unity of the people in and around the built heritage project that sustains and maintains it.

The primary task, therefore, is to reduce these transaction costs to facilitate better collaboration and dispute resolution. For a project to remain functional over an extended period, it is crucial to minimise friction or conflicts among stakeholders that could jeopardise unity. Various approaches have been attempted to address this persistent issue, yet institutional strategies have been one of the most prominent solutions proposed by scholars [8]. Here, institutions refer to human-made systems, rules, or strategies designed to carry out operations [9]. These institutions can be established to foster cooperation and redefine individual behaviours [8]. Some institutional arrangements are expected to lower transaction costs [1].

Before proceeding further, a brief discussion about the governance of resources held in common by a group may be needed. Common-pool resources (CPRs) are tangible or intangible resource systems that a particular group of people finds useful and valuable, and unlike private property, it is more challenging to exclude others from using these resources [10]. Early studies on CPR primarily focused on environmental resources. Due to their economic nature, CPRs are susceptible to overuse and destruction, a phenomenon known as the tragedy of the commons, popularised by Hardin [11]. The traditional neoclassical economic solution to this issue is to privatise the resource, assuming that stakeholders are self-interested, perfectly rational individuals with sufficient information to make decisions, which makes collaboration difficult except perhaps for smaller communities [12].

Elinor Ostrom contested this view, arguing that many natural resource cases demonstrate that some communities can cooperate to sustainably manage a CPR for extended periods [13]. Ostrom found that certain systems or institutions used in natural resources held in common by a community were effective, while others were not. Given the diversity of empirical cases she and her collaborators studied, there was no formula for these transaction-cost-reducing systems. Instead, they found that these systems or institutions followed certain principles, which she summarised in her book Governing the Commons [13].

The extensive literature on CPR conservation provides evidence of patterns or principles that sustain necessary collaboration in environmental resource conservation. Although admittedly not exhaustive [13], the works of Ostrom have produced a working list of design principles [14]. These principles are characteristic patterns of sustainable institutions derived by investigating numerous past collective action case studies [15], mostly related to natural resources. These include studies that look into fisheries, irrigation, forestry, carbon taxation, herding, cities, etc., e.g., [16,17,18,19,20,21,22]. Such patterns or systems reduce transaction costs, ensuring that CPRs are sustainably utilised and conserved for a more extended period of time.

Many heritage conservation efforts are analogous to those of CPRs [7]. While the concept of CPRs was originally developed in the context of natural resources, whose value is typically measured in economic terms, scholars have intentionally or unintentionally extended it to intangible resource systems that provide social, cultural, or psychological value—which does not exclude cultural heritage [10]. Moreover, to address the economic nature, where it is partially rivalrous and challenging to exclude non-stakeholders, of heritage conservation projects, various governance arrangements are employed. Žuvela and colleagues [23] categorised the main types as public–civil, public–private, and public–private–community partnerships. Public entities include central and local governments and public estate owners; private entities encompass businesses, developers, and private owners; people/community refers to common citizens, the non-profit sector, and end-users; and civil entities include associations, organisations, alliances, and networks [23,24]. These collective action scenarios go beyond the dichotomous state and market approach, as shown in ref. [25], and fit well within the design principles framework. The design principles serve as useful signposts for analysing their mechanisms and performance.

So far, we have seen few articles addressing the application of the design principles in cultural heritage conservation projects, except a work published in the ICOMOS Open Archive by Vitug [26]. Vitug matched actions put forward by Vigan City in the Philippines with Ostrom’s design principles as a demonstration of why Vigan was the awardee for Best Management Practice amongst all the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2012 [26]. However, this stand-alone comparison did not explain the behind-the-scenes logic and does not advance our understanding of sustainable heritage project governance to propose practical models. It would then be worthwhile to explore the following questions: What principles are followed by more sustainable heritage projects? Are they similar to the CPR conservation projects that Ostrom and her followers found in the natural resource realm? In what way do they differ? What can they teach us? This study employs the list of design principles as a practical starting point to create a typology of mechanisms present in more sustainable heritage projects.

