Architecture, Volume 3, Issue 4 (December 2023) – 10 articles

Many studies acknowledge the significance of assessment frameworks for urban heritage sites in preserving their identities. Due to the pandemic and its impact on heritage sites and visitors, the spatial features and identities of many heritage sites have undergone inevitable shifts, challenging the current assessment frameworks. As numerous urban heritage sites are being revitalised post COVID-19, this study aims to explore how heritage-assessment frameworks can be adapted during the pandemic to sustainably capture the identity of urban heritage sites, particularly from a spatial perspective. Methodologically, the study first examines existing urban-heritage-assessment frameworks, including typologies, embedded spatial attributes, and analysis methods, through a literature review. The research adopts the methodology framework for collecting and assessing evidence to demonstrate the cultural significance outlined in the ‘Guidance on identifying place and object of state-level social value in Victoria’ under Criterion G by the Heritage Council of Victoria. Chinatown, Melbourne, serves as the case study to address the research questions, utilising qualitative data from archival review and field observation. The results highlight the shortcomings of current heritage assessments, particularly in urban contexts, emphasising the overlooked importance of spatial attributes for understanding urban identity. This is exemplified by the exacerbated identity crisis in Chinatown, Melbourne, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the study recommends future heritage assessments incorporate spatial attributes with a thematic approach tailored to diverse cultural-heritage backgrounds in the post-pandemic era. The study acknowledges the sample size and encourages future studies to test the framework with case studies of varied backgrounds. Full article

The urban and landscape professions of the 21st century are developing diverse theoretical and practical models that they apply in solving the problems of the modern city. One of these models is landscape urbanism, which can be understood as a newer way of looking at the city and its infrastructure again, incorporating the relationship between the city and nature, and ecological and landscape principles into its fundamental core. In a theoretical but also a practical sense, it suggests new modalities that are considered to be able to contribute to the current problems of modern cities, especially those related to the ecology of the city. By reviewing the development stages, methodological framework and practical applications, this paper determines the potentials and limitations of the concept of landscape urbanism and suggests modalities of application in the modern city. Full article

Developing countries in hot climate regions such as Saudi Arabia have witnessed rapid population growth, which has led to greater resource consumption as a result of the increased demand for new buildings. This research proposes a multi-objective evaluation of the potential green engineering solutions to conserve energy using a building within the ROSHN housing project, which is one of the mega projects in Saudi Arabia, as a case study for this paper with the aid of simulation software, taking into consideration the context of the sustainability concept. The results showed that traditional passive architectural design, whether courtyards or Mashrabiya, had the nearly greatest influence, with percentages ranging from −4% to −5.15% for varied parameters and designs compared to the base case energy usage. Furthermore, energy efficiency solutions for the building envelope’s external insulation and finish system (EIFS) enabled a drop in the U-value that lowered energy usage to −5.40%. However, the wall insulation thickness beyond 300 mm in this system has no substantial influence on energy savings. This research’s most clear finding is that a P2P system for PV panels on a district scale can supply enough energy to meet its needs after implementing the optimal strategy of the other proposed solutions. Full article

This paper examines the recent growth of government-led affordable housing in Guangzhou, addressing a paucity of global housing studies that explore experimental and contextual policy approaches in China. It also addresses the lack of Chinese housing studies recognizing the impact of housing design governance, including regulatory controls and design standards, on housing preferences, supply and lifestyles. Since 1995, the supply of affordable housing has surged, now surpassing that of market housing for the first time. This response to failures in the private housing market and a lack of equitable access to housing signifies a significant shift, acknowledging the need to re-establish a state-led and long-term public housing supply after decades of housing marketization. Employing an architectural design research perspective, this paper investigates the interplay between affordable housing supply and the emergence of housing standards, examining resulting housing design outcomes. It poses the question: What changes in housing policy and interventions in housing markets are necessary to increase public rental housing supply, and how do these changes affect housing outcomes? The paper explores these questions through a discussion of the key moments in affordable housing policy and housing estate development in Guangzhou that facilitated the creation of widely accessible public housing and long-term housing assets. This provides new insights into China’s unique approach to translating central government social welfare and housing policy through contextual design experimentation and pilot housing projects, departing from the conventional top-down policy implementation found in most other countries. Full article

