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This paper critically analyses the urban memory and heritage interpretation of postcolonial Harbin, a city in China that was founded by the Russians in 1898. It investigates the role and making of Russian colonial heritage in contemporary Harbin with a detailed case study of the Harbin Railway Station

Research methods include archival analysis, observation and semi-structured interview. In-depth interviews were conducted with local people, architect/urban planners and officials.

Local people of different generations with different backgrounds have different interpretations of the recently made colonial heritage of the Harbin Railway Station. The urban memory of Harbin has been consistently re-forming with both nostalgia and amnesia. Younger generations tend to regard the colonial heritage as their own heritage and a symbol of Harbin's cultural character without considering much about its related colonial history. In today's Harbin, colonial heritage as the “colonial past presencing” is more about a feel of the Europeanised space rather than the actual historical events of the period, and colonial heritage making becomes a tool for urban development and revitalisation at the institutional level. However, due to the paradigm shift in China's urban development, Harbin is facing new challenges in dealing with its colonial heritage.

Harbin is an under-researched case in terms of urban heritage studies. This paper offers a new entry point for understanding the westernisation and colonial heritage making in the contemporary China more deeply and thoroughly and helps to see the trend of China's urban development more clearly.

This study aims to explore how closed factories could be transformed and provide a path for sustainable development for a territory. The authors focus on the case of the Great Mine Serbariu, located in Carbonia (Sardinia), which used to be the largest coal mine in Italy between 1939 and 1964.

The authors adopt a qualitative research design based on an exploratory single-case study, drawing on interviews with the main stakeholders, on a survey conducted among 5,158 visitors, and on administrative documentation of the City Council.

The analysis of the Great Mine Serbariu case showed that the regeneration of an exhausted mine serves a model of sustainable development, especially for the redevelopment of other urban and industrial degraded areas. The Great mine Serbariu was restored and turned into a place of culture, tourism, research and higher education, with the Italian Cultural Centre of Coal Mining (ICCCM) establishing its headquarters in the heart of the former mine. It attracted almost 220,000 visitors, generating both domestic and international tourist flows and making an industrial heritage a real resource for the area.

This article advances the authors’ understanding of how closed industries could become an instrument for sustainable development on the social, economic, touristic and cultural levels. This study would help local governments with examples to enhance the historical resources to create a new identity that led to a sustainable development of an urban landscape, and to create networks with other comparable museums all over Europe to better exploit the touristic and cultural potential.

Post-socialist urban development changed cityscapes and city life profoundly, reusing public space in a different manner and reinterpreting the role of work, heritage, and consumption among others. Focusing on two case studies – the Outer Józsefváros in Budapest and the Praga North district in Warsaw – the paper examines this transformation, following how and to what extent these characteristic neighbourhoods have changed, how local heritage has been reconceptualised and what role work has played in this process.

The comparative analysis combines a literature review with a case study investigation that includes interviews, on-site visits, experiments with locally driven adaptive reuse, and document analysis.

The two case studies put heritage conservation, identity building and value determination processes in the context of architectural design, economic investment and labour market. The paper shows the relation between aesthetics and economic transition, how work, or its loss, has shaped the areas, creating a milieu of transition in a physical and a social sense, offering a reconceptualization of local identity. It also highlights the seminal value of civic initiatives and artists/artisans to increase the engagement of the local community.

The paper provides a rarely done comparison between two former Socialist cities undergoing similar transformations. It focuses on work as intangible heritage, the connected architectural aesthetics and their role in shaping the identity of various groups.

Heritage reuse, in which the aesthetics of heritage play a leading role, often leads to extreme commodification of heritage, place branding, gentrification and the exclusion of many narratives and voices. In order to understand how such processes of erosion and estrangement between heritage and local communities can be countered, while still redeveloping heritage buildings for contemporary urban needs, this paper explores with what kind of practices and heritage approaches these tensions can be mitigated, learning from recent experiences in Praga district.