Nevertheless, scholars have pointed out that the design principles cannot be directly transposed to other research fields, as their inherent diversity, dynamism, and complexity are different from the nature of traditional commons [27,28]. Although there are similarities, there are also some differences. For instance, similar to urban commons, not all the stakeholders (e.g., tourists and neighbours) depend on heritage projects as their source of livelihood [26] Additionally, different areas of governance go beyond the scope of design principles and base their actions on varied desires and motivations [27]. In applying Ostrom’s framework, careful consideration was taken when selectively applying design principles in the context of heritage. For example, Foster and Jaione [22] found that only four of the original principles are more relevant to urban commons, while the remaining principles have limited applicability. Therefore, they adopted other principles applicable to their object of study [28]. Similarly, we adapted the original design principles by rewording them to fit the conservation of built heritage (see

Table 1. Ostrom’s design principles for common-pool resources and adapted definitions for heritage projects.

Ostrom’s Design Principles	Design Principles Adapted to Heritage Projects	Guide Questions Used in Coding
Clearly defined boundaries	Determining the boundaries of the heritage site and who has the right to use it is important.	Is it clear who the project’s beneficiaries and supporters (as well as potential ones) are? Are the property boundaries of the site clear? (It is difficult to differentiate award recipients and non-recipients)
Congruence to local conditions and proportional equivalence between local benefits and costs	The benefits of conserving the heritage site should be proportional to the costs of conservation. The approach taken meets the needs of the local community.	Is the approach taken meeting the needs of the local community? Are the local workers engaged in the project? Are local materials being used?
Collective choice arrangements	People who use the heritage site should be involved in decision-making. As they shoulder the least cost in obtaining information about the site’s condition, they are in an advantageous position to adjust or update the operational rules.	Is there a mechanism for project stakeholders to have a say in projects’ operations to reflect the latest local conditions?
Monitoring	Regular monitoring of the heritage site and how it is used can help identify problems early on and prevent further damage.	Is there a monitoring or maintenance plan in place for the project? Are the people monitoring the condition and usage of the resource accountable to the users?
Graduated sanctions	Sanctions should be in place for those who violate the rules of the heritage site. These sanctions should be proportional to the severity of the violation and should be enforced consistently.	Are there means to check accountability among the stakeholders of the project? Are the sanctions for those who do not cooperate as promised reasonable? (Not possible to determine using this dataset)
Conflict resolution mechanisms	Do appropriators and their officials have rapid access to low-cost local mechanisms to resolve conflicts that arise between different stakeholders? This can help prevent disputes from escalating.	Does the project have a mechanism to resolve conflicts locally among different project stakeholders? (Not possible to determine using this dataset)
Recognition of rights	The rights of all stakeholders should be somehow recognised and not challenged by external governmental authorities.	Are stakeholders able to organise themselves without restrictions from the authorities? Is there minimum recognition from government authorities for the community project?
Nestled enterprises	Are various governance activities organised in multiple layers of nested enterprises?	Who are the leading actors? How do they interact with other layers of management on the site? (It is not possible to completely determine this principle using the dataset)

), and we then determined which of them were more applicable in the cases we used for this study.

To move forward, one first needs to define or at least approximate a specific benchmark of what it means to be a more sustainable heritage project to differentiate it from less sustainable ones. One possible benchmark is the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation (hereafter Award). In addition to technical excellence, the Award’s expert judges also emphasise the viability and sustainability of a project. This is a useful proxy for the present study. The pool of Award recipients is a pragmatic sampling frame to limit such ambitious questions to a more manageable scope. Although the Award, as any awarding framework, is not an infallible reference, it still provides a heuristic benchmark of better practices compared to good practices, which is indispensable for this comparative analysis. Thus, this study uses the Award to delimit cases with different institutional arrangements to carry out conservation. These sustainable institutions are designed according to certain principles. It is these principles that we try to identify.

2. Materials and Methods

Qualitative textual data were sourced from the application dossiers of the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation 2020–2022. The Award does not focus on the intrinsic outstanding universal value of the site, which differentiates it from the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Awards recognise projects that have met certain technical conservation standards and have shown cooperation between different parties, especially the community [29]. It recognises “the efforts of private individuals and organisations in restoring, conserving, and transforming structures and buildings of heritage value in the region” [29]. This makes it an appropriate population for our study as “the Awards programme encourages others to undertake conservation projects within their own communities, whether independently or through public-private partnerships (PPPs)” [29]. It might be worth mentioning that the Awards also do not continuously monitor the conservation management of the recipient sites nor maintain an in-danger site list, unlike the UNESCO World Heritage List [30].

