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Article
Publication date: 13 March 2023

Francesca Lanz

This paper contributes to this special issue on the ethics and aesthetics of adaptive reuse with a reflection on the specific case of the reuse of those sites and buildings that…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper contributes to this special issue on the ethics and aesthetics of adaptive reuse with a reflection on the specific case of the reuse of those sites and buildings that can be regarded as “difficult”, “uncomfortable”, or “neglected” heritage (MacDonald, 2009; Logan and Keir, 2009; Pendlebury et al., 2018; Lanz, 2021). By doing so it is the author's intention to add to the most recent research-driven and theory-oriented strand of the contemporary architectural debate on adaptive reuse (Lanz and Pendlebury, 2022). They also intend to encourage increased research engagement within such a debate, both across disciplines and with methods and approaches that may be able to bring in greater critical consideration of the more-than-architectural aspects involved in adaptive reuse practices.

Design/methodology/approach

Building equally on a comprehensive literature review on the subject and extensive field work, the paper works through one paradigmatic example – the San Girolamo mental asylum in Volterra, Italy – and combines on-site observation, field notes, qualitative interviews and archival research with theory-driven reflections to discuss the ramifications of adaptive reuse processes in place-based memory and heritage practices.

Findings

The case of the former mental asylum San Girolamo in Volterra, today abandoned and decaying on the landscape, is discussed via the metaphor of the building as palimpsest to explore the significance of this built heritage in both its materiality and meanings. The San Girolamo asylum demonstrates the value, complexity and potential of this heritage site, and other alike, to act as a powerful place which connects the past and present that might serve as a platform to promote productive discourses about contemporary sensible topics, ethics of care and human rights. Drawing on these observations, the paper concludes by expanding on how the case of the San Girolamo former asylum both showcases and advocates the need for developing more creative, explorative, trans-disciplinary and collaborative approaches and methodologies to the study and implementation of adaptive reuse projects for these site “beyond intervention”.

Originality/value

This paper draws on and contributes to the more recent research-driven and theory-oriented corpus of studies focussing on adaptive reuse.

Details

Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, vol. 14 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2044-1266

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 December 2023

Monica Moscatelli, Alessandro Raffa and Arzu Ulusoy Shipstone

This study aims to demonstrate how women's involvement in urban planning and design in Gulf cities improves urban space's inclusivity and strengthens identity through cultural…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to demonstrate how women's involvement in urban planning and design in Gulf cities improves urban space's inclusivity and strengthens identity through cultural heritage revitalisation. It also promotes the participation of women in architecture and city-making by showcasing how shaping urban spaces offers local communities opportunities for social interaction and a more inclusive environment.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper critically compares two case studies in the Gulf region—one in the United Arab Emirates and the other in Bahrain—according to four inclusion criteria: context connection, cultural sensitivity, community engagement and choices of amenities. These inclusion criteria are also applied to an experimental project by women architects' students in Saudi Arabia to inspire the future female architects of the Gulf region. From urban to architectural scales, the project offers a glance into the heritage design by women architects.

Findings

In light of this critical analysis, this study highlights the sensitivity to issues related to the revitalisation of urban areas by women architects. The case studies identified show the role of the female architect in making architecture and linking cultural heritage with contemporary themes. These projects stitch the past with the present and link cultural identity with aspects related to sustainable architecture. Therefore, valorising women's architectural experience is necessary to contribute to sustainable urban development in the Gulf region and beyond.

Originality/value

The present study addresses the importance of the role of women architects in the Gulf region. The research promotes the full and equal participation of women in the architecture and construction of the city to recognise their achievements by increasing their involvement in the work in a more integrated and balanced way.