Based on qualitative semi-structured interviews in a case study of a living lab of ongoing heritage reuse practice in Praga district in the city of Warsaw, Poland, the authors identify practices and approaches that can help to overcome tensions between the ethics and aesthetics of heritage reuse.

In rapidly changing district like Praga, local communities and others are struggling to compete process of change that impact their heritage, and the engagement with it. Although the local community is quite active in addressing various urban challenges and preserving the character of Praga including heritage elements, the conditions under which these community-led heritage reuse practices operate are quite impactful, as it appears that cooperation with local institutions is vital in order to embed community-led heritage reuse practices to overcome the tensions between ethics and aesthetics of heritage reuse.

This paper presents an in-depth analysis of a living lab of community-led heritage reuse. As such, the paper highlights various practices of community organizations and citizen initiatives that address heritage reuse, as well as the conditions under which these initiatives operate.

Adaptive reuse processes aim to preserve heritage values while creating new values through the architectural interventions that have become necessary. This claim provokes a discussion about the meaning of values, how we can preserve them in practice and how we can translate them into architectural qualities that users experience. Riegl's understanding of the different perspectives of heritage values in the past and present opens up the possibility of identifying present values as a reflection of current social, material and political conditions in the architectural discourse.

This qualitative and practical study compares two Belgian projects to trace the use of values in adaptive reuse projects from an architectural design perspective. The Predikherenklooster, a 17th-century monastery in Mechelen that now houses the public library, and the C-Mine cultural centre in Genk, a former 20th-century coal mine, are compared. The starting point is Flemish legislation, which defines significance through values, distinguishing between 13 heritage values.

The study demonstrates the opportunities that axiological questions offer during the design process of an adaptive reuse project. They provide an overarching framework for tangible and intangible aspects that need to be discussed, particularly in terms of the link between what exists, the design strategy and their effect.

Adaptive reuse can draw on approaches from both heritage conservation and contemporary architecture and explore values as a tool for “re-designing” built heritage.

This study aims to analyze the opportunities and potential of industrial tourism for the agri-food industry in the current post-pandemic scenario. Industrial tourism can favor appropriate behaviors by companies and tourists to address emerging challenges in the post-pandemic era, such as responsible production and consumption and the containment of waste production.

The adopted research method is a case study with exploratory purposes, applied to an industrial tourism experiment called “Make it in Puglia” (Apulia Region, Italy). The case study was based on participant observation and semi-structured interviews.

This study analyzes how industrial tourism in active agri-businesses allows local areas to be enhanced while simultaneously improving and strengthening sustainable strategies and choices for organizations and customers, especially in the changing context of the post-pandemic era.

The country specificity of this project and the limited duration of the investigation in the post-pandemic period were the main limitations of this study.

Industrial tourism in the agri-food business can contribute to a sustainable strategy for destination management based on new elements of attractiveness. Moreover, industrial tourism represents an opportunity for agri-food businesses, through the promotion of “business tours,” to respond to requests for more sustainable practices, especially considering that food waste and resource use efficiency have become a topic of growing concern.

This paper is one of the first studies that considers industrial tourism as a strategy for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the agribusiness sector, as it analyzes industrial tourism as an instrument in the construction of a cohesive ecosystem where tourism, agri-food business and local communities together pursue preservation and safeguarding of the environment, heritage and territory.

As historic cities evolve, change in their urban form can be expected. Yet, uncontrolled change of land plots, which represent a significant element of urban form, leads to uncontrolled change in buildings' configurations and typologies threatening accordingly the urban character of heritage contexts. Mechanisms controlling plot subdivision, however, can play an effective role in guiding developments and in controlling urban change in heritage settings. The present study seeks to assist decision-makers in their attempt to control urban change in heritage areas through a plot-based approach.

This paper is divided into three sections: the first focuses on plot subdivision as a key aspect of urban form; the second illustrates the case of the heritage village of New Gourna in Luxor and the third includes discussion and implications of adopting a plot-based morphological approach to control morphological transformation in heritage contexts. For the morphological analysis of New Gourna, the study relied on comparative cartographic analysis of original drawings of the village versus the situation in 2022. The morphological analysis focuses mainly on qualitative and quantitative aspects of plot configurations and building patterns.

