Beyond good intentions

The role of heritage buildings in pursuing a more sustainable built environment has been widely discussed in the last decades, from their importance to cohesive and inclusive communities to their contribution to resources conservation and therefore to reducing materials-related carbon emissions. Norms, policies, standards, and design-aid tools have been developed to encourage urban conservation, but a question persists: why are best practices not yet widely implemented? Decision-making processes have an intrinsic behavioural dimension. Decisions are influenced not only by conscious and rational factors related to heritage buildings and their adaptive reuse, but also by a conjugation of social, psychological, and emotional factors related to the designer. This research uses the “Theory of Planned Behaviour” to analyse architects’ design decisions and reveal the common beliefs, challenges, and opportunities in the conservation of heritage buildings. The results show that while responsibility for the failure in the implementation of conservation is often attributed to third parties, individual attitudes and personal beliefs strongly correlate to the adopted behaviours and, thus, need to be targeted for effective change. Understanding the behavioural dimension of the decision-making process in the adaptive reuse of built heritage is essential to maximize the effect of tools and policies that support actual change toward the growth of a circular economy and a more sustainable future.

Heritage sites serve as vital cultural assets, embodying historical significance, architectural beauty, and sociocultural traditions. Most researches of sustainable heritage tourism have primarily emphasized the perspectives of governments and local communities. This study aims to empirically explore the influence of heritage values on sustainable heritage conservation intention (SHCI) among the tourists visiting historical sites in Murshidabad, India. Using a mixedmethods approach combining online and offline surveys, data was collected from 468 domestic tourists. The research investigates how historical value, aesthetic value, and socio-cultural value influence their intentions to support sustainable conservation efforts. Additionally, it examines the mediating role of destination attachment in shaping these intentions. The research employed structural equation modelling to test the proposed hypotheses. A comprehensive mediation approach was also utilized to assess the intermediary effect of destination attachment between heritage values and SHCI. The findings demonstrate that various dimensions of historical heritage values significantly influence tourists' willingness to visit heri tage sites and engage in SHCI. Destination attachment was identified as a crucial mediator, highlighting its role in strengthening the relationship between heritage values and sustainable heritage conservation intentions. This study offers valuable insights for designing strategies that align tourists' perceptions with sustainable heritage conservation goals. This research has made a profound impact in enhancing the understanding of heritage tourism and conservation. It dives deep into various critical aspects such as the historical value, socio-cultural value, aesthetic value, destination attachment, and SHCI. By delving into these areas, the study enriches the existing theoretical frameworks and provides a comprehensive perspective on how these elements intertwine in the realm of heritage tourism. This research is a significant stride forward in understanding sustainable practices within the tourism sector. Its implications are far-reaching, offering valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders in the realm of sustainable heritage conservation. Beyond its immediate application to Murshidabad, the study offers broader insights applicable to other historically significant destinations.

Developing a historical city center leads to city resilience and sustainable heritage conservation; changing the social fabric is a fundamental problem that affects historical and heritage areas. As a result of Jeddah’s development, the community of the heritage area changed to another without the same interest or appreciation for the region’s heritage. After listing it as a world heritage, the government is taking care of many conservation projects for Historic Jeddah. The research aims to evaluate a proposed project to reverse the last decade’s social changes of the local community as a step in achieving historic center sustainability. The scope of this proposal is to select adaptive reuse of the listed historic buildings and provide the area with state-of-the-art services. This proposed project will attract the targeted community to return, which will achieve the research purpose. The research followed three different methodologies; through a theoretical approach, Jeddah city urban development and growth were highlighted, and the currently enforced conservation policies regulating land use were introduced. Moreover, the analytical approach studies the possibility of social reform of the local community by implementing adaptive reuse for heritage buildings. Three sustainability pillars were tested through a survey of three different stockholders. The research discussed the various stockholders’ visions toward the aimed sustainable objectives. Hence, the applied part of the research evaluates the sustainability of the proposed project. The study finds that the local community is essential in the conservation process’s sustainability. Reusing the heritage buildings in the resettled original community will sustain the conservation process and increase the real estate value of the Jeddah historical areas.

