Heritage conservation and architectural education: “An educational methodology for design studios”

Abstract

Protecting the built heritage and conserving the local traditional and cultural values of communities for future generations present a real challenge for developers, architects, and professional education programs which are responsible for preparing the courses focused on heritage conservation aspects, learning respectful aware design with cultural context, and qualified graduates in planning, design, and implementation of conservation projects.The paper aims to propose an educational methodology for dealing with heritage conservation projects: “adaptive reuse of historic buildings” in design studios of architecture and interior design programs, by promoting a design philosophy which supports the integrated approaches of revitalizing heritage values of the traditional communities and creates new activities appropriated with: conservation principles, sense of historic buildings and its cultural context, and continuous with local communities needs. The main issue of the paper is to formulate design processes which can assist and develop students’ abilities to reconstruct and represent the heritage building’s interior within the historic context of sensitive conditions to its architecturally and historically significant features adopted with the new activities. The paper presents two examples of student’s senior project titled with “adaptive reuse of Jeddah historic houses as a tool for developing the cultural tourism” (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). By evaluating the design processes, concepts, and outcomes the paper concluded that the architectural education programs which focused on revitalization and conservation of communities’ heritage values – throughout developing student’s creative and investigative skills – can be considered as an effective approach in cultural heritage conservation projects.