Findings support the urgency of establishing a plot-based strategy to maintain urban character of heritage contexts in Egypt and call for a plot-based morphological approach to control change and inform new development attempts.

The present research provides an assessment of the morphological transformation of the heritage village of New Gourna. In addition, it proposes a plot-based approach for heritage contexts under transformation.

Faced with the growing need to find new viable water supply models for urban areas, this article studies and maps the strategies and identifies the key criteria of sustainable development present in pioneering water supply systems in the medieval period. The main aim is to determine which of its innovative principles could be applied in present-day cities.

From a methodological perspective, two types of cases were established, such as water supply models for human consumption and pre-industrial hydraulic systems, all of which are located in Italy. For the first group, the cases of Venice and Siena were analysed, while for the second, in the context of the cities along the Aemilian Way, the case of Bologna was selected.

Five key criteria resulted from the analysis of the cases: exploitation, self-sufficiency, maintenance, rationalisation and reuse. The said concepts were defined and contextualised within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Middle Ages were a historic moment in technological reinvention, before the development of modern systems of sanitation. With very limited resources, these traditional systems focused on rational use and deep cultural and geographical knowledge. This is why its recognition is of great importance today, in a time full of instabilities, with a view to the work that needs to be done for the development of more sustainable communities.

This paper argues that cultures with the same climate have similar handicrafts as they have similar cultivation and identical raw materials. This study focuses on how mountainous, coastal and hot regions partaking in similar crafts and cultural heritage use palm leaves and analyses the resulting handicrafts' similarities.

A review of mapping these samples establishes this similarity in the traditional industries of some civilizations' cultural heritage from countries sharing similar climates.

The handwoven crafts using palm leaves were significant patrimonial artifacts in different societies' and communities' cultural heritage. Our studies revealed that climate plays an active role in influencing all aspects of humanity’s life. It affects the construction methods and style, agriculture and lifestyles.

Traditional handwoven palm leaf product models, especially plates and baskets, are studied from South America, Africa, Gulf Countries and Asia.

Additionally, this paper focuses on preserving these treasures as an essential part of interior elements as accessories for most inhabitants of these areas.

Cultural heritage also embraces intangible aspects such as skills passed down through generations within a particular society. The tangible and intangible elements complement each other and contribute to an overall legacy.

Cultural heritage reflects a society’s way of life carried down through the years across lands, items, customs and aesthetic concepts. People are the gatekeepers of society, as they preserve their way of life for future generations to emulate. Tangible artistic and cultural heritage comprises artifacts. It comprises all human evidence and expressions, such as traditional handicrafts, pictures, documents, books and manuscripts.

Adaptive reuse entails the physical modification of abandoned architectural structures, with the activation of processes and practices leading to the re-incorporation of heritage into the contemporary life of communities. This transformation entails an affective adaptation, a re-modulation of how citizens attune to a built environment that has been returned to urban, shared forms of use. By observing the emotional ties that are established between subjects and the spaces they inhabit, affecting forms of dwelling, attachments and corporeal responses, the author can clarify how adaptation purports this affective modification, where the original ambiance is not necessarily altogether overwritten, but may rather merge with the supervening situation to give life to unique assemblages of spatialized feelings.

Drawing from contemporary phenomenological theories, with their specific focus on the affective and embodied dimension of lived experience, this paper describes and discusses two instances of adaptive reuse, one in Brussels, the second in Rome, highlighting their different processes and spatial outcomes.

The paper implements recent literature on spatial experience to bring to light conditions found in cases of adaptive reuse. By describing the generators of shared emotions – objects, movements, expressions, materialities, textures – it highlights how the layering of the physical world can lead to both the domestication of affects and to discrepancies and discontinuities in the fabric of experienced space.

There is only a limited literature dedicated to the description of adaptive reuse processes from the contemporary phenomenological perspective. This kind of description can clarify the dynamics unfolding between citizens and experienced space in cases of heritage reuse.