Search Results (33)

Bagheria, located on the northern coast of Sicily, is home to one of the Mediterranean’s most remarkable ensembles of Baroque villas, constructed between the 17th and 18th centuries by the aristocracy of Palermo. Originally situated within a highly structured rural landscape of citrus groves, gardens, and visual axes, these monumental residences have undergone substantial degradation due to uncontrolled urban expansion throughout the 20th century. This study presents a diachronic spatial analysis of Bagheria’s territorial transformation from 1850 to 2018, integrating historical cartography, aerial photography, satellite imagery, and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. A total of 33 villas were identified, georeferenced, and assessed based on their spatial integrity, architectural condition, and relationship with the evolving urban fabric. The results reveal a progressive marginalization of the villa system, with many heritage assets now embedded within dense residential development, severed from their original landscape context and deprived of their formal gardens and visual prominence. Comparative insights drawn from analogous Mediterranean heritage landscapes, such as Ortigia (Siracusa), the Appian Way (Rome), and Athens, highlight the urgency of adopting integrated conservation frameworks that reconcile urban development with cultural and ecological continuity. As a strategic response, the study proposes the creation of a thematic cultural route, La città delle ville, to enhance the visibility, accessibility, and socio-economic relevance of Bagheria’s heritage system. This initiative, supported by adaptive reuse policies, smart heritage technologies, and participatory planning, offers a replicable model for sustainable territorial regeneration and heritage-led urban resilience. Full article

Cultural and ecological heritage is often an essential ingredient for sustainable urban and regional regeneration and needs to be properly managed for an environment-benign development. Many heritage-led areas in Europe, named here ‘cultural-ecological complexes’ (CECs), seek a sustainable, regenerative, and actionable strategy. Our study aims to identify successful CECs from the viewpoint of their transformative cultural potential, assessed through surveys among visitors and residents. The research focuses on the assessment of seven Cultural-Ecological Complexes (CECs) in Europe: Karlsborg (Sweden), Mark (Sweden), Larnaca (Cyprus), Basilicata (Italy), Huesca (Spain), Vojvodina (Serbia), and Sibiu (Romania/Moldova). The European areas under study are selected on the basis of their transformative cultural tourism profile and potential, with the aim of tracing a balanced, sustainable development and a positive regenerative or circular transition. Each CEC was analyzed based on its transformative cultural potential and sustainability impact using multivariate Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Each region under consideration comprises a set of ‘information agents’, in particular visitors and residents, who may be regarded as informal stakeholders providing crucial or decisive information and guidelines on the sustainability situation in the region and on ways to proceed to transformative cultural tourism. This novel approach is essentially a form of citizen-based or agent-based co-creation. In our study, empirical information on the perceptions, preferences, and involvement of such agents was collected through systematically structured and consistently administered surveys among hundreds of participants (visitors, residents, etc.) in seven CECs in Europe. The research methodology is based on a blend of multivariate statistics (in particular, Principal Component Analysis—PCA) and spatial efficiency analysis (using Data Envelopment Analysis—DEA). The agents in each region are conceived of as spatial decision-making units (DMUs) in a DEA framework. Our DEA assessment model contains a multiscalar structure organized in a cascadic and interactive form with two constituents, namely cultural-ecological areas (CECs) and place-based information agents. The findings from this novel Multivariate DEA provide generic directives for an enhancement of the cultural-ecological performance for CECs and offer quantitative information for place-based efficiency-improving strategies of CECs in various contexts. Full article

This study examines culture-led urban regeneration as a strategy for revitalizing Meezan Chowk, a historically significant yet deteriorating public space in Quetta, Pakistan. Once a central site of social and commercial exchange, the area suffered from infrastructural decline, overcrowding, and the erosion of its architectural identity. The research proposes a design intervention to restore the site’s heritage value while enhancing its functional and social relevance. A qualitative approach is adopted, incorporating surveys, focus group discussions, and site observations to assess user needs and spatial dynamics. A SWOT analysis serves as the analytical framework to identify the site’s internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats. By utilizing the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and OpenStreetMap data, further information can enhance understanding of the site’s urban morphology. The proposed design integrates vernacular elements, such as arched facades, shaded corridors, and communal courtyards, with contemporary features, including cafes, local artisan shops, and accessible public amenities. Full article