Details

Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2631-6862

Keywords

Abstract

Details

The New Spirit of Hospitality
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-161-5

Article
Publication date: 1 July 2022

Goran Ivo Marinovic

Informal dwellings describe makeshift lodgings made from temporary materials, such as plastic, corrugated iron, sheeting, packing cases, or wood. These units allow low-income…

Abstract

Purpose

Informal dwellings describe makeshift lodgings made from temporary materials, such as plastic, corrugated iron, sheeting, packing cases, or wood. These units allow low-income groups to informally occupy land and create their habitable space in a phased manner. This article focuses on elements of the urban morphology, such as density, accessibility, and operating assortment of informally built areas in the southern region of Montenegro.

Design/methodology/approach

The author examines the urban morphologies of four urban areas, whose informality is traditionally viewed as markers of decline and despair. Using observations, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews, the investigator maps dwellings in Ulcinj, Budva, Tivat, and Herceg Novi neighbourhoods. The researcher interrogated participants about land distribution during the construction of sheds, buildings' outline and orientation toward the street, and activities performed in their dwellings, such as living, working, and accommodating relatives and guests. This methodology tests the hypothesis, formulated as a deeper understanding of urban morphology for examining the interweaving of informally built settlements with the rest of the city.

Findings

A cartographic investigation is used to reframe customary rights of low-income populations to land inclusion and their place in the city. The results clearly show that the location and lifestyle are designed to obfuscate the vulnerable populations from the public view, disconnected from policymaking, and ignored by urban planning projects. However, the interviewees' destinations orientation away from the downtowns represents the possibility of reconfiguring existing urban planning practices. For creating alternative urbanisation, the orientation of less visible neighbourhoods presents a model for building regulations embedded in social forces and cultural habits of all social and ethnic groups.

Research limitations/implications

This study did not address the implementation of social hosing policies and the logistical limitations of realising them by the local and national governments. During firework, the author encountered dwellers outside four studied low-income neighbourhoods in the south region of Montenegro. Mapping morphological elements of these generally small clusters of informal built units are left for future research. Future studies could examine how informality is performed in Montenegro by moderate and high-income groups as an assemblage of different power relationships and urban practices.

Practical implications

The argument is based on counter urbanism as the orientation and destination of less visible neighbourhoods for creating building regulations embedded in social forces and cultural habits of all social and ethnic groups. This study showed that the urban morphology of informality in the coastal cities of Montenegro lays the ground for alternative urban planning practices based on the different interconnection of districts. The outcome is a strong link between different social and ethical groups through self-building practices.

Social implications

In coastal cities of Montenegro, Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian live with other low-income groups in unsanitary settlements characterised by poor living conditions, low-quality illegally built housing, no plumbing or sewage systems, and overcrowded urban areas. Mapping morphological elements of less visible urban areas propose shifting from top-down urban planning policies to a participatory model of developing urban areas.

Originality/value

The assemblage of informally built urban areas legitimise place in the city that goes against the housing market's dominant logic and exceeds alternative logics of building production. This article outlined the urban morphologies of four urban areas for turning the image of informality away from decline and despair to lessons of urban interconnection. By creating different maps, the author presented a diverse orientation of four case studies based on density, accessibility, and operating assortment.

Details

Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, vol. 17 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2631-6862

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 30 October 2023

Sally Helen Stone and Laura Sanderson

This paper considers the exhibition: UnDoing. This research-through-curation project examined interactions within existing spaces and situations. This established links between…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper considers the exhibition: UnDoing. This research-through-curation project examined interactions within existing spaces and situations. This established links between the selected exhibits, the gallery, the city and with the continuum of the previous exhibition.

Design/methodology/approach

Carefully selected architects, designers and artists were invited to contribute—those who pursued a contextual approach; whose practice explored the way buildings, places and artefacts are reused, reinterpreted and remembered.

Findings

Through the act of curation, this research uncovered a series of different approaches to constructed sites and existing buildings, from layered juxtaposition, the refusal to undo, to interventions of new elements within architectural works.

Research limitations/implications

Curation offered the opportunity to consider works of architecture and of art through the same lens, for direct comparisons to be made and the influence of one upon the other to be comprehended.