Although the Award has already been around for more than two decades with 300 recipients, the concentration of bottom-up projects has increased in the last decade of the Awards [31]. For this reason and subject to the availability of data sources, the latter years (2020–2022) of the Awards were used for this study. The Award has four categories: Award of Excellence, Distinction, Merit, and Honourable Mention, with the Award of Excellence being given to the best project of the year. Additionally, there is an award for relatively newer structures that exhibit outstanding architectural design that is well-integrated into historical contexts, known as the Jury Commendation for Innovation or the Award for New Design in Heritage Contexts (p. 359, [32]); (p. 406, [33]). We did not include the fifth category of newer structures in order to make the sample more homogenous.

To answer the research questions, we used content analysis, which has been proposed in previous studies, on the text of the dossiers [34,35,36]. From the text, we deductively coded indicators that illustrate the design principles and identified which ones the winners of the Awards follow more than the unsuccessful applicants. In the course of the coding, we were also attentive to inductively identifying patterns that stand out and may possibly indicate other principles present in the cases. We used an open-source software called QualCoder 3.5 to facilitate the text analysis.

For a project to apply for the Award, it has to submit a standard application form. There are five sections in this form, which are “Project summary”, “Description of the cultural heritage property”, “Description of the condition of the cultural heritage property before conservation”, “Detailed description of the conservation work”, and “Explanation of how the project meets the criteria for the Awards”. After some initial trial and error in coding the whole dossier, we found that the most relevant section for the purpose of this study is the subsection “Sustainability and Impact” under “Explanation of how the project meets the criteria for the Awards”. We then proceeded to thematically code this section of all the available cases to identify indicators that depict Ostrom’s design principles.

Of the 73 entries (not including the new design category) from 2020 to 2023 that were made available to us by our informant, we inspected 22 winning sites and 49 non-winning project application dossiers. The other 2 dossiers had some missing parts, so we excluded them from this study. For reference, the dossiers of three of the publicly announced winners during the research period were not made available to us. The entries we examined come from various countries in the Asia Pacific such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, and Thailand (here, we only mention the winning cases).

The data are also limited by the varying writing styles of the application form drafters. This limits this study’s capacity to qualitatively evaluate the accounts of the design principles that were identified. To address this, we focused only on verifiable factual evidence mentioned in the dossiers. Considering that the description in the same paragraph might echo a wide range of principles, there also lies the possibility that the project team repeats its achievements in answering other application questions in the same form. Therefore, we only coded what best represents a principle in each application dossier for analysis to avoid the repetition of ideas and double counting.

The subsection about “Sustainability and Impact” in the application dossier describes how the project achieves sustainability socially, culturally, operationally, financially, and institutionally. Specifically, it contains accounts of how the project tackled the following question items:

• The engagement of the local community in the conservation process.
• Sustainable use and preservation of heritage places through appropriate use, adaptation, maintenance, and strategic and financial planning.
• How well the project contributes to the environmental sustainability and resilience of the heritage place.
• How well the project contributes to the local community’s socio-economic well-being, cultural continuum, and development needs.
• How well the project fosters local knowledge and living heritage.
• How well the project contributes to enhancing the quality of the urban, rural, and natural settings and spaces.
• The influence of the project on conservation practice and policy locally, nationally, regionally, or internationally.

Focusing on the “Sustainability and Impact” subsection intensely concentrates the research scope to address the targeted research questions. In fact, some of these question items in the dossier are very much relevant to the design principles. For instance, number 1 corresponds to collective choice agreements, and numbers 2 to 5 correspond more to convergence to local needs. Furthermore, the criteria for judging also include: “developing a sound understanding of the place, ensuring technical achievement in heritage conservation and creating social and policy impact” (Asia Conserved IV). As we are focusing only on one of the three main criteria, we are not presuming any causal relation between winning the Awards and the design principles. This is beyond the scope of this review. We only wish to see if there are some correlative patterns for better practices. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to presume that this aspect positively influences the other two criteria.

