Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop strategies of re-imaging the Rosetta historic district through choosing the suitable uses and their specific locations in compliance with the urban design fabric of the historic core. These strategies are to be fulfilled using Space Syntax as an urban analysis tool, in the context of “connectivity analysis.” Design/methodology/approach The research methodology follows the combined strategy between three methods of research: a SWOT analysis, to reveal the historic core status; an experimental research approach, which stimulates the chosen area via Space Syntax; and the third is a case study of the Rosetta historic core. Findings The re-usage of the Rosetta old core was not originally planned as commercial and to host movable vendors, but the core was forced to adapt afterwards to suit this usage, while the Souk and those big new residential building urban blocks have clearly deformed the historic image of the Rosetta historic core. Moving from one space to another, it was found that well-connected spaces have higher movement density, such as Al Souk Street, while less dense spaces can tolerate more movement without conflicting with highly dense ones. The existing commercial activities can be classified into movable activities – which can be easily relocated – and shop-based, which need a developmental approach in their original locations. The disconnected district can be used as a commercial zone for the movable vendors, to which human flow can be successfully directed in order to reduce the density in the more connected spaces. Originality/value The research value lies in exploring how to re-image urban heritage via relocating the places reused with unsuitable activities through Space Syntax.
The key issue of this current study is related to shaping the attractiveness of heritage destinations, highlighting the significance of reuse and upgrading their historical buildings to achieve a high level of competitiveness and distinctiveness through a smart approach. Some of these cultural assets and events tend to be monotonous, and not so attractive for various categories of tourists, which negatively affects investment opportunities, tourism development, and social and economic resources. Furthermore, previous works have criticized the lack of evidence to support that the structure contains critical attributes and measurement items linked to the competitiveness of smart heritage destinations. As a result, this study aims to design and develop a composite index for evaluating these destinations and their buildings, which includes nine dimensions (attributes) and a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) of intelligent performance and competitiveness, reflecting the combination and noticing the distinct perspective between them. A mixed-methods approach was used between qualitative and quantitative methods to perform content validation on the proposed index. Furthermore, a pilot study was implemented for tourism heritage destinations to improve the quality and efficiency of the proposed index. Then, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to analyze the data to develop the proposed index and measure its validity and reliability. Finally, the proposed composite index was finalized with 139 KPIs and applied to a case study (Salah El-Din Citadel). After that, we validated its utility in providing a quantitative evaluation of this heritage destination, identifying critical intervention priorities, and determining dimensions that need to be restructured. Additionally, it highlighted recommendations for future improvements to strengthen these heritage destinations to become smart heritage destinations capable of competition in the tourism sector.
Historic buildings still perform their role today by being utilized either for their original purpose or a new purpose for which they are adapted. These buildings have specific requirements that inhabitants must follow. These requirements and relating uses and maintenance procedures result from adaptive reuse decisions, which may not be the most optimal scenario. The imperative is that historic buildings are used in a manner that, on the one hand, does not endanger their value related to heritage and tradition, and on the other hand, guarantees a degree of utility for their inhabitants, such as acceptable performance with regards to either air cooling or heating. The challenge is how to optimize the use of energy for either air cooling or heating, provided that adaptive reuse decisions are grounded in certain very specific and very rigid principles. The latter render is extremely difficult to meet the twin challenges of ensuring energy efficiency and thermal comfort for inhabitants while at the same time complying with the adaptive reuse principles. To address this challenge and gain an insight into ways of navigating it, a Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is conducted in Former Soldier’s Residence in the Cairo Citadel, Cairo, Egypt, which is now used as the National Organization for Urban Harmony’s (NOUH) administrative head office, this research can be considered as a single domain from which many other possible multi-domains can be investigated while studying the case of adaptive reuse. Other aspects such as indoor environmental quality, air quality, acoustics and lighting might act as multiple approaches appear to be widely used according to this review study, and in the future, the authors intend to test this research with the current single approach used in this research, which is the thermal comfort. POE includes both objective and subjective assessment, the POE limitation at this research to those assessment while a multi-perceptional and behavioral factors might be used as physical, contextual, personal, and others. The simulation and the survey methods were employed consecutively to assess the case study. By considering the research results, it was determined that the building consumes unnecessary energy by its current use of air conditioning system.
The current local strategies are reactive in response to risk or damage, usually in the form of treatments, repairs and retrofitting on the building scale, there is a need for proactive strategies that rely on preventive conservation concepts which can be more sustainable and cost effective as it minimizes the possibility of deterioration and risk through controlling its cause on different scales. In order to conserve historic buildings from deterioration caused by air pollution, the impact of air pollution on these buildings need specification and quantification in order to control below the tolerable thresholds using convenient strategies on the appropriate scale. The main objective is to minimize deterioration of Historic Buildings caused by Air Pollution through the development of a framework for local management preservation strategies. A survey conducted to validate the framework. This will lead to types of preventions (UNESCO PRECOMOS Chair) as follows; primary prevention by avoiding the causes of the unwanted effect (damage), secondary prevention as the means of monitoring that allow an early detection of the symptoms of the unwanted effects, and tertiary prevention that allow avoiding further spread of the unwanted effect or the generation of new unwanted (side) effects.
The current local strategies are reactive in response to risk or damage, usually in the form of treatments, repairs and retrofitting on the building scale, there is a need for proactive strategies that rely on preventive conservation concepts which can be more sustainable and cost effective as it minimizes the possibility of deterioration and risk through controlling its cause on different scales. In order to conserve historic buildings from deterioration caused by air pollution, the impact of air pollution on these buildings need to be specified and quantified in order to be controlled below the tolerable thresholds using convenient strategies on the appropriate scale. The main objective is to minimize deterioration of Historic Buildings caused by Air Pollution through the development of a framework for local management preservation strategies. A survey was also conducted to validate the framework. This will lead to types of preventions (UNESCO PRECOMOS Chair) as follows; primary prevention by avoiding the causes of the unwanted effect (damage), secondary prevention as the means of monitoring that allow an early detection of the symptoms of the unwanted effects, and tertiary prevention that allow avoiding further spread of the unwanted effect or the generation of new unwanted (side) effects.
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