The Conservation of Architectural and Urban Heritage: Sustainable and Creative Strategies

Dear Colleagues,

Social, economic and industrial developments have left architectural compounds and urban areas disposed of or at risk of abandonment. Architectural and urban adaptive reuse has been sought as a solution, but a large body of literature draws attention to the consequences of economically driven regeneration in establishing social and economic restructuring, causing the marginalisation of underprivileged communities, and how such schemes could encourage the commodification of historic assets. In addition, the lack of community engagement in adaptive reuse and conservation strategies affects the outcomes of these processes, which results in new areas that do not represent the values and aspirations of contemporary communities. Therefore, appropriate strategies for architectural and urban conservation and adaptive reuse are crucial for activating the role of heritage, as a cultural product, and design, as a creative practice, in promoting sustainable growth and stimulating urban and rural regeneration and community resilience within the historic context.

With the emergence of key international initiatives such the UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape HUL approach for appropriate adaptive reuse strategies, it has become apparent that heritage assets are critical catalysts that stimulate environmental, economic and community regeneration of the historic built environment; thus, the sensitive and innovative reuse of historic buildings and areas is needed, and by doing so, promoting locally accepted regeneration, community appreciation and the preservation and management of these heritage assets. This emphasises the need to juxtaposition research and practice with community engagement to synthesise impactful adaptive reuse strategies and schemes that reconnect communities to their heritage and help them understand their past and communal identity, consequently enhancing their wellbeing.

With the emergence of community-led approaches and tools for the interpretation and valuation of cultural heritage (e.g. critical heritage, cultural mapping, etc.), adaptive reuse strategies have been diversified, using design and conservation as tools to regenerate historic and heritage places while promoting their tangible and intangible heritage dimensions. Thus, this Topical Collection is in collaboration with the IEREK International Conference on the Conservation of Architectural Heritage and aims to serve as a platform to assemble such recent and innovative research findings and draw attention to different approaches relating to the field of adaptive reuse and architectural conservation. Through an open access mode, the Topical Collection intends to continuously disseminate this knowledge widely at a time when the heritage context is facing critical challenges posed by urbanisation and the need for economic development.  The discussion in this Topical Collection intends to cover diverse types of historic and modern heritage and to focus on (but is not limited to) the following thematic areas:

• Conservation, adaptive reuse and creative placemaking;
• The role of conservation and adaptive reuse in climate adaptation;
• Post-conflict heritage regeneration;
• Memorization through heritage conservation and adaptive reuse;
• Heritage conservation and adaptive reuse as a peace making strategy;
• The contribution of architectural design (and/or) communities to heritage preservation, conservation and adaptive reuse;
• The contribution of new technologies (e.g., HBIM);
• Critical heritage for inclusive adaptive reuse and conservation strategies;
• Adaptive reuse of urban/architectural military and industrial heritage;
• The role of urban conservation and adaptive reuse in equitable development;
• Rural heritage contribution to sustainable development and resilient communities;
• Coastal heritage and its adaptive reuse;
• Cultural landscape revitalization strategies;
• Cultural mapping, cartography and palimpsest as tools for heritage adaptive reuse.

Dr. Tarek Teba
Collection Editor

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