In order to validate this assumption, we analysed the jury comments of all the Award winners using the large language model ChatGPT-4 (temperature set to 0.1) to identify patterns differentiating the award levels. To countercheck the results, we manually applied systematic sampling [36] to jury comments across different categories. Additionally, we obtained the opinion of a local consultant who had been monitoring and assisting projects in applying for the Awards regarding the results we derived. After this verification of the output, the results in

Table 2. Thematic pattern of jury comments from 2000 to 2023.

Patterns (in Order of Importance)	Brief Explanation
Community Involvement and Empowerment	Projects that actively involve and empower the local community in the conservation process tend to receive higher awards. This includes training local artisans, engaging residents in decision-making, and ensuring that the project benefits the community socially and economically.
Technical Excellence and Authenticity	Projects that demonstrate high technical standards, meticulous research, and the use of traditional materials and techniques are highly valued. Authenticity in preserving the original character and fabric of the building is crucial.
Holistic and Comprehensive Approach	Projects that adopt a holistic approach, addressing not only the physical restoration but also the social, cultural, and economic aspects of the site, are highly regarded. This includes integrating modern amenities while preserving historical integrity.
Innovative Solutions and Adaptive Reuse	Projects that creatively adapt historic buildings for modern use while preserving their historical significance are recognised. Innovative solutions to technical challenges and the sensitive integration of new functions are important.

indicate that community involvement is a high priority. A former juror explained that technical competence is assumed as a baseline requirement for consideration in receiving an award. This preliminary exercise suggests that the Awards emphasise the community collaboration achievements of a project. This supports our methodological assumption that the Awards are a convenient sampling frame and an appropriate proxy benchmark for researching better collective action principles.

Two sets of comparisons were drawn from the data sources. First, based on coding performances from both winning cases and non-award recipients, the content analysis results were matched against Ostrom’s eight design principles. This comparison highlighted how winners distinguished themselves from other applicants under each principle. Second, we identified further patterns showing how winning projects performed differently beyond the eight design principles. By aligning real project experiences with these principles, this study proposed a collective action model for sustainable heritage projects.

3. Results and Discussion

This section presents and discusses the indicators of different design principles derived from the application dossiers. In general, a more significant percentage of winning cases mention more principle-relevant indicators compared to non-winning cases. Figure 1 presents the percentage of winning and non-winning cases under each design principle, respectively. To derive more insights, the following subsection will show how each set of indicators in a design principle fared among themselves for the winners and how they fared for the non-recipients of the Awards. The goal is to visualise what the winners and non-winners prioritise in each design principle. In giving specific examples, only winning cases are named, and non-recipients are anonymised.

3.1. Overall Results

Figure 2 provides an overview of how the design principles are reflected within both winning and non-winning cases. Winning cases seem to have a more balanced application of some design principles. Specifically, they have collective choice arrangements, some form of monitoring system, minimum recognition from external authorities, and more alignment with the local needs of the community. Among those who mentioned these principles, non-winners prioritise collective choice arrangements slightly more than congruence with local conditions. We also observed some additional patterns beyond the original Ostrom design principles, which we classified as possible patterns. These patterns are more frequently found in winning sites. A more detailed discussion of the outstanding factors for each design principle in winning cases, compared to non-winning cases, will be provided in a later subsection.

Using the current method and data source, some design principles cannot be easily differentiated between winners and non-winners. For instance, clearly defined boundaries ensure that the project’s physical scope and stakeholder responsibilities are clear, reducing transaction costs as predicted by the Coase theorem [37]. Most sites have clear physical boundaries, except for sites such as some properties in the Chivas project in Nepal. Still, the data source provides insufficient information to contrast between winners and non-winners. A more in-depth case study of the sites may be needed to unearth the nuances of this principle. The other two principles are: conflict resolution mechanisms, which are low-cost local mechanisms in place to resolve conflicts before they escalate, and the graduated sanctions principle, which involves gradually increasing punishments for shirking parties rather than immediate severe penalties. As our data source is the application forms for a competition, we found hardly any relevant accounts—which we assume are considered sensitive or out of place in these dossiers—to analyse this principle. Nevertheless, as these two have some dependence on the monitoring principle, we may still have a glimpse of how these principles manifest [38].