The cultural theory of heritage assets that was consolidated throughout the 20th century, and is still in force today, lies in the modulation of the concept of authenticity. It is a nomadic, controversial concept that has adapted to the spirit of the times. This review of the concept, drawing on international reference texts and charters in the field of heritage, allows us to specify a working process that facilitates its consideration in characterisation processes. To do so, case studies of significant cultural assets in terms of scale and complexity will be presented as resources. Through the implementation of the Theory of Value, the keys will be provided: criteria and methodology for intervening in heritage. This journey will be reflected more slowly in the study of the Palace of San Telmo (Seville, 17th–21st century). This is a building with a controversial material history, in which a series of attributions of value have been transmitted that correlate both with the theory of the conservation of cultural assets and with social appreciation and the criteria. This is the way to materially undertake a reflection on the authenticity of this heritage. This study provides the keys to intervening, conserving the values identified, and recognising authenticity as a reality that is constructed through the process and through the passage of time. A methodology that allows us to consider the capacity to continue and replace heritage as a project strategy in which what is yet to come can take place. Full article

Humans have been described as a “forward-looking” species in more than simply physiological terms. We are, it seems, unusually concerned with the future. This essay explores how built environments can be designed to evoke positive anticipation of future events. It suggests that there are three primary means of achieving this: (1) the visible display of valued resources, (2) signs of readiness, and (3) views that encourage mental exploration. It is observed that while resources tend to elicit hope of their future use, readiness and visual prospects seem to evoke a more general sense of optimism. Given the large proportion of our lives that most of us now spend in buildings, it is suggested that these design strategies might be helpful in maintaining and improving occupant morale in the indoor spaces where we live and work, and even more so for those who, for one reason or another, are unable to venture out. Full article

The role of citizens in the construction of knowledge is undergoing a clear transformation from a passive position, as mere observers and/or receivers, to an increasingly participatory role. This issue, which is directly related to governance policies as well as to the ICT revolution, can be seen in the field of cultural heritage and particularly architectural heritage management. The present paper aims to generate methodologies to involve citizens as active agents who must be involved in a real way in decision making concerning the protection and enhancement of cultural heritage. The results present the creation of a rural heritage interactive cartographic viewer as a collaborative mapping tool. The conclusions drawn position the citizens of rural, dispersed, or vulnerable areas as informers and builders of knowledge about the cultural and architectural heritage of their environment in terms of citizen science. At the same time, it strengthens the development of innovation strategies in the intervention, management, and communication of the existing dispersed heritage in rural areas. Full article

Numerous examples of urban, architectural, and landscape projects indicate global and continuous interest in memorial design without a comparative study of their contextual similarities and differences. There is no clear terminological and conceptual framework of how memorials are designed nor if they are perceived as diverse types of public places. This research combines multiple results of extensive and on-going research on memorials as places for people to reconnect with past events, circumstances, or persons, with the aim of building a theoretical and conceptual framework within the domain of architectural and urban design. The main question is how the design of memorials achieves remembrance as well as healing of both places and communities through conciliation, mediation, forgetting, learning, and planning new concepts for future urban development. The term (de)linking with the past is proposed for describing the importance of achieving these various memorial functions. The resulting dualistic conceptual framework of memorials includes eleven design principles based on models and methods of spatial interventions which can enable communities to move forward from traumatic events and negative emotions towards building a basis for a better future by learning from the past. Full article

In geographical terms, historic cities possess an inertia in regard to the modification of urban function. This explains why buildings may change over time, but the location of the functions remains. For over a thousand years, the city of Valencia has concentrated the commercial activity of its historic centre around the building of the Lonja de la Seda, its surrounding buildings, and its adjacent spaces, streets and squares. Recent constructions coexist with centuries-old buildings, witnesses to the transformations of this urban enclave, which has retained its commercial function. Although the Lonja de la Seda was declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 1996, its surroundings, despite being of interest and closely linked to the protected building, were not. This article analyses the history and evolution of the built fabric and urban spaces of this complex, which represents the nerve centre for commerce in the city of Valencia. This text presents research based on studies carried out directly on the buildings in this context by the authors, as well as indirect examinations of documentation from the archives and the existing bibliography. The aim of this study is to showcase how combining material and documentary studies can lead to a broader definition of the tangible and intangible values of cultural heritage. This, in turn, could lead to the comprehensive enhancement of the historic city, where historic residential fabric and notable buildings are merely manifestations of the process for the construction of the city. Full article