Microbial biotechnology offers innovative solutions for the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage (CH) materials, addressing biodeterioration and the limitations of traditional methods. This study explores the application of microbial biotechnology for bio-cleaning and self-healing preservation of heritage structures. Bio-cleaning refers to the use of microorganisms to selectively remove unwanted deposits such as dirt, biofilms, and encrustations, while self-healing preservation involves microbial-induced processes that enhance material durability by filling micro-cracks and improving surface integrity. These eco-friendly techniques offer promising solutions for sustainable conservation. Traditional methods often fail to prevent biofilm overgrowth and structural weakening, but advancements in microbial technologies present new approaches that use harmless microbes and avoid hazardous chemicals. Multidisciplinary collaborations are integrating microbial enzymes, bio-cleaning agents, and self-healing materials tailored to each artefact’s unique composition. The study highlights microbial biotechnology’s role in mitigating climate change impacts on CH preservation. While microbial biotechnology offers sustainable conservation solutions, potential risks include unintended interactions with heritage materials. Challenges such as microbial ecosystem complexity, lack of long-term studies, and regulatory uncertainties may impact its effectiveness, necessitating further interdisciplinary research. Despite these challenges, microbial enzymes and bio-cleaning agents can reduce costs and labor. The environmentally friendly nature of these methods ensures sustainable CH conservation. This paper emphasizes the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration in developing biotechnological solutions to address biodeterioration and climate change, enhancing the preservation of CH.

Sustainability in the conservation of architectural heritage is now more extensively considered than it was decades ago. The introduction of the concept of sustainability to the field marked hopes to overcome problems threatening heritage sites. There are general concepts guiding sustainable conservation. However, heritage specifics play important roles in achieving sustainability, and may direct the formulation of sustainable concepts to be applied. This paper is an attempt to add to the discourse of heritage sustainability by discussing buildings managed through a tradition of Islamic waqf in the World Heritage Stone Town of Zanzibar. It examines sustainability in terms of its financial, social, managerial, and environmental aspects. The relatively good survival rate of waqf buildings in the old town over several centuries suggests sustainable and transmissible ‘genes’ within the tradition. Waqf was found to elaborate ways to strike a balance between heritage consumption and use, avoiding gentrification, and enabling collective urban conservation. It further suggests that sustainable conservation cannot avoid monetary sacrifices, and if it is to be sustainable in the long term it should be inherent in the heritage itself.

Despite the recognised importance of built heritage for sustainable development, and the multiple tools, recommendations, guidelines, and policies developed in recent years to support decision-making, good sustainable conservation practices often fail to be implemented. Challenges faced by practitioners often relate to external factors, and there is a gap in the understanding of the role of the nature of the designer and the behavioural dimension of the challenges in implementation. This research applies the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to verify how a building passport for sustainable conservation (BPSC) impacts design students’ intentions and actual design decisions towards built heritage conservation. This research aims to ascertain the role of the BPSC to affect attitudes, subjective norms, and intentions and ultimately change conservation behaviours. The results show that this tool has a positive contribution to reinforce existing attitudinal beliefs. Still, no significant changes were found in the overall conservation behaviours, suggesting that beliefs hindering implementation may more often be related to aesthetic reasons, creativity and innovation, and program requirements, than with beliefs regarding the sustainable performance of the building. This study demonstrates that using the TPB to analyse design processes in the context of built heritage is an innovative methodological approach that contributes to a deeper understanding of the psychological factors affecting sustainability and built heritage conservation decisions.

PurposeThis paper aims to develop an integrated Building Information Modeling (BIM) framework to minimize embodied energy (EE) in heritage buildings. Focusing on Darat al Funun and the Chief British Representative’s Building (CBR) in Old Downtown Amman, the study addresses the critical need for a comprehensive lifecycle energy evaluation of building materials in heritage structures. Recognizing EE’s significant role in the sustainability of heritage buildings, the framework systematically incorporates the principles of ISO 14040 to assess and reduce EE, ensuring methodological accuracy and enhancing the preservation and energy efficiency of these culturally significant structures.Design/methodology/approachThe research employs a multi-step approach grounded in ISO 14040 principles to ensure methodological rigor in lifecycle analysis. It integrates BIM with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), utilizing Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL) technologies for data interoperability. Detailed models of Darat al Funun and the CBR buildings are developed using Autodesk Revit. Spatial ETL via the Feature Manipulation Engine (FME) integrates diverse data sources. The Google Maps API facilitates mapping and visualization, while Power Pivot conducts advanced data analysis, evaluating EE across building materials’ lifecycles in alignment with ISO 14040 standards.FindingsApplying the prototype to Darat al Funun and CBR buildings assesses EE parameters. Results demonstrate that using local materials effectively reduces EE. The study underscores the impacts of transportation, capacity utilization and material lifespan in EE assessment. The framework integrates BIM for comprehensive energy evaluations, advocates eco-efficient materials and supports sustainable supply chain practices.Originality/valueThis study innovates by applying BIM to minimize EE in heritage buildings, an often-neglected area in prior research. Unlike earlier works that integrated BIM with LCA, this research uniquely tailors the integration to address heritage buildings’ specific challenges – preservation, energy conservation and structural integrity. Incorporating criteria such as historical value, material conservation and site-specific energy patterns, the study adapts modern tools for sustainable heritage conservation. This nuanced approach contributes novel insights to BIM and enhances sustainability in heritage building practices, emphasizing EE’s crucial role in preserving cultural heritage.