3.2. Congruence to Local Conditions

This design principle describes how a project situates itself in the local environment to benefit the local community further. Based on our observation, all the projects—one way or another—have adapted the site to the present time, whether it kept its historical use or not. For instance, some sites have been adjusted to the current environmental conditions of the area (e.g., flooding situations and rain shelters), and others have upgraded the facilities of their original use. A few also carried out more extensive adaptive reuse, such as turning the site into a hotel or restaurant. From the dossiers themselves alone, we cannot sufficiently differentiate the quality of the adaptations made by winners and non-winners by accounting only for their presence or absence. This demands a more in-depth case study, which is beyond our methodology. It is difficult to gauge the awareness level of the heritage project team in leveraging historic buildings to fulfil the community’s contemporary social needs.

In order to distinguish between winning and non-winning projects, we adopted two proxies to identify this principle. They are locally sourced materials and the employment of local labour forces, which are both relatively valued by heritage project teams. As shown in Figure 3, almost half of the winners and a fifth of the non-winners indicated that the projects’ current design is tailored to meet the specific needs or conditions of the local community. What differentiates the winners from the non-winners is that the winning cases seem to emphasise the employment of local labourers over local materials. Both local skilled and unskilled workers were hired in the projects. Recruiting local people generates employment, such as in the Topdara stupa project in Afganistan. In Koothambalam, India, the local community’s knowledge and experience of the local crafts assisted in “figuring out the better possible solutions”. In the Jingdezhen Pengjia Alley Compound, China, designers adapted local carpenters’ and masons’ opinions in the project according to their feedback. Even in a non-winning case, employing local artisans’ indigenous knowledge was found to be helpful in understanding the intricacies of the traditional construction system, which makes the work run more efficiently. This approach also provides locally available talents who can do future maintenance. This is evident with winning cases. On top of this, it is a gesture of continuing heritage values, as the team of Chivas in Kathmandu, Nepal uses local craftsmen to “revive spiritual processes alongside … technical restoration” [39].

We observed that the idea of “inclusiveness” is more present in winning groups. As this idea is being promoted by Awards, almost all the sites have some elements of it. With our current methodology, the authors are not in a position to evaluate the quality of each inclusive activity. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning some sites because inclusiveness is relevant to the principle of congruence to local conditions. The Malabari Hall Building in India was the project space for the Seva Sadan Society to further empower impoverished women and protect underprivileged girls. In the Neilson Hays Library case in Thailand, “under female leadership” [39], an inclusive space was created for people from all backgrounds to interact through their appreciation of art and culture. Furthermore, only one project explicitly mentioned a system wherein local property owners of the heritage structure receive allowances based on the conservation efforts they have carried out. The latter is related to the principle of proportionality of benefits and costs of the stakeholders.

3.3. Collective Choice Arrangement

This design principle looks at the degree of stakeholder engagement in decision-making for the project. It is popular to have neighbours, residents, and current and future users of the space participate in the decision-making process. In our analysis, we differentiated consultation and more direct involvement in decision-making. The consultation includes many aspects, including collecting oral history, sharing old photos with the conservers, and participating in surveys. Moreover, we also paid attention to the texts that explicitly mention residents and users having actual involvement in decision-making. We found many accounts of consultations with community members in both winners and non-winners, as displayed in Figure 4. The non-winners have more accounts of consultations or seem to put more effort into consultation than the winners. In the winning group, a slightly more balanced “amount” of consultation and actual participation in decision-making is observed from the dossiers. There seem to be more possibilities that stakeholders have greater influence and negotiation power in winning cases, i.e., there is a channel wherein their opinions are more likely to be transformed into actions than non-winning cases. For instance, a winning case created a more collegial team that even approved the fund usage by the local users of the site. In Kesennuma, the carefully protected ancient Japanese cityscape, the World Monument Fund remains in close touch with the local association, which in turn works closely with property owners to support their stewardship in heritage preservation.

