Adaptive Reuse of Traditional Architecture under the Influence of Intelligent Systems

Abstract

An intelligent system is a central part of the smart building that enhances adaptable reuse in an existing building. Many researchers agreed on a set of benefits of intelligent buildings, including reducing energy consumption, improving construction efficiency, predictive maintenance, increasing user productivity, better use of resources, and protecting and maintaining security and integrity, in addition to indoor comfort. This study investigates the impact of intelligent systems on the adaptive reuse of traditional cafes in Erbil, Iraq. This is achieved by answering the two research questions: • Are the changes of traditional cafes in line with the needs of today’s customers? • To what extent can an intelligent system enhance traditional cafés in Erbil related to current and future users? Therefore, the main objective of this research was to examine the level of adaptive reuse in traditional cafes in Erbil. To enhance the existing level of adaptation reuse by an intelligent system. An inductive and qualitative research approach was adopted to achieve the defined aim of this research. These methods include an overview of the literature on traditional architecture, adaptive reuse, and intelligent buildings; the data were collected through a physical survey and observation of traditional cafes and interviews with the owners, servers, and visitors in the buffer zone of Erbil Citadel. The key findings: Through this study, we found that the traditional cafes had new themes. The first was spiritual identity through (a) a passive system and (b) spatial aesthetics. Second, there is a need for a new system. The research concluded that adding intelligent systems to traditional cafes through sensors to existing devices makes them intelligent and links them together wirelessly to provide the integration that is the basis of intelligent buildings, in other words, trying to reuse existing devices adaptively. And that traditional cafes deserve to be adaptive and reused continuously and periodically every five years. This will help users to improve the performance of conventional cafes in Erbil.