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Currently trending as a practical approach to promote urban and seismic resilience, the adaptive reuse of historical buildings relies on expertise from various professional backgrounds ranging from conservation, urban planning, construction management, architecture, engineering to interior design. This paper explores the applicability of a performance-based multiple criteria decision assessment (MCDA) framework to prioritise underutilised historical buildings for adaptive reuse in Auckland, New Zealand while balancing the diverse interest of all relevant stakeholders.

A focus group workshop was conducted for relevant adaptive stakeholders in Auckland, New Zealand, to test the applicability of the performance-based MCDA framework developed by Aigwi et al. (2020) and prioritise four underutilised historical building alternatives for adaptive reuse interventions in Auckland, New Zealand.

Findings from this study revealed the significant potentials of the performance-based MCDA framework, both as an evidence-based measurement tool to prioritise underutilised earthquake-prone historical buildings in Auckland's central business district and as an effective decision-making strategy. Also, the framework allowed the inclusion of diverse stakeholders through the integration of collaborative rationality, ensuring consistency and transparency in the decision-making process.

The successful validation of the existing performance-based MCDA framework in Auckland, New Zealand, using multiple historical building alternatives, further strengthens its preceding validation by Aigwi et al. (2019) using only two historical buildings in Whanganui, New Zealand. The findings provide a theoretical platform for urban planning researchers to advance performance-based planning for adaptive reuse to other locations and fields. There are also interesting implications for local councils, heritage agencies, architects, urban planners, policymakers, building owners and developers in Auckland, New Zealand, as a guide to improving their understandings of: (1) the intangible values of optimal historical buildings perceived by the community as worthy of protection through adaptive reuse; and (2) the targeted needs of communities in the new functions of an optimal alternative from a group of representative historical building alternatives.

This study aimed to design a user-participatory methodology to investigate the post-occupancy sustainability of reused historical buildings and to apply it to a case study.

This study was designed in four stages. In the first stage, the sustainability parameters and sub-parameters were determined in the reused historical buildings based on the literature. The second stage included a field study in which the current situation of the study area was analysed, and the users were reached using the survey technique. In the third stage, the data obtained from the user participation were analysed with importance performance analysis (IPA) and an IPA matrix was created. The fourth stage included an evaluation of the results of the analysis and the development of recommendations.

IPA is a supportive method for ensuring the sustainable use of historic buildings. According to the data obtained from the IPA, it was seen that the functional sustainability of the building was achieved to a great extent. At the same time, there were deficiencies in technical and environmental sustainability. In terms of aesthetic sustainability, it was observed that the importance and performance values given by the users were generally consistent with each other.

The originality of this study is that the performance of the reused historical buildings in the process of use was monitored with appropriate parameters, and a user-participated method was proposed that allows improvement suggestions to be developed in line with the results obtained.

Most provincial town centres in New Zealand typically feature old and vacant historical buildings, the majority of which possess heritage values. The growing perception that it is cheaper to repurpose vacant historical buildings rather than demolishing and rebuilding them is one of the factors that have made the adaptive reuse approach so popular. However, will this also be the case for provincial town centres in New Zealand? The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore the key factors that could influence the efficacy of adaptive reuse, and check for significant differences in the effect that each perceived factor would have on the adaptive reuse efficacy as a justifiable resilient and sustainable approach towards the regeneration of a major provincial town centre in New Zealand that is currently experiencing inner-city shrinkage.

A focus group workshop was conducted with 22 stakeholders involved in an existing town centre regeneration agenda for Whanganui. Closed-ended questionnaires were administered to the workshop participants to measure their opinions regarding the efficacy of the adaptive reuse approach for the regeneration of Whanganui’s town centre. The participant mix comprised a combination of structural engineers, quantity surveyors, architects, estate valuers, building owners/developers, legal representatives, heritage representatives and local government council representatives.

The study reported a high proportion of respondents that strongly agreed to the positive impacts of adaptive reuse with regards to the discussed priority aspects, hence, justifying the efficacy of the approach, towards delivering a vibrant town centre for Whanganui. Also, the Friedman’s analysis suggests that no significant differences existed among all perceived adaptive reuse efficacy criteria by the workshop participants, therefore justifying the approach.