The European project SCORE (Sustainable COnservation and REstoration of built cultural heritage, GA 101007531) deals with a two-way assessment of impacts of the environment on materials and of materials on the environment. Indeed, climate conditions and atmosphere composition determine built cultural heritage (BCH) materials’ behaviour and, at the same time, BCH conservation processes (products and techniques) impact greenhouse gases emissions and then climate change.The objective of this work is to study the feasibility of recycling old mortars and plasters from an existing building to extract the sand with the aim of reusing it to produce new mortars for the renovation of the built heritage. Old mortars and plasters were mainly made with "natural" sands, generally alluvium and river sands, available near the site. These sources of sand may no longer be available or have become scarce. The use of different sands from the original ones in restoration plasters has consequences on the aesthetic properties of the new plasters applied during the renovation, which often requires the use of additives and dyes. To solve this problem, one possibility is to extract the original sand from deconstruction mortars, taken for example from renovation sites.We tested the proposed method on a site in Paris. Deconstruction mortars were crushed and the sand was recovered, characterized and used for the formulation of new mortars by adding lime and water. Washing methods with water and acid washing solutions have been tested in order to obtain sands free of debris and lime agglomerates. Citric acid was used because it presents good lime dissolution results and is quite easy to employ in restoration works. Microscopic observations were made to determine the effectiveness of each washing solution. Sands washed only with water show some remains of lime on the grain surfaces whereas washing the grains with citric acid solution (2 %) produces excellent results.In addition, mortars formulations with different grain size of recycled sands were made. These formulations consist of a mixture of recycled sand, water and an additive lime in equal proportions. Specimens of 4 x 4 x 16 cm were produced and their mechanical properties were measured at 28 days of age. During the maturation time, the samples are kept in an environment with constant humidity and temperature, to optimize the conditions of hydration, carbonation and maturation.The results obtained show that the mechanical properties of mortars made from recycled sand are acceptable and that these are intrinsically linked to the grain size and quality of the sands. The mechanical properties of mortars formulated with recycled sands of the right grain size are similar to those formulated with commercial natural sand. A large part of the recycled sand, after just washing with water, can be used in the formulation of new mortars with regard to standards and aesthetic properties.

We are moving towards a future that must be more sustainable in several aspects of society. Culture and cultural heritage have been recognized as indispensable parts of the sustainable growth of society, and the conservation model implemented in Europe has been considered as an example to follow at the economic, environmental, and social levels. The achievement of excellent results and the development of new technologies for the conservation of cultural heritage have highlighted the fundamental need for a method of sustainable conservation. In this commentary paper, we discuss two aspects that can contribute to sustainability in the future of conservation science: the use of innovative chemical products and the monitoring of outdoor sites by means of the forecast of the impact of dangerous factors on artistic surfaces. We are focusing mainly on the material aspect of cultural assets and how hard science can help in sustainable conservation. Even if the concept of sustainability has an ever-growing presence in our society, and different approaches have been given in different fields, it is still difficult to come up with a specific definition that can include the various hues of the world of cultural heritage conservation. The case studies presented in this paper are related to the European area and the advancements made for the sustainable preservation of such heritage. Considering the results obtained from both the chemical and the forecast side, we will try to summarize concisely the tasks that must be achieved in order to indicate as sustainable an approach to diagnostics for cultural heritage, including both the trans-disciplinary features of cultural heritage science and the scientific conservation of materials.

Heritage buildings are significanct forms and elements of a city. Preservation of these buildings is important for its historical values and knowledge for future generations. In the developing country like Malaysia, particularly in the city of Kuala Lumpur, where rapid development is progressing, these heritage buildings are facing the threat of being demolished. The existence of legislations, the latest being the G. O. Malaysia, National Heritage Act 2005 (Act 645), 2011, seems not to be effective in curbing the demolition of these kinds of structures. The legislation has succeeded in preserving government-owned buildings but not the private-owned buildings. There are imbalances between the economic development and the heritage preservation. It is believed that the lack of awareness of the buildings’ significance, the lack of incentive to encourage conservation, and the lack of options the heritage building owners could choose in developing their sites contribute to the factor of the disappearing of these invaluable urban fabrics. The aim of this chapter is to study the transfer development rights (TDR) potential which might be used for heritage buildings in Kuala Lumpur. This chapter dwells into the problem by seeking information on awareness and feedbacks in regard to heritage matters from the people involved in the city planning and development as well as the heritage building owners. Subsequently, the study looks into the transfer of development rights (TDR), an incentive program, as a tool used in conservation of heritage buildings. All information was obtained through questionnaires requiring respondent’s opinions and feedbacks to the related matters. It is suggested that the TDR program can be utilized by the heritage building owners as an option to balance the economic and preservation needs and thus, preserving the heritage and historical building in Kuala Lumpur.

