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Existing tourism studies focusing on Southeast Asia often emphasize the culture, history and heritage of the region or its natural beauty and cuisine, most of which are often viewed as exotic through a Western lens. By contrast, this interdisciplinary study looks at the untapped potential for modern architectural tourism in Singapore as a fascinating and increasingly authentic way of understanding how the next generation of Singaporean residents will live in their land-scarce city-state. This study aims to highlight the importance of modern architecture as a tourism product in a globalized Asian city.

It engages with visiting architects and their local facilitator to examine the touristic potential energy of cutting-edge residential buildings in Singapore from an intra-Asian viewpoint. By also identifying practical design solutions to promote modern architectural tourism that will have a positive impact on city branding, this study opens the door for future research regarding Southeast Asia’s rapidly changing modern architecture and urban landscape, and how these can be made attractive for its important tourism industry.

The findings suggest that just as Singapore’s cultural diversity has long been viewed as a touristic asset, its authentic, escapist, exotic and spectacular contemporary residential architecture, if well managed, presented and designed, can provide a unique place for sustainable community interactions between locals and visitors, which will help Singapore develop a unique city brand attractive to architectural tourists and even repeat visitors, through a new concept for authenticity in a global city.

This cross-disciplinary study linking tourism and architecture explores modern architectural tourism in Singapore, specifically in relation to residential buildings where locals and visitors can interact.

This research presents a comparative perception study towards rejuvenated, community-driven shophouses in George Town, Penang.

It captures the opinions of two distinct age groups by utilizing a mixed-methods approach encompassing quantitative (main) and qualitative (supporting) research to obtain a dynamic understanding of perceptions between younger and older residents in the city and how these impact the long-term sustainability of heritage conservation efforts. The distribution of questionnaires to residents of Penang was the primary data collection method, with the structure of the questionnaires supported by recent academic literature and past perceptional research studies about built heritage.

The four main findings from the study are therefore as follows: 1. Both age groups have a similar, positive perception towards the tangible, physical elements of rejuvenated shophouses. 2. Intangible, functional factors play an equal or stronger role in influencing people and their attitude towards public participation and overall “Sense of Place”. 3. The pessimistic “Sense of Place” responses from the “Older” group reflect an equally pessimistic attitude towards intangible, functional factors surrounding rejuvenated shophouses. 4. Youth-led changes to George Town's heritage shophouses are degrading the “sense of place” connecting the older generation to the city.

The study can serve as a guide for the development of more inclusive and socially sustainable conservation and adaptive re-use policies for safeguarding the heritage identity and value of shophouses for current and future generations to experience in a post-COVID world.

The revitalisation of tangible and intangible urban heritage can foster social cohesion and drive creativity and innovation in a changing global environment. Recognising its potential for economic development, many local municipalities are putting forward efforts to revitalise these areas. However, this has caused these sites to face new pressures, such as gentrification, demographic shifts and commercial exploitation. Therefore, a sustainable redevelopment of urban heritage sites that strikes a balance between the economic, environmental and social dimensions is needed. To plan and manage this balance, a strong and clear indicator to measure the sustainability of urban heritage is required. The study systematically reviewed through Scopus indexed journals the dimensions to develop sustainable indicators of urban heritage sites and highlighted the gaps for future research. It identified the existing studies and explored publications, research methods, challenges and suggestions to develop the indicators.

The study applied Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 Statement. The Boolean search was in Scopus indexed journals for papers related to indicators in sustainable urban heritage sites.

Most of the literature highlighted the interconnected relationships between the indicators for the sustainability of urban heritage sites: social, economic and environmental dimensions. It further revealed that for a more robust management of sustainable monitoring tools, it is crucial to include governance dimensions. Plus, technology is the intertwined aspect for the four dimensions, with culture identified as the centre for sustainability of urban heritage sites.

The paper only focused on secondary data using literature review papers that recommend gaps for future research. Possible future research includes alternative, niche literature reviews and the implementation of indicators in regional urban heritage sites.

It created a new insight into the dimensions recommended to develop sustainable indicators for urban heritage sites.