This paper’s originality pertains to the practicality of changing the use of vacant historical buildings in Whanganui, which is one of New Zealand’s major provincial town centres, to renegotiate resilience and sustainable urban regeneration for the area.

Earlier studies assume that historical dwellings and post-war dwellings in particular, are less sustainable than modern dwellings, justifying its demolition. Over time, historical buildings have been transformed and their energy performance improved. However, there is little known on the energy performance of historical dwellings. The purpose of this paper is to unveil the role of historical dwellings and its transformations in improving urban sustainability.

In this research, historical dwellings (built=1970) are distinguished in listed and unlisted dwellings. Three cities were selected as case study – Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam – and three post-war neighborhoods – New-West, Mariahoeve and Ommoord. This research uses the difference in energy label (original vs current performance) to discuss the transformations of dwellings: comparing modern and historical; post-war and other historical; and listed and unlisted dwellings.

Findings reveal that historical and post-war dwellings have great potentials to raise the energy performance e.g. by applying after insulation and renewable energy sources. Furthermore, The Hague and its post-war neighborhood Mariahoeve have a considerably lower energy performance. Further research could relate the raising of energy performance to the cultural significance of such dwellings, to better discuss the role of attributes and their transformation to raising energy performance.

This paper addresses the knowledge gap of the current energy performance of historical dwellings, by presenting and discussing its role in improving urban sustainability.

The paper aims to clarify threats facing heritage management in developing countries. It investigates the challenges facing the application of the historic urban landscape approach (HUL) in the city of Alexandria in Egypt, where heritage is trapped between unplanned developments from one side and deterioration from another side.

This paper uses SWOT analysis regarding the heritage management approach of the historic site. Site observation, documentary reviews, an online questionnaire (due to the COVID situation) and some interviews with park visitors and shopkeepers have been adopted to capture the changes in the site management, specifically capturing the current status of the site.

The paper presented an empirical study covering the evolution of heritage management practices. It suggests that building and maintaining the synergy between the government, the private sector and the public is essential for the sustainability of urban development in the city of Alexandria. It also asserts that heritage is a major catalyst of urban regeneration in the city.

This paper highlights major threats facing Alexandrian heritage. However, it lacks generalizability.

It suggests inclusive urban conservation strategies that are based on the HUL approach that would revitalize the historic core and assist in preserving both its tangible and intangible heritage. These strategies can help decision makers to develop more sustainable approaches in managing city heritage and achieving sustainable development of the city core.

The paper presents a social implication through involving stakeholders in the sustainable revitalization project of Al-Shalalat district located in the city center of Alexandria.

The paper presents an empirical study that fulfills an identified need for adopting more sustainable strategies in heritage management in Alexandria.

Today, about 30 per cent of European existing buildings can be entitled as “historical buildings”. Nowadays, their energy retrofit is important to reach the ambitious European CO₂ emissions’ reduction objectives. The purpose of this paper is to outline a methodology to investigate the potential energy savings and the enhancement of historical buildings’ liveability by acting only on their operation, so that the building fabric could be maintained as much as possible as the original evidence.

The paper describes the framework’s theoretical phases and their application in two real case studies. The methodology was conceived with a pre-test and post-test design approach.

The research demonstrated that the elaborated methodology is flexible and allows the adoption of different energy retrofit strategies for the different cases.

Limitations arise out of the circumstance that the methodology is based on occupants and technicians willingness to engage in the strategies, so it is not possible to quantify its efficacy ex ante.

Practical implications can be found in the way of addressing energy retrofit strategies through a user-centric approach with minimum impact on the building itself.

At the same time, the methodology has a strong social aspect with its potential to change people’s attitudes towards energy usage and behaviour.

This study not only represents the first attempt of applying a systematic energy retrofit strategy based on occupants and technicians behavioural change in historic buildings, but also is one of the first studies dedicated to occupants’ comfort and behaviour assessment in this context.