3.4. Monitoring System

This design principle refers to how heritage projects are supervised and monitored by local stakeholders themselves after the project has been completed. We identified two indicators. One is the mention of a form of a maintenance plan. The other one is when the project mentions specifically that people help supervise the project. It is interesting to note that not all entries mention having a maintenance plan. In Figure 5, a higher percentage of winning sites mentioned the formulation of such a plan than non-winners. We also noted those who explicitly said that they have created a maintenance plan, such as Thai Pak Koong Temple and the stepwells of Golconda. For both winners and non-winners, a wide range of people were engaged to monitor project performance and maintenance together with the project team, and this was mentioned in the dossiers. Among the winning entries, these stakeholders include community members/households, students, and volunteers. Sites such as Amar Singh College in India and The Nielson Hays Library Restoration project both have a plan and indicate that the community is helping with monitoring.

3.5. Minimum Recognition of Rights

This principle indicates whether there is some form of recognition of the project by a higher governing body. With minimum recognition from the external authorities, local users have some flexibility in developing effective operation systems as needed in the long run [40]. One indicator we used to detect the presence of this design principle is some form of acknowledgement/award from a higher or external body prior to applying for the Award. This refers to external recognition accrediting the project, normally endowed by governments or organisations. Being awarded by a higher governing authority indicates that the government approved—or at least does not disapprove—of the project and will be less likely to hinder or suppress such projects. Only about a quarter of the non-winners mention any form of recognition from the local government at the moment that they applied for the Award, mostly in the form of some acknowledgement or award, as shown in Figure 6.

Another indicator is when some legislation or public initiatives are patterned from or inspired by the project. It shows that the higher governing bodies have seen the value of such an initiative and have somehow “formalised” its practices. When the local or national government creates or improves infrastructure for the site and its environment, it also shows minimum recognition. For instance, the government approved the public ferry service to transport people to and from the Lai Chi Wo in Hong Kong SAR, China. Influence on both legislation and infrastructure seems to be more of a characteristic of winning sites such as Sunder Nursery in India. Following Sunder Nursery’s renowned pilot practices, the role of local craftsmen is now being highlighted in the National Policy for Conservation. They also contributed to some health and educational infrastructures in the neighbouring area.

3.6. Nested Enterprise

In this design principle, we attempted to explore whether a project is organised in a multiple-layer governance structure wherein decision-making power is distributed but there still exists some degree of cooperation and coordination of the different levels [41]. Even though the nature of the data limits an in-depth analysis of a “nested enterprise”, we still attempted to deduce some preliminary elements. For instance, we examine the leading sponsors and operators among the heritage projects’ stakeholders as they may allude to the leader’s possible coordination capacity. Figure 7 shows the findings related to the primary governing body. All projects of the Award have some elements of private or public–private collaborations. Many of these stakeholders may also be on different governance levels. Projects where the government or institutional bodies dominate are also more likely to be in an advantageous position for obtaining relevant information about the site’s conditions at a lower cost [40]. Besides the government, NGOs seem to be more popular among the major stakeholders in winning cases. To best utilise the funding received and maximise the potential social impact, NGO projects might be in a better position to do so, considering its more comprehensive network of stakeholders/partners. Gomes and her colleagues [42] highlighted several key approaches for identifying stakeholders and executing strategic communication through a systematic literature review. With the findings, they demonstrated how these practices can improve NGOs’ operational efficiency, thus amplified their impact. This idea echoes patterns shown under the collective choice arrangement and monitoring maintenance principles. Both winners and non-winners have a considerable number of individuals who act as the major movers of the project. For projects initiated by businesses, fewer of them received the Award in this category. These business enterprises normally have some property rights over the asset or provide financial support for the project. Admittedly, this analysis is limited without looking at the political, cultural, and institutional background of the places of each site. This can be a suggestion for further studies.

4. Other Possible Patterns

In addition to Ostrom’s eight design principles, this study has identified indicators of other patterns that help sustain collective action in the heritage project’s operational framework.