Practical implications

The examination processes the architect employs is similar to that of the artist; the development of an understanding of place, and from this synthesis, creative interpretation. However, despite the similarities in the starting position, the elucidation developed by the artist can be vastly different to that of the architect.

Social implications

The juxtaposition and new classifications created by the exhibition encouraged visitors to look at art, architecture and the city in a different way; to grasp the direct link between the different subjects; and the possibilities created.

Originality/value

The two driving factors for UnDoing were places of previous occupation and the city of Manchester. The qualities of surrounding constructed environment combined were combined with attitudes towards existing structures and places.

Details

Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2044-1266

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 October 2021

Mechiche Rania and Zeghlache Hamza

The purpose of this paper is to examine the involvement of the concept of city identity in the design process of urban densification and outline how can today's urban projects be…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the involvement of the concept of city identity in the design process of urban densification and outline how can today's urban projects be able to reinforce the delicate balance between conservation, development management and sustainability objectives.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on case study approach, this paper focus on “Park Mall and Four Point Hotel” project, located in the historic city centre of Setif (Algeria) and takes the procedure of designing as its conceptual framework. Following this, it explores genesis document of the project and assesses architect's choices attributed to six elements of architectural language. These elements are apprehended regarding their relevance, which depends on whether the new building is or not compatible/integrated with the existing environment, and how far does it reinvent the modern vision.

Findings

The paper provides empirical insight about how the concept of identity is used during the design process of densification project. It argues that this latter consists on a dynamic process shaped by cultural, socioeconomic and institutional specificities applying local/global design precedents, multifunctionality concept and novel features in a tourism-oriented mindset and to still maintain and improve the specific identity of the city centre, thus becoming an active way to reconcile conservation, sustainability and development management objectives.

Originality/value

This paper raises discussion on how the concept of city identity could renew the field of heritage conservation and development management. Therefore, it fulfils an identified need to study how can urban projects reconcile conservation, development management and sustainability objectives.

Details

Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, vol. 13 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2044-1266

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 February 2023

Rami Farouk Daher

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of different levels of place understanding (primarily typo-morphological analysis) on the nature of interventions within…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of different levels of place understanding (primarily typo-morphological analysis) on the nature of interventions within historic urban setting and buildings within the City of Amman.

Design/methodology/approach

The research methodology depended on an extensive thematic survey and analysis. The typo-morphological analysis addressed several of Amman's residential hills and their connections with the downtown area. The thematic place survey tool included different units of analysis (e.g. buildings, public spaces, streets and sloped lands between streets) and addressed the values of these various buildings and spaces, their typology, typo-morphology and relation to the urban context, nature of change and transformations over time to mention a few. The extensive survey also included semi-structured interviews about these buildings addressing their emergence, historic context and values.

Findings

The paper presents an architectural typology for Amman's architecture and its relationship with the city's morphology stressing the specificity of Amman's historic core and residential hills. The paper also discusses the effect of this level of place understanding on the nature and levels of interventions within historic settings and buildings.

Research limitations/implications

This level of place understanding (typo-morphological analysis) can have a positive impact on the practice of architectural and urban conservation by informing the nature of interventions within historic urban setting and buildings within the city. More specifically, this level of place understanding can, first, inform the development of urban and heritage guidelines within conservation areas in one of Amman's residential neighborhoods (Weibdeh) and, second, inform the nature of interventions to existing historic buildings based on respect of building typology.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the disciplines of architectural and urban conservation illustrating how place understanding can inform practices of heritage conservation and future policies and strategies concerning new intervention within such heritage places.