In developing countries, such as Brazil, the construction sector is consistently focused on the construction of new buildings, and there is no dissemination of the preservation, restoration and maintenance of historic buildings. Idle buildings, due to the use and lack of maintenance, present pathological manifestations, such as moisture problems that compromise specially their thermal and energy performance. With this in mind, the purpose of this work is to create a digital model using terrestrial photogrammetry and suggest retrofit interventions based on computer simulation to improve the thermal and energy performance of a historical building.

The proposed methodology combined terrestrial photogrammetry using common smartphones and commercial software for historical buildings with building information modeling (historic building information modeling (HBIM)) and building energy modeling (BEM). The approach follows five steps: planning, site visit, data processing, data modeling and results. Also, as a case study, the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the Fluminense Federal University, built in 1888, was chosen to validate the approach.

A digital map of pathological manifestations in the HBIM model was developed, and interventions considering the application of expanded polystyrene in the envelope to reduce energy consumption were outlined. From the synergy between HBIM and BEM, it was concluded that the information modeled using photogrammetry was fundamental to create the energy model, and simulations were needed to optimize the possible solutions in terms of energy consumption.

Firstly, the work proposes a reasonable methodology to be applied in development countries without sophisticated technologies, but with acceptable precision for the study purpose. Secondly, the presented study shows that the use of HBIM for energy modeling proved to be useful to simulate possible solutions that optimize the thermal and energy performance.

Maintaining a city’s identity and locality is an urgent problem in urban construction. Historical districts are very important parts of a city. However, non-heritage buildings, which make a significant contribution to the character and appearance of historical areas, are facing arbitrary demolition. They are more often ignored compared with buildings on the protection list. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper chooses two historic blocks in Wuxi, in which 256 non-heritage buildings were examined, the SPSS method and the AHP method are used to find renewal modes for the buildings that had not finished updates, and the two blocks are then used as practical cases to validate the matching results.

In conclusion, on the one hand, according to different building categories, different renewal modes are found. On the other hand, this study finds differences in the renewal modes of different historic districts.

The study shows a renewal method for non-heritage buildings, which require attention due to their dangerous situation, as these buildings in historical districts also contribute to a city’s uniqueness and locality. These results should be helpful in the planning and practices for urban historical districts.

Due to the weaknesses of the traditional methods and advances in science, using currently new technologies such as building information modeling (BIM) for the restoration and revival of historical monuments is considered a novel solution. This study addresses how computer science in BIM can contribute significantly to the restoration and improvement of the cultural heritage.

This study addresses how computer science in BIM can contribute significantly to the restoration and improvement of the cultural heritage.

Also, it assesses through this application, the capabilities of current software's in developing with the use of photogrammetry an accurate geometrical models for the minaret with its elements are linked to databases carrying information related to the minaret texture, historical identity and decoration. Finally, it shows the importance of this model to support experts in case of future restoration and conservation to the minaret.

The research describes the process of regenerating and documenting the motifs of the historical Choli minaret in Erbil. It explains the steps followed for full application of the historical buildings information modeling (HBIM) to this minaret.

Built heritage is a unique resource, an irreplaceable expression of the richness and diversity of our past and of the generations who have gone before us. Old Dhaka has an outstanding built heritage that is of significance not only in the local, but also in a national and regional context. But senseless urbanization and ignorance of such an important issue in the existing detailed area plan is destroying the built heritages of Dhaka. As a result, many heritage buildings of Dhaka have been destroyed and the destruction is going on unabated. Therefore, there is a need to re-examine how such destruction can be prevented. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This research aims at the identification of heritages, their assessment and classification which is utterly significant for preserving the invaluable heritages. Heritages are classified according to their present condition which will show which type of heritage needs which type of attention.

The research indicates the way how a conservation planning for heritages can be done in a systematic and logical way. It reveals the present condition of the heritage buildings which will point out the way of preservation. There is no such document available which will tell general people about the most important or rare or significant heritages, the location of these heritages, or their background information. This research addresses these all issues.

To date, no conservation plans were implemented for Dhaka and there are no attempts to improve Old Dhaka through an urban design. The methodological approach in this research is new and effective for conserving heritages.