With rapid urbanization and modernization, the deterioration of historical areas has become an increasing concern. While heritage-led regeneration has proven effective, most studies have focused on urban contexts. Rural traditional villages, particularly in developing countries such as China, face even greater challenges and remain understudied. This study addresses this gap by developing a framework for heritage-led rural regeneration, grounded in community-building theory and highlighting heritage capacity as a key driver of village revitalization. Using a two-round systematic literature review, 64 papers from Web of Science and Scopus were analyzed to construct the framework. It consists of two levels: a preliminary framework identifying five key dimensions—public participation, media platform construction, adaptive reuse, heritage industry development, and landscape maintenance—and an integrated framework further detailing 13 sub-dimensions within these areas. Expert interviews were then conducted to validate the framework and examine its practical implementation challenges and future development directions. This framework integrates community-building theory with heritage-led regeneration, offering both theoretical insights and practical guidance for revitalizing traditional villages in China and beyond. Full article

This article explores the methodological framework and examines the learning and scientific outcomes of a workshop activity centred on the innovative integration of digital heritage approaches with design thinking methodologies. The workshop was developed in the Italian central Apennines and it investigated the design implications of working on heritage contexts in marginal areas using innovative digital tools, as well as the impact of this approach on the community. The activities engaged international students and professors, employed a multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and trans-scalar approach encompassing field research, data processing, dialogue, and collaborative visioning. The findings are both methodological and thematic. Methodologically, the workshop introduced a novel approach to architectural education by integrating digitalization in the design process and by fostering an urban vision that bridges research with local needs. Thematically, the outputs explore new uses for “potential spaces”, sustainable mobility, heritage-led strategies, and tourism, emphasizing community involvement. The workshop’s originality lies in its cognitive, narrative, and design processes, where digital data are part of the creative process. Despite the workshop’s compressed timeline, it successfully fostered creative thinking and practical solutions, demonstrating the value of intense, interdisciplinary collaborative visioning for heritage regeneration. The workshop’s broader implications include potential spin-offs into future community engagement and knowledge-transfer activities, highlighting its social and practical relevance. Full article

Two essential characteristics of railway implementation are the large spaces of land occupied in the city and the need for workers. In Spain, both reasons and the post-war period led to the construction of many homes for employees throughout the country using different typologies, ensembles, dwelling designs, free spaces, mixed uses, and a relationship with the surrounding city. The present work presents a quantitative and qualitative analysis of these aspects, concluding on their impact on the current configuration of the urban environment of the cities where they are located and the possibility of urban regeneration that these developments offer. It is a housing stock that is 95% in use and that, in some cases, given the city’s growth, occupies privileged current urban positions that have led to its revaluation despite its construction characteristics. The research carried out provides the analysis of the entire country, accounting for and observing the great variety of existing case studies related to different sizes of populations, typologies, and locations (center–periphery), among others. The main conclusions reflect the total absence of urban or architectural approaches in implementing these homes, the lack of quality of the free or community spaces generated between blocks, and the absolute disinterest in the quality of life beyond providing housing for workers close to the workplace. At the antipodes of current approaches to the design of social housing and living conditions, this situation discourages the regeneration of these homes aligned with the objectives of the 2030 Agenda, making their heritage conservation difficult. Full article

The abandonment of inhabited places is a phenomenon widespread on a global scale that has spanned centuries. It has led to the birth of the so-called ‘ghost towns’. These lifeless sites dot the internal Mediterranean and European areas, testifying to the changeability of the human settlements. Through a vision that reverses the paradigm that epitomises the ‘ghost towns’, these places can be transformed from a problem into an opportunity for the development of the territories that host them. The main topic of this article is to present and update investigations performed on three abandoned settlements sited in Portugal, Italy, and Albania in view of their tourist exploitation, considering three different tailored strategies: underwater tourism, dark tourism, and heritage tourism. For each site, we analysed the site history, the abandonment causes, and the territorial-geological features, thus arguing for the possible valorisation and enjoyment approaches with special attention to digital technologies, which are highly underexploited in the sector. This study, which is part of an international research landscape still in the initial stages, falls within the BEGIN project (aBandonment vErsus reGeneratIoN), which aims to develop a multilevel methodological–operational protocol useful in regional, national, EU, and non-EU contexts for the dissemination of knowledge, conservation, regeneration, valorisation, management, and fruition of areas classified as a ‘ghost town’. The research findings can be useful for scholars, practitioners, and local entities entrusted to manage the abandoned towns. Furthermore, the methodological approach followed in this research can supply useful insights into aims to valorise and enjoy worldwide ‘ghost towns’. Full article

