Challenges and potential solutions for cultural heritage adaptive reuse: A comparative study employing the Historic Urban Landscape approach

Challenges and potential solutions for cultural heritage adaptive reuse. A comparative study employing the Historic Urban Landscape approach.
The liveability of human settlements is threatened by global challenges such as climate change, unprecedented urbanisation, and resource scarcity. At the same time, cities can play a key role in promoting sustainable development and circular economy−a new paradigm for sustainability that promotes self-organizing system capacity towards a comprehensive better productivity closing loops as in natural economy. In this broader context, cultural heritage is considered a resource driving and enabling local sustainable development. To actuate this potential for sustainable development, heritage needs to be conserved. To conserve heritage, adaptive reuse has proven to be a strategy. Adaptive reuse changes a disused or underused item to make it (effectively) used for a different or similar purpose (Department of Environment and Heritage, 2004; Plevoets & Van Cleempoel, 2019). The adaptive reuse of cultural heritage presents environmental, cultural, social, and economic benefits for sustainable development. Moreover, it can contribute to circular economy and cities by prolonging the heritage lifespan. Yet, many challenges hamper and hinder the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage.
A variety of case studies investigating the challenges to adaptive reuse are reported in the scientific literature. Some of these case studies focus specifically on the reuse of cultural heritage. However, further knowledge is needed on the challenges to the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage as the literature review presented in Chapter 1 demonstrates. This literature review identified opportunities to expand this knowledge by i) focusing specifically on the reuse of cultural heritage, acknowledging the heritage specificity, i.e. dealing with heritage significance; ii) engaging a wide variety of stakeholders, reflecting the multi-stakeholder nature of heritage reuse; iii) considering European case studies without focusing on a specific heritage typology; and iv) adopting a landscape approach with a multiscale perspective, acknowledging that heritage is advised to be
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considered within the context, thus considering various scales. These insights from the literature review guided the definition of the aim and methodology for the present doctoral research. This research expands the knowledge on the challenges to the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage and, contextually, identifies potential solutions.
The challenges to the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage have been identified by organizing roundtable discussions held during a series of stakeholder engagement workshops. Each workshop was held in one of the cities investigated, i.e. the cities of Amsterdam in The Netherlands, Rijeka in Croatia, and Salerno in Italy. These three case studies represent diverse socio-cultural-economic-political contexts within the European region. The participants in the workshops were representatives of the local public, private, knowledge and non-governmental/civic sectors. They were invited to the workshops because of their experience with the adaptive reuse of the cultural heritage, heritage conservation, circular cities, and sustainable urban development. In the identification of challenges to the cultural heritage adaptive reuse, participants were supported by a framework based on the six HUL steps with a multi-scale perspective. Thus, they considered both the site and the urban scale, along with general insights. Contextually to this identification, participants suggested and identified solutions to overcome such challenges.
This research revealed a broad spectrum of challenges to the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage. Therefore, the data collection based on a multiscale-landscape-stakeholder approach enabled the identification of a broad spectrum of challenges. Chapters 2 to 4 report the challenges identified in each case study in detail. Some of these challenges are relevant to the site or the urban level, while some are considered general issues. These findings expand the range of challenges reported in the literature by identifying issues concerning inter alia knowledge production, implementation of participation, and cooperation among stakeholders. Notably, some of the challenges identified in the case studies had already been reported in the literature. Yet, these challenges were less frequently mentioned and/or more generally formulated than in the literature. These findings also show that some challenges are not specific to the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage. Moreover, some challenges are interconnected, e.g. by causal relations. Additionally, some challenges occur at multiple scales, suggesting the possibility of intervening at multiple levels in addressing them. Finally, the findings may
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Challenges and potential solutions for cultural heritage adaptive reuse
be applicable in places similar to the three case studies analysed. Chapters 2 to 4, therefore, contribute to identifying and providing evidence about what factors represent challenges to the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage in the three case studies investigated.
Chapters 2 to 4 also report solutions to address the challenges identified by the stakeholders in each case study. Solutions encompass policy- making, strategies, actions, and tools which contribute to facilitating/ enabling the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage or creating a favourable environment for it. Some solutions i) can address multiple challenges; ii) were based on transferable knowledge drawn from examples of heritage reuse belonging to other contexts; and iii) are not specific to the adaptive reuse of the cultural heritage. Solutions were suggested by the participants during the workshops; thus, they reflect their perspectives. Some of the solutions should therefore be tested, and their feasibility and usefulness verified within the case study. However, this dissertation presents a repository to inspire stakeholders implementing the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage and these solutions might also be transferable to other contexts. Chapters 2 to 4, therefore, contribute to enabling the adoption and implementation of the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage by offering ways to overcome the challenges identified.
Chapter 5 presents the findings derived from the comparative study that determined the challenges common to the three case studies analysed. These 14 challenges might be representative of the European region since they are identified in three European cities diverse in terms of scale and socio-cultural-economic-political contexts. Examples of these challenges are lack of awareness and capacity; cultural heritage interpretation and management; data management; costs; conflicting interests; lack of knowledge; lack of participatory processes; and compliance with regulatory, policy, and legislative documents. Some of these challenges might be cross-regional since they were also identified in literature reporting case studies from Asia, North America, and Oceania. Furthermore, some of the common challenges identified relate to some SDGs. Therefore, addressing these challenges could contribute to the efforts to achieve these goals. Notably, the synthesis derived by this comparative study provides a more general insight into the challenges to the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage. This insight contributes to developing a framework for these challenges and it can inform multiple governmental levels of policy-making. Therefore, this synthesis can
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enhance the understanding of the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage and its adoption and implementation.
Finally, Chapter 6 concludes the doctoral research by providing overarching conclusions and recommendations for further research. This dissertation contributes to advancing the knowledge on the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage by mapping multi-scale challenges and solutions and drawing a general insight from the common challenges. Particularly, this knowledge can contribute to enabling the adoption and implementation of heritage reuse and, to a certain extent, to achieving some of the SDGs. This doctoral research presents three main limitations that future research could address. The first limitation lies in the static nature of the study resulting in an overview of challenges and solutions within a specific time frame. The second limitation stems from the variety of stakeholders involved in this research: citizens remain to be engaged. The third limitation concerns the transferability and generalizability of the findings because of the case study nature of the research. This dissertation also provides evidence of the need for further research to deepen the understanding of the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage, particularly its challenges. Three main research lines are identified. A first research line could expand the range of stakeholders involved and increase the number of sites investigated to refine the mapping of challenges and identification of solutions within each case study. A second research line could identify the origin of the challenges, how they change, their interdependencies, their hierarchy, and if they are specific to some categories of stakeholders to deepen the knowledge about them. A third research line would expand the comparative study to further develop the theoretical framework on the challenges to the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage. This expansion could broaden the geographical base of the comparative study, include the temporal dimension, and determine how contextual factors influence the framework. Particularly, the first two research lines could inform and contribute to the third.