Details

Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, vol. 18 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2631-6862

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 February 2024

Federica Fava

The paper introduces ethical and aesthetical implications emerging from participative forms of adaptive heritage reuse. Its aim is to depict the overall framework to contextualize…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper introduces ethical and aesthetical implications emerging from participative forms of adaptive heritage reuse. Its aim is to depict the overall framework to contextualize the investigations explored in the Special Issue titled “Ethics and aesthetics of adaptive heritage reuse in Europe.” Therefore, the article confronts with potentialities and contradictions of “open” heritage processes, introducing key critical elements to recode heritage practices and planning in today’s conjuncture of global change.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper drawn on a literature review, which combines different bodies of studies: heritage, urban studies, care studies and recent policy documents. A photographic essay, moreover, serves to “augment” the presented argumentations through a visual apparatus resulting from one of Gaia Ginevra Giorgi’s artwork, which develops in the intersection between performative art, participation and territorial reuse.

Findings

The author argues that for adaptive heritage reuse to be really sustainable, ethical and aesthetical heritage codes need to be reassessed and reoriented toward the present socio-ecological priorities, multiplicating the ways cultural heritage is conceived, valued and reused. The paper suggests proceeding along the creative paths of uncertainty, providing the first elements to develop political projects of abundance and enjoyment for current urban settlements.

Practical implications

The presented argumentations can be used as a baseline by heritage managers and policymakers to experiment with participative processes of adaptive heritage reuse and to identify more environmentally and socially just trajectories of urban development.

Originality/value

The paper expands the concept of adaptive heritage reuse, considering the active participation of both human and non-human agents. Treating heritage in a laic way, namely free from absolute and preordered judgments of value, it deals with uncomfortable heritage materiality and contexts, illuminating the quality of unpleasant or odd forms of beauty.

Details

Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, vol. 14 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2044-1266

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 October 2023

Stefano Francesco Musso and Giovanna Franco

This article sets out to show how principles and questions about method that underlie a way of interpreting the discipline of conservation and restoration can find results in…

Abstract

Purpose

This article sets out to show how principles and questions about method that underlie a way of interpreting the discipline of conservation and restoration can find results in research and studies, aiming at achieving even conscious reuse process. The occasion is the very recent research performed on the former Church of Saints Gerolamo and Francesco Saverio in Genoa, Italy, the Jesuit church annexed to the 17th-century College of the order. It is a small Baroque jewel in the heart of the ancient city, former University Library and actually abandoned, forgotten for years, inaccessible and awaiting a new use.

Design/methodology/approach

The two-year work carried out on the monumental building was conducted according to a study and research methodology developed and refined over the years within the activities of the School of Specialisation in Architectural Heritage and Landscape of the University of Genoa. It is a multidisciplinary and rigorous approach, which aims to train high-level professionals, up-to-date and aware of the multiple problems that interventions on existing buildings, especially of a monumental nature, involve.

Findings

The biennal study has been carried out within the activities of the Post-Graduate Programme in Architectural Heritage and Landscape of the University of Genoa. The work methodology faces the challenges of the contemporary complexity, raised by the progressive broadening of the concept of cultural “heritage” and by the problems of its conservation, its active safeguard and its reuse: safety in respect of seismic risk, fire and hydro geological instability, universal accessibility – cognitive, physical and alternative – resource efficiency, comfort and savings in energy consumption, sustainability, communication and involvement of local communities and stakeholders.

Originality/value

The goals of the work were the following: understanding of the architectural heritage, through the correlated study of its geometries, elements and construction materials, surfaces, structures, spaces and functions; understanding of the transformations that the building has undergone over time, relating the results of historical reconstructions from indirect sources and those of direct archaeological analysis; assessment of the state of conservation of the building recognising phenomena of deterioration, damage, faults and deficits that affect materials, construction elements, systems and structures; identification of the causes and extent of damage, faults and deficits, assessing the vulnerability and level of exposure of the asset to the aggression of environmental factors and related risks; evaluation of the compatibility between the characteristics of the available spaces, the primary needs of conservation, the instance of regeneration and possible new uses; the definition of criteria and guidelines for establishing the planning of conservation, restoration and redevelopment interventions.

Details

Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2044-1266

Keywords

Abstract

Details

The New Spirit of Hospitality
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-161-5

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