There is a strong relationship between heritage-led urban regeneration and the UN initiatives for Sustainable Development (SD). These include the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention (ICH; 2003) and Historic Urban Landscape (HUL; 2011) under the UNESCO mandate and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; 2015) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA; 2016) under the UN mandate. Despite the presence of those initiatives, regeneration in a World Heritage city often leads to the disappearance of intangible heritage, gentrification, excessive tourism, and social exclusion. Therefore, this paper critically identifies the shortcomings of those initiatives in addressing social and cultural sustainability. It uses the recently inscribed city of As-Salt on the WHL to showcase how the relevant SDGs’ targets and indicators are problematic in monitoring and measuring the sustainability of urban regeneration practices in WH cities. This is achieved by investigating where heritage and culture are embedded within the descriptions of goals and indicators in the three initiatives (SDGs, NUA, and HUL) document. A content analysis, using the NVivo qualitative data analysis tool, was conducted in order to identify complementarity, synergies, and correlations among the goals and indicators related to social and cultural sustainability. This paper concludes by suggesting an integrated approach under the umbrella of the SDGs for a more sustainable heritage-led urban regeneration alternative for cities acquiring UNESCO WH status. Full article

The conformation and dynamics of metropolitanisation act as propulsive elements of territorial transformations. The deficiency of infrastructural equipment, the heterogeneity of urban fabric and the lack of services and public spaces contribute to severing the identity ties between settled communities and territories. In light of this, within the more general reflection concerning urban regeneration, we recall the role that cultural heritage plays in the physical and functional organisation of the city, as a reflection of the interaction between community and context. The contribution is contextualized in the research work on the activities related to Thematic Line 4 of the Extended Partnership 5—CHANGES (NRRP). The thematic line activities follow three phases: 1. contextualization; 2. operational phase; 3. experimentation. The research work presented here is part of the ‘operational phase’, to identify strategies and projects for heritage-led regeneration. The article analyses the pilot case of CSOA Forte Prenestino as a starting point for thinking about expanding the research activity to other similar cases. It is a self-managed community centre in Rome (Italy) located in the nineteenth-century Forte, which has become a symbol of collective identity. The case study was identified following three levels of investigation: 1. identification of the municipality, first-level administrative subdivision of the city of Rome (Italy); 2. identification of the main historical, archaeological and architectural emergencies of the municipality; 3. identification of an asset to be analysed as “Heritage by designation” (involvement of experts) and “Heritage by appropriation” (involvement of communities). The research results show the “Recognition Path” of Forte Prenestina: according to what has been ‘designated’ by urban planning instruments, project instruments, legislative instruments and authors of scientific publications and conferences; and on the basis of the bottom-up ‘appropriation’ process of the asset that has allowed its management, assessment of its cultural and social potential and its development. The research results allow us to reflect on heritage-led urban regeneration as a strategy capable of capturing and promoting the links between social integration and cultural–historical identity. Full article

Rural areas are regaining attention as key resource holders. This includes the attractiveness of intact and traditional cultural elements and heritage which helps to create new opportunities. However, renewal is needed for rural areas to be competitive beyond tourism. Knowledge exchange and transfer is seen as an enabling tool for regeneration and heritage valorization, although it has mostly been applied in an urban context. The aim of this paper is to explore the role of capacity building and knowledge exchange at different levels in promoting rural regeneration through heritage-led initiatives. The article describes a multi-directional knowledge transfer and exchange in 19 rural areas. The applied knowledge exchange methodology was designed to be a dynamic and vibrant exchange of capacity building and mutual learning. This exchange of knowledge enabled the local communities involved to explore new ideas and viable solutions for the regeneration of rural areas through the valorization of cultural and natural heritage. The research findings show that structuring a knowledge transfer and capacity building process that also involves key local stakeholders and the rural communities is an important milestone in the regeneration process. In addition, it can be a unique opportunity to start and build new professional long-term relationships. Full article

Cultural heritage plays a key role in communities’ sustainable development. The culture-led development highlights the local cultural resources and specifics while being assisted by contemporary tourist interest in niche offers. At the same time, culture-led development could reinforce a process of urban regeneration. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the urban regeneration potential of culture-led development in the case of a small town from Transylvania (Romania), Rupea, by identifying local characteristics that define this town and its surroundings as a cultural landscape and also by suggesting methods for capitalizing on this cultural landscape in heritage tourism. Data collected from six interviews with cultural stakeholders, bibliographic research on archaeological discoveries, and local tourism potential, as well as through ethnographic methods, support the approach of the Rupea area as a cultural landscape. The main dimensions of this cultural landscape are the interethnic character of the area and the multitude of archaeological discoveries that indicate its habitation in the Paleolithic. Tourist capitalization could support the urban regeneration of Rupea in a culture-led development approach by arranging routes that highlight the specifics of the Romanian, Saxon, Hungarian, and mixed villages in the Rupea area and/or the points of archaeological interest. Full article

