Search Results (100)

In the context of China’s shift from incremental urban expansion to stock-based regeneration, the adaptive reuse of industrial heritage is no longer limited to physical transformation but increasingly involves spatial reintegration, cultural memory, and public value reconstruction. Taking Tianjin as a case study, this paper introduces Scene Theory into an urban-regeneration framework and combines kernel density analysis, field observation, case comparison, and online public-perception text mining. The study first examines the spatial distribution, accessibility conditions, and renewal typologies of industrial heritage sites in Tianjin. It then uses online comments from Xiaohongshu and Ctrip as supplementary perception data to analyze how different renewal models are experienced in relation to neighborhood environment, material facilities, activities, authenticity, theatricality, and legitimacy. The results show that creative industrial parks, museum-oriented renewal, and commercial renewal differ significantly in spatial location, activity organization, cultural expression, and public recognition. Common problems include uneven accessibility, superficial representation of industrial symbols, excessive consumption orientation, weak continuity of labor memory, limited community participation, and the potential exclusion of local users. Based on these findings, the paper proposes an integrated renewal strategy that emphasizes spatial network repair, authenticity-oriented design, everyday public use, community participation, and inclusive governance. The study provides an analytical framework and practical references for the regeneration of industrial heritage in Tianjin and other post-industrial cities. Full article

Compound crises of heritage cities in the global south led to the destruction of both physical and intangible assets, as well as the processes and relationships that sustain them; nevertheless, while there is more awareness regarding the importance of intangible heritage, regeneration approaches after the crisis period still focus on tangible losses, while the intangible cultural aspects are often overlooked in planning, especially under conditions of restricted field access. This paper proposes a remote-first CESSOP diagnostic model (CSDM), integrating CES and SOP in four decision-focused products: Crisis Pressure Profile (CPP), Biocultural Asset Map (BAM), CESSOP Vulnerability Matrix (CSVM), and modeling and Action Typology and Priority Pathways (ATPP), rather than adopting an existing framework. The Cultural Ecosystem Services and Sense of Place Diagnostic Model (CESSOP Diagnostic Model). The CSDM is new; it is a theoretically constructed, theoretically grounded, crisis-sensitive diagnostic methodology designed for heritage cities under conditions of data scarcity and restricted field access. This approach includes aspects of document research, open-source data, environmental morphological intelligence, social networks and remote participation inputs, supported with embedded confidence rating. The methodology is illustrated by a study of old Sana’a, Yemen, and it is applied in cases when there are few opportunities for direct observation. Full article

The sustainable regeneration of industrial heritage in cold regions is constrained by severe winter climates, pronounced seasonal shifts in behavior, and declining spatial vitality. However, existing studies have not sufficiently explained how cold-climate conditions reshape catalyst effects and regeneration performance in industrial heritage districts. This study proposes a digital shadow-enhanced and digital twin-enabled analytical framework for the sustainable regeneration of cold-region industrial heritage. Using the Youfang Street industrial heritage district in Harbin, China, as an exploratory case, the framework integrates multi-source data to construct a dynamic assessment system linking climatic constraints, spatial structure, and human activity patterns. The climate correction coefficient is further operationalized through normalized climatic variables, including air temperature, wind speed, snow-cover condition, and thermal-comfort indicators. The results indicate that winter conditions substantially weaken traditional catalyst mechanisms by reducing outdoor interaction, disrupting movement continuity, and increasing dependence on indoor transitional spaces. Simulation results further demonstrate that climate-responsive interventions, including enhanced indoor connectivity, mixed-use functional integration, and seasonal activity optimization, can improve regeneration performance and spatial resilience. The framework is presented as an exploratory single-case analytical model that requires further multi-city and multi-year validation. By combining digital shadow-supported simulation with sustainable urban regeneration theory, this study provides a transferable analytical framework and practical decision-support tool for industrial heritage revitalization in cold-region cities. Full article

Regenerating fragile historical contexts requires choices of repurposing that combine heritage protection, continuity of use and managerial feasibility, in the presence of multiple objectives and stakeholders with different preferences. This study develops and tests an MCDA-based decision-support framework for the ex-ante selection of adaptive reuse scenario applied to Craco (Italy) and Palazzo Carbone-Rigirone. Craco and Palazzo Carbone-Rigirone were selected as a critical case because they combine heritage abandonment, geomorphological fragility, cultural visibility, weak local services and the need for a feasible management model. The methodology involves: (i) defining four adaptive reuse scenarios; (ii) constructing nine criteria that integrate socio-economic impacts, safety/security, cultural attractiveness, compatibility with the property and economic–financial feasibility; (iii) elicitation of weights using a hybrid approach, combining the decision-maker’s macro priorities and the social quota derived from questionnaires using normalised indicators of satisfaction/dissatisfaction and priorities for improvement; (iv) classification using the Weighted Sum Model and TOPSIS under two normalizations (distributive and ideal) and two variants (relative and absolute). The results show convergence between methods and stability of the ranking, with a preference for the multifunctional scenario oriented towards cultural services and socialising. In the case of Craco, adaptive reuse offers advantages compared with purely conservative, passive musealization or tourism-only strategies. The study concludes that MCDA is useful as a transparent pre-selection tool and supports the alignment of local needs and institutional priorities; its robustness can be strengthened with sensitivity analyses and policy scenarios. Full article