We observed that winning cases place a strong emphasis on nurturing people. Figure 8 presents the frequency and proportion of these indicators found in the dossiers for winning and non-winning cases. We found two general trends. The first is more towards people in the community or those who will be more directly involved later in the project. The second is more directed to people more external to the project, especially youth. The first indicator was labelled as “developing the mindset/empowerment of skills” of community empowerment. For example, the Amar Singh College project in India involved training staff to maintain the building, and the Lai Chi Wo project in Hong Kong engaged female villagers in workshop training and farming-related schemes. The Nizamuddin Urban Renewal Initiative in India provided vocational training and career development programs to empower youth and women. This is operationalised by the presence of training and skill development for local artisans and community members. The Koothambalam project in India involved training local craftsmen in various fields, and the Domakonda Fort project in India trained people carpenters, painters, and masons—who are used to contemporary construction methods—to learn traditional techniques. We differentiate this from the congruence to the local situation principle because it seems to transcend the mere maintenance of the site itself.

Many winning projects also emphasised educational initiatives. For example, the Nizamuddin Urban Renewal Initiative involved training local youth to be heritage guides, and the Neilson Hays Library Restoration Project offered public programmes to engage various community segments, especially children. This emphasis on the youth is a logical approach as it can contribute to the intergenerational continuity of the site. This reaching out can be seen as a way to maintain the future supporters and “consumers” of the site.

These accounts of empowerment and educational initiatives are mainly involved with people—both old and young—and their growth. We suggest a principle or pattern that can be termed as “people–growth-oriented”. Since 1992, the World Heritage Convention has shifted from a building-based to a more people-based valuation of heritage, aligning with their focus on intangible cultural heritage [43]. The term “people–growth” alludes to the terminology used by Dweck in her “growth mindset” paradigm, which posits that human capabilities are not fixed but have the potential for development throughout life [44]. Applying this principle to built-heritage projects, those that invest in developing people’s skills for physical maintenance not only improve the upkeep of the site but also train a new market that will patronise the site now and in the future. Thus, the historic building leverages the growth potential of the people in and around it to gain a new lease on life.

5. Conclusions

This research delves into the design principles of collective action essential for creating a sustainable heritage operation framework, extending beyond the physical aspects of fabrics. Building on the work of Ostrom [13,40] and Cox et al. [15], we analysed Award application dossiers to identify and code instances or accounts related to Ostrom’s design principles, which apply to heritage project analysis. Additionally, we uncovered other patterns that could enhance the existing framework of design principles (see

Table 3. Comparison between the modified design principles of Cox and the adapted design principles for heritage projects.

Principle Indicators		Modified Definition by Cox et al. [12]	Adapted Definition to Heritage Projects
2	Congruence to Local Conditions
2.5	Use of Local Materials	2A Congruence with local conditions: Appropriation and provision rules are congruent with local social and environmental conditions. 2B Appropriation and provision: The benefits obtained by users from a common-pool resource (CPR), as determined by appropriation rules, are proportional to the amount of inputs required in the form of labour, material, or money, as determined by provision rules.	The project sources locally produced/available materials for construction
2.6	Use of Local Workers/Artisans		The project hires local workers/artisans in the construction team.
3	Collective Choice Arrangement
3.1	Consultation Mechanism in Place	Collective choice arrangements: Most individuals affected by the operational rules can participate in modifying the operational rules.	The main project team consults/collects information from various stakeholder groups for their aspects of the project.
3.4	Residents-Users Involvement in Decision-Making		Residents/future users are involved in the project and are able to make decisions.
4	Monitoring Maintenance
4.1	Clear Monitoring Guidelines	4A Monitoring users: Monitors who are accountable to the users monitor the appropriation and provision levels of the users. 4B Monitoring the resource: Monitors who are accountable to the users monitor the condition of the resource.	Monitoring guidelines have been developed to outline responsibilities among different stakeholders.
4.2	Community Monitoring/Wide Range of Individuals Involved		Other than groups directly involved in the project, affiliated individuals are also attracted to contribute and monitor the project.
6	Minimum Recognition of Rights
6.1	Acknowledge/Award	The rights of appropriators to devise their own institutions are not challenged by external governmental authorities.	The project won other relevant local awards/recognitions.
	Influencing New Legislation/Public Initiatives		The project’s experience contributes to new legislation/organisation development, benefitting other later heritage projects.
6.2	Infrastructure Improvement		The project influences regional infrastructure or living standard improvements.
8	Nested Enterprise
8.1	Business Owner Initiated	Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organised in multiple layers of nested enterprises.	A business entity is the leading actor in the project.
8.2	Government Initiated		A government body is the leading actor in the project.
8.3	Individual Initiated		Individuals/individual families are the leading actors in the project.
8.4	NGO Initiated		An NGO is the leading actor in the project.
8.5	Religious Group Initiated		A religious organisation is the leading actor in the project.
9	Possible Patterns
9.1	Development of Public Outreach Programs	N/A	Public outreach programs are developed to share project experience and heritage values.
9.4	Develop a Mindset/Empowerment of Skills		The project provides opportunities for stakeholders to enhance their understanding/skills in line with conserving the heritage.