Demographic and economic shrinkage has become a common trend in the current urbanisation environment, especially for small cities in developed countries. The desired socio-economic redevelopment of these cities has been significantly affected by the functional, organisational, financial, and professional constraints caused by both shrinkage and city size. Paradoxically, this slow development has enabled better preservation of their historic cores, urban heritage, and traditional culture. Nevertheless, the aforementioned local constraints have a profound impact on sustainable urban regeneration, and successful examples are still quite rare. This research presents an inspiring case—a small museum quarter in Sombor, Serbia. Museum quarters are a relatively new concept in culture-led urban regeneration; all known examples are located in big cities. Hence, this research tries to create an innovative methodological link between two theoretical fundaments: the role of cultural heritage in shrinking small cities and its expression through a museum quarter as one of the concepts of culture-led urban regeneration. An analytical framework for the aforementioned single case study is derived by forming this link. The main findings underline that the museum quarters in shrinking small cities should be developed in a micro-format to rationally address and the limited local resources. Furthermore, in contrast to museum quarters in big cities, they should be physically detached from the main retail street to enhance their separate identity and should be internally balanced in both spatial and functional aspects, meaning that the key museum/cultural institutions are equally dispersed throughout the quarter and clearly interconnected by a pedestrian-friendly open public space. Full article

Waterfront intervention, as one of the post-industrial reuse paradigms, has flourished around the world and been studied as a global phenomenon. This paper investigates the application of a dual adaptive reuse strategy to industrial heritage waterfront buildings and explores its social significance. The case study is of the West Bund, a waterfront renovation in Shanghai, China. Insights are drawn from the qualitative research approach of triangulation, with evidence derived from document sources, archival records, direct participants and semi-structured interviews. This paper examines a series of galleries and landscapes created from former industrial buildings and facilities along the Huangpu River. It concludes that the West Bund exemplifies a dual strategy of adaptive reuse: art-led and landscape-led building reuse. This dual strategy can be viewed as an endeavour to balance urban gentrification and publicness in the megalopolis. It can also be argued, however, that the dual approach to adaptive reuse is unsustainable within the framework of an entrepreneurial state, and significantly so in the post-epidemic era when economic growth pressure increases. This study contributes to our understanding of the complex nature of industrial heritage in the rapidly shifting landscape of contemporary China. Full article

In the context of cultural heritage reuse, creative businesses can play the role of activators of sustainable transition processes in the built environment. The exercise of the functions by creative enterprises can improve actions of regeneration of local identity, values, and built heritage. The aim is to demonstrate that creative enterprises are strategic industries able to activate actions of custody and cultural heritage valorization, proposing themselves on the territory as culture-led regeneration tools. The methodology discusses integrated strategies that intervene in the systemic criticalities of cities to regenerate tangible and intangible cultural heritage through multidimensional, multi-actor, and multicriteria approaches, matching community and the built environment. The result concerns the identification of a system of actor issues and creative criteria using the ExtrArtis© model, a transformative driver that constitutes a creative class as the guardian of the genius loci. Full article

Institutional collective actions (ICAs) provide a fascinating framework for comprehending collaborative urban initiatives. We defined ICAs as groups of people and organizations working together to promote a shared goal they could not pursue on their own. This study provides an empirical justification of why particular characteristics support the success of ICAs and why others fail. We restrict our analysis to culture-and-heritage-led urban regeneration initiatives and analyze the combinations of conditions under which these initiatives achieve their objectives. Adopting an integrated strategy, we studied prerequisites and critical elements that affect the success of collaborative actions, such as entrepreneurship, the enabling role of institutional capacity, multi-stakeholder involvement, and co-governance. Therefore, we compared sixteen culture-and-heritage-led urban regeneration initiatives in Europe as examples of ICAs in the urban context. We utilized fsQCA, fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, as a method that enabled us to define the configurations (combinations of factors) that determine the performances of urban regeneration actions. The results demonstrate that a variety of elements are necessary for developing collaborative initiatives and that three different recipes can be developed. In addition, this study contributes to the body of knowledge on institutional collective actions in two ways: (1) by providing empirical evidence of why specific conditions need to be considered when developing collective actions and (2) by showing how specific conditions interact and explain the performance of ICAs. Full article