The article frames the co-design activities developed in Phase 3 of the DeinSite project, aimed at promoting product innovation in traditional craft districts through dialogue between young designers, artisans, museums, and SMEs in Southern Italy. It introduces the DeinSite Co-Design Framework, a replicable methodological model integrating three complementary types of co-design–Open, Participatory, and Prototype-Led Co-Design–that guide the entire design process, from field research to co-creation to digital experimentation. Within this framework, the article delves into the Manus Maris workshop, focused on cameo and coral, a key sector of Campania’s productive activity. The workshop interprets the marine environment as a creative, cultural, and productive ecosystem, inspiring new narratives and formal languages that combine artisanal memory and technological innovation. Through collaborative activities, physical–digital prototyping, and an intergenerational exchange between designers and craftsmen, Manus Maris has generated experimental jewellery collections reinterpreting the local tangible and intangible heritage. The findings highlight the framework’s potential as a tool for activating systemic innovation in Southern Italy’s artisanal districts, enhancing museums as cultural and production hubs and promoting new synergies between tradition and contemporary design. The proposed model is a transferable methodology, useful for regenerating “Handmade in Italy” supply chains and constructing territorial ecosystems oriented towards innovation, sustainability, and international competitiveness. Full article

In the context of urban regeneration and the redevelopment of existing urban land and built assets, industrial heritage has become a cross-sectoral policy issue involving heritage conservation, spatial reuse, land governance and public cultural uses. Existing studies have primarily examined individual adaptive reuse projects and spatial strategies, whereas the long-term evolution of policy texts has received less systematic attention. Taking Shanghai as a case study, this paper constructs a clause-level corpus of industrial heritage-related policies issued between 2006 and 2025. The corpus comprises 524 clauses extracted from 86 policy documents covering heritage conservation, historic building conservation, cultural and creative industries, land use, planning, urban renewal and industrial tourism. Overall and stage-based Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) models are combined with cross-period topic alignment to identify the structure and evolution of policy themes. The results show that Shanghai’s industrial heritage policies have been shaped not only by heritage conservation concerns, but also by industrial land governance, the transformation of underused industrial land, the regeneration of existing industrial spaces (EIS), industrial culture, tourism and public service provision. Four stages are identified: initial exploration, regulatory consolidation, revitalisation and renewal, and integrated consolidation. Across these stages, four major evolutionary pathways can be observed: industrial land supply and governance, renewal of EIS and old industrial areas (OIA), industrial heritage conservation and value recognition and the expansion of industrial culture, tourism and public services. The paper provides clause-level evidence for understanding industrial heritage governance in China’s urban regeneration context and highlights the need for stronger coordination between heritage, land, planning, industry, culture and tourism policies. Full article

Cities are currently facing increasing challenges related to climate change, demographic pressure, and urban expansion. In this context, urban resilience has emerged as a strategic approach to anticipate, withstand, and adapt to environmental and social disturbances. The city of Salamanca, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has implemented several green infrastructure strategies and climate adaptation initiatives, including the Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategy (EDUSI Tormes+), the Special Plan for the Protection of Green Infrastructure and Biodiversity (PEPIVB), and the programs SAVIA Red Verde Salamanca and LIFE Vía de la Plata. This study assesses the contribution of these initiatives to urban governance focused on response capacity by examining their level of implementation and the coherence among different municipal planning instruments. The analysis reveals that the municipal green infrastructure framework is explicitly planned and strategically designed with the objective to mitigate the urban heat island effect, regenerate the urban fabric, and establish structural pathways targeted to foster local biodiversity pathways. Overall, the results provide evidence that nature-based territorial management instruments can strengthen the adaptive capacity of heritage cities to climate change, offering a replicable model for other territories with similar characteristics. Full article