This study investigates the urban morphology and development of Mae Hong Son's old city through geospatial analysis to support sustainable heritage conservation. It focuses on spatiotemporal changes in urban expansion by utilizing aerial photographs, high-resolution satellite imagery, and geospatial techniques including Change Detection and Kernel Density Estimation (KDE), to analyze the city’s development patterns from 1971 to 2023. The results indicate that the built-up area increased significantly from 0.47 km² in 1971 to 9.71 km² in 2023, while the number of buildings grew from 2,855 to 11,948 during the same period. These findings reveal significant physical transformations, primarily driven by economic growth and increased settlement in the early 20th century. Urban growth predominantly occurred in the northern part of the city, constrained by surrounding mountains and rivers. Despite modern urban development, Mae Hong Son has retained its unique identity through a combination of traditional wooden structures and contemporary architecture. The findings emphasize the need to balance modern urban expansion with the preservation of cultural heritage and offer insights for sustainable conservation planning in historic cities and it contributes to understand the historical urban dynamics of Mae Hong Son’s old city and provides recommendations for sustainable heritage conservation planning.

Abstract. This paper aims to examine the feasibility of the Online Sustainable Conservation Assistance Resource (OSCAR) as an information system and framework to help find appropriate ways to improve the sustainable performance of heritage buildings in North America. The paper reviews the need for holistic comprehensive authoritative information in the field of sustainable conservation, how OSCAR addresses this gap, the OSCAR workflow, and how it was used in two case studies. It was found that OSCAR has potential to become a practical educational tool and design aide to address the sustainable performance of heritage buildings. The paper contributes to the discourse on sustainable conservation by examining resources and tools which address the need for holistic retrofit approaches. The findings will be useful to educators and professionals in the fields of sustainable design and heritage conservation.

PurposeThis study delves into 17th-century colonial port cities – Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta – examining the impact of British imperialism on urban sustainability and heritage conservation. It explores historical development, spatial organization, and connectivity.Design/methodology/approachThis study intricately explores the interplay among urban sustainability, morphology, and heritage conservation using space syntax analysis. It focuses on examining White and Black Town dispersion during British imperialism.FindingsThe investigation reveals varying degrees of dispersion of White and Black Towns, with Calcutta exhibiting the most consistent distribution among the three cities. These findings underscore the profound influence of British imperialism on the spatial organization of colonial port cities, offering valuable insights into their historical evolution and layout.Research limitations/implicationsWhile this study provides valuable insights, it is limited by its focus on the colonial period and the specific cities of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. The findings may not be directly generalizable to other contexts or time periods. Additionally, the study’s reliance on historical data sources may present data accuracy and completeness challenges.Originality/valueThis study contributes to understanding colonial port cities, guiding sustainable urban development, heritage preservation, and equitable resource access for global sustainability. By focusing on the historical impact of British imperialism, the research provides original insights into the spatial dynamics of these cities, contributing to the broader discourse on urban sustainability and heritage conservation.

Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to examine the effects of ecological design systems on sustainable environmental conservation of tea factories in Nandi County. The study was guided by transaction economic cost theory.
 Methodology: The study used explanatory research design to help in exploring research questions with varying levels of depth. A semi-structured questionnaire with Likert-type interval scale anchored on a five-point scale was used to collect primary data. A pilot study was conducted in Eldoret Kiptagich tea wholesalers to test the validity of research instrument, Cronbach’s alpha formular was used to test reliability. The analysis technique included both descriptive statistics (means, standard deviation, percentages & frequencies) and inferential which included multiple regression analysis conducted at 95% confidence level with significance levels of 0.05. Data has been presented in tabular format.
 Findings: The findings of the study indicated that ecological design practices had positive and significant influence on sustainable environmental conservation of tea factories in Nandi county (β =0.113; p<0.05). The study concluded that ecological design, reverse logistics, green production and green procurement are the predictors of sustainable environmental conservation of tea factories in Nandi county. The study recommends that more participation of national government on implementation of sustainable environmental conservation is necessary to ensure that the future generation is well taken care of by ensuring the four-bottom line of sustainable supply chain are practiced. The study also recommends tea processing firms and other manufacturing firms adopt GSCM practices in their supply chain operations. The study suggests that further studies should be conducted in processing firms other than tea processing firms.
 Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: Further studies can be conducted to relate GSCM with individual aspects of performance such as Economic, Environmental and Social and future other replica studies can be done on the areas of ecological design on sustainable performance.

Water-related deterioration risk assessment for sustainable conservation of heritage buildings in the Forbidden City, China