).

Table 4. Patterns detected from winning cases in descending order of prevalence. The top three indicators for each principle are listed if there are more than two indicators in the same category.

Ranking of Principles—Winning Cases
1	Possible Patterns—“People–Growth-oriented”
1.1	Develop a Mindset/Empowerment of Skills
1.2	Development of Public Outreach Program
2	Monitoring Maintenance
2.1	Community Monitoring/Wide Range of Individuals Involved
2.2	Clear Monitoring Guidelines
3	Collective Choice Arrangement
3.2	Consultation Mechanism in Place
3.3	Resident-User Involvement in decision-making
4	Minimum Recognition of Rights
4.1	Acknowledge/Award
4.2	Infrastructure Improvement
4.3	Influencing New Legislation/Public Initiatives
5	Congruence to Local Conditions
5.1	Adjusted to Local Needs/Conditions
5.2	Use of Local Workers/Artisans
5.3	Use of Local Materials
6	Preliminary Nested Enterprise (leading actors only)
6.1	NGO Initiated
6.2	Government Initiated
6.3	Individual Initiated

presents the design principles and other patterns detected from winning cases, in order of prevalence. Using the Awards as a heuristic benchmark, we found that these principles are commonly adhered to by more sustainable heritage projects. Among the winning cases, they appear to follow the following design principles more consistently and evenly, whereas non-winners tend to follow only one or two principles more than the others. We found that winning entries observed, in a balanced manner, the design principles related to having a collective choice arrangement, proportional equivalence between benefits and cost, a monitoring system, and minimum recognition of rights by local authorities.

Due to the nature of the data sources, we were not able to extract further patterns about the projects’ multiple-governance hierarchies related to the principle of Nested Enterprise. Nevertheless, major actors in projects have been identified because they have great influence over the project’s operations. Most winning cases have been led by NGOs. However, the underlying relationship among different parties of interest is yet to be fully reflected in award application documents. This could be a theme for future studies. Our observations provide insight into how NGOs, as principal actors, seem to facilitate the organisation of collective choice mechanisms more efficiently. Being recognised by the public and the government may also enhance the funding they receive and manage from other sectors. These NGOs differ from one another in terms of scale, origin, and nature. This could be another research agenda that our study has highlighted.

Possible patterns summarise additional trends identified in winning cases. The advantage of using the design principles framework is that it is broad enough to cater to the various types of initiatives that we found in the application dossiers. This helps researchers to identify patterns. The two indicators in the possible patterns category suggest a paradigm wherein winning projects seem to value the growth and empowerment of people in and around the site to support the project. Developing skills and public outreach programmes highlight the importance of improving project beneficiaries’ education and exposure, reducing their future dependence on the project team. We term this the “people–growth-oriented”. As the adage goes, ‘The building is made for the people, not the other way around’. By focusing on developing the people within these buildings, we can ensure that conservation efforts are sustained on many fronts, including its future patrons.

This paper provides an alternative framework for analysing the performance of heritage conservation projects. Moreover, this study focused on the operational mechanism of heritage projects put in place for the post-completion phase of the initial physical renovation work. In real-life cases, the periodic major repair cost of the old building, which entails considerable expenses, is foreseen. Although we have no means to evaluate it in this paper, it is good to note that this imposes a huge challenge on project operators that, in some cases, can lead to the end of the project. We recommend that readers carefully consider the specific contextual factors of their projects when reviewing and attempting to apply the findings of this study. Future research could include in-depth case studies of both winning and non-winning cases to deepen the understanding of design principles in heritage projects. Nonetheless, this study provides a glimpse into the better practices of “more” sustainable heritage conservation projects, both within and beyond Ostrom’s design principles.