Underground heritage represents a hidden urban resource for cultural regeneration and sustainable tourism, preserving historical layers, wartime memory, and local identity. Positioning the shelters as a form of Underground Built Heritage (UBH), this study examines how concealed civil-defense spaces can be reinterpreted as local cultural heritage resources before systematic reuse. However, enclosed and unfamiliar spaces are often perceived as risky, making adaptive reuse socially sensitive. This study investigates Jingdezhen’s underground air-raid shelters through a scenario-based survey and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Using an extended Value-Attitude-Behavior (VAB) framework incorporating perceived authenticity, anticipated affective identification, safety assurance, and perceived risk, this study identifies factors influencing pre-development public acceptance. Results show that public acceptance is shaped by cognitive evaluation of value and anticipated affective identification, while perceived risk constrains behavioral intentions. Perceived authenticity enhances value perception and anticipated affective identification; perceived value strengthens attitudes; safety assurance shows a small but statistically significant negative association with perceived risk, although most variance in perceived risk remains unexplained; and an exploratory moderation analysis further suggested that perceived risk may weaken the attitude–visit intention relationship. Although the estimated model showed a relatively high SRMR, the results are interpreted as prediction-oriented ex ante evidence rather than as a covariance-based model with strong global fit. These findings provide prediction-oriented ex ante evidence for the sustainable reuse of underground heritage, supporting heritage interpretation, risk management, and urban regeneration aligned with SDG 11. Full article

Against the background of industrial transformation and urban regeneration in old industrial bases, understanding the spatial pattern and driving mechanisms of industrial heritage is essential for its conservation and sustainable use. This study investigates 277 industrial heritage sites in Liaoning Province (including nationally designated sites, potential heritage within cultural relic protection units at all levels, and sites recognized by the China Association for Science and Technology) using kernel density estimation, standard deviation ellipse, and the GeoDetector model. The results reveal a significantly clustered distribution characterized by “dense in central–southern Liaoning, sparse in the periphery,” forming three major agglomerations: the Shenyang core, the Anshan–Benxi–Liaoyang heavy industry triangle, and the Dalian coastal industrial belt. Temporally, the distribution shows distinct phases closely linked to industrial development history and major socio-political events. Land use, GDP, and climatic factors dominate the spatial differentiation, with GDP and annual average temperature exhibiting the strongest combined explanatory power (41.67%). Based on these dominant factors and the identified core agglomeration areas, differentiated protection and utilization strategies should be formulated for core versus peripheral areas, different industrial types, and various historical periods. This provides direct empirical evidence for industrial heritage management and cultural revitalization in old industrial regions. Full article

The 2024 World Heritage inscription of the Beijing Central Axis shifts the focus of historic district governance to quality-oriented urban regeneration. However, evaluating the precise alignment between infrastructural topology and cultural meaning remains a methodological challenge. To move beyond macro-level assumptions, this study constructs a novel “spatial–semantic coupling” diagnostic framework. Integrating multi-source street-view data, Space Syntax, and the zero-shot semantic extraction capabilities of the CLIP model, we performed high-resolution visual semantic identification across 550 fine-grained sampling points in the 6.6 km² South Central Axis Core Area. Rather than merely observing a general “decoupling,” our diagnostic tool successfully mapped the complex spectrum of spatial alignments. While it accurately diagnosed areas with “idle spatial potential”—where high Global Integration (Mean = 0.924) fails to translate into Visual Attraction (r = −0.03) or Historical Perception (r = 0.01)—it also precisely identified “Synergistic” heritage cores and “hidden gems” within capillary hutongs. Furthermore, the framework diagnosed a severe “green island” effect (Mean = 0.26) and a structural contradiction between Spaciousness and Historical Perception (r = −0.33). By utilizing Bivariate LISA to geographically pinpoint these varying coupling characteristics (e.g., severe “High–Low” spatial frictions at gateway transportation hubs), this study establishes a highly scalable, data-driven analytical paradigm for targeted micro-renewal, ensuring the precise alignment of physical centrality and cultural perception in complex historic districts globally. Full article

Revisit intention is increasingly recognized as a key indicator of sustainable heritage tourism, as it reflects long-term visitor engagement rather than one-time consumption. However, limited attention has been paid to how tourism preferences shape perceived heritage quality and subsequently influence revisit intention, particularly in industrial heritage contexts undergoing urban regeneration. This study develops a structural model linking tourism preferences, perceived quality, and revisit intention, using Shanghai’s waterfront industrial heritage as an empirical case. Based on 335 valid questionnaires, structural equation modeling (SEM) is employed to examine the relationships among environmental preference, cultural and social sustainability preferences, situational perception, and behavioral intention. The results indicate that preference for a sustainable public space environment significantly enhances both physical and atmospheric perception, which in turn positively affects revisit intention. In contrast, social sustainability shows limited influence, suggesting that visitors’ behavioral responses are more strongly driven by environmental quality and experiential engagement in regenerated industrial heritage settings. This study contributes to sustainable heritage tourism research by integrating preference-based perception mechanisms into revisit intention analysis. It also provides practical implications for enhancing long-term attractiveness through experience-oriented adaptive reuse strategies. Full article

As unique settlements born of industrial civilization, workers’ residential areas carry rich heritage and the collective memory of communities they contain, endowing them with distinct historical and cultural significance. Assessing and enhancing their resilience are essential for both heritage preservation and sustainable community development. Despite the prevalence of such neighborhoods in China’s old industrial cities, systematic evaluation of their comprehensive resilience remains limited. To address this research gap, we take Taiyuan Mining Machinery Dormitory as a case study. Integrating multi-source spatial and demographic data, we construct a resilience evaluation framework based on the DPSIR model, comprising five criterion layers, 22 element layers, and 49 indicators. Combined with an obstacle degree model, it identifies key factors constraining resilience. Results indicate that comprehensive resilience of the study area is at a “moderate” level, with the “response” subsystem scoring notably low, reflecting insufficient stakeholder attention. Major obstacles include per capita shelter area, building quality, road accessibility, residents’ willingness to participate in governance, and organizational leadership capacity. Based on these findings, targeted strategies are proposed to enhance resilience amid increasing risks. This study contributes to community resilience theory and offers practical insights for the conservation and regeneration of workers’ residential areas under urban renewal. Full article

Against the background of promoting coordinated development between conservation and activation, this paper examines the Qingming Bridge Historic District in Wuxi. Drawing on theories of urban morphology and spatial configuration, the study classifies the district into multiple spatial categories. To quantify the relationship between heritage attributes and functional vitality, we propose a “Spatial Value–Spatial Performance” dual-dimensional evaluation framework. Methodologically, this framework integrates space syntax to extract spatial potential, entropy weighting to determine objective indicators, and the Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) model to measure systemic interactions. Furthermore, spatial units are classified into three distinct typologies: Performance-Lagging, Value-Lagging, and Low-Level Synchronous. In response to the imbalance in the results from the quantitative findings, this paper proposes targeted renewal strategies. The core innovation provides a replicable quantitative tool, offering both empirical evidence and methodological references for the sustainable conservation and regeneration of historic districts globally. Full article

Urban heritage structures are most commonly understood as memorial artifacts, tourism assets, or redevelopment resources. While this common view acknowledges cultural and economic value, it overlooks a deeper function of heritage within the long evolution of human settlements. This paper advances a counter thesis: in addition to its historic contingencies and power relationships—which are real, but only part of the picture—urban heritage embodies valuable but often hidden intelligence that is highly relevant to contemporary urban challenges. Specifically, heritage environments encode useful structured information about spatial configurations that have gained adaptive value over time in a process known as stigmergy. Drawing on complexity science, network theory, the mathematics of symmetry, and theories of extended cognition, the paper argues that enduring urban forms persist not only for symbolic or historical reasons, but because they embed structural properties conducive to resilience, legibility, social interaction, climatic adaptation, and human well-being. Recurring characteristics include fine-grained network connectivity, fractal scaling hierarchies, organized symmetry, articulated thresholds, and biophilic integration. Evidence from environmental psychology, public health, and urban morphology suggests that such properties correlate with reduced stress, increased walkability, stronger social capital, and improved ecological performance. The paper proposes a methodological framework—what we call the Adaptive Patterns Model—for identifying, evaluating, and translating this embedded intelligence into contemporary regeneration practice. The Model is presented as a four-phase, conceptually synthesized framework—integrating insights from complexity science and stigmergy, urban morphological analysis, and pattern-language methodology—comprising documentation, pattern extraction, encoding, and performance correlation. It concludes by challenging a still-prevalent assumption that contemporary conditions invalidate accumulated spatial knowledge. Instead, urban heritage is understood as adaptive capital within an ongoing evolutionary process, offering a structurally grounded foundation for resilient urban transformation. Full article

This article addresses the regeneration of extractive landscapes through the case study of the abandoned quarry system of Cutrofiano in the Salento region of Southern Italy, positioning the quarry as a critical interface between geology, architecture, and contemporary environmental challenges. The study aims to redefine the quarry landscape not as a residual void, but as a potential ecological and cultural infrastructure. The research adopts an interdisciplinary methodology combining geomorphological and geotechnical surveys, historical and cartographic analysis, spatial interpretation, and a multi-criteria assessment framework to identify vulnerabilities and transformation potentials. The results include a strategic masterplan articulated into three integrated interventions: the conversion of the open-pit quarry into a flood-control basin for hydrogeological risk mitigation and sustainable water management; the transformation of the quarry floor into an energy park; and the design of cultural spaces for public use and territorial enhancement. These strategies demonstrate the feasibility of reconciling environmental safety, renewable energy production, and heritage valorization within a single morphological logic. The study concludes that the quarry can be reinterpreted as a regenerative landscape model, offering transferable tools for Mediterranean contexts characterized by similar geological and socio-economic conditions. Full article