What to Conserve? Heritage, Memory, and Management of Meanings

This Paper explores and criticizes different theories and perceptions concerning ‘cultural heritage’ to explore the definitions of ‘heritage’ throughout history, and questions how the conflicts in considering and identifying ‘heritage’ might have affected the approaches to its conservation. In such process, the paper investigates the relation between ‘place’ and ‘memory’ and how place has been always the medium through which history was written, resulting in two inseparable faces, tangible and the intangible, forming the two-faced coin of ‘cultural heritage’. This research assists understanding the complex construct of heritage places; stressing the growing awareness of intangible heritage’s importance, which represents a remarkable turn in heritage conservation realm in the twenty-first century, and emphasizing the notion of heritage as a coefficient of society, which is understood through experience, learnt through performance, and represented through ‘activities’ formed in the present maintaining and developing the identity of place and preserving its spirit, rather than a past oriented vision that tends to ‘pickle’ images from the past in a picturesque manner that is only tourism-oriented

Conflicts of Identity, Conservation, and Cultural Heritage Meaning Management: Reading through ICOMOS Charters

This book "Constructing Intangible Heritage" gathers a set of articles organised in four chapters, under the thematic of intangible heritage: - Towards the immateriality of heritage; - Conceptualizing intangible heritage; - Intangible heritage and cultural manifestations; - The museology of intangible heritage

Spatial Design Stimuli to Promote Wellness through Buildings’ Design

Mental Health problems are remarkably increasing in the UK, where people are facing di˙erent challenges day after day, including stresses from everyday life. Out of a deep belief that architecture can play a significant role in supporting users’ wellbeing, instead of augmenting their stresses, this paper analyzes an extensive multidisciplinary literature review, of 720 sources, from three di˙erent disciplines: psychology, medicine and architecture. The analyzed literature studies the relationship between users’ wellbeing and the surrounding spatial environment. The investigation aims to identify a set of possible architectural design parameters that can a˙ect users’ psychological wellbeing. The analysis identified fifteen spatial psychologically supportive design stimuli (PSDS); each of them was subject of further procedures of in-depth analysis queries that aim to define their main characteristics, impacts on users’ psychology and wellbeing, and their influences within the design of public buildings. The study aims to benefit the development of psychologically considerate built environment design, as well as identifying potential research routes for future spatial qualitative researches

Confronting the Conundrum of Shared Space Street Design

This chapter discusses the challenges and debates related to the concept of Shared Space street design via demonstrating the case of the ongoing Masterplan development scheme of the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in Preston, North West England, United Kingdom. Based on hands-on experience, being involved with the project on multiple layers; in project management, working, and living in Preston City, the authors employ observational analysis methods to explore and reflect on the challenges UCLan Masterplan has faced, how it learned from the city’s most recent Shared Space development (the Fishergate Project), and they further expand on their prediction on how the project may influence the transformation of Preston’s public realm. This chapter aims to start a debate on how Shared Space tactics can lead to near-Car-Free urban zones and contribute to the enhanced people-focused urban experience

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Case Study: Architecture to Connect The Harris Museum- Year 1 Architecture Students Re-imagining the Architectural Role for Improving Community Connection

The Twenty-First Century witnessed a significant shift in museums’ nature and definition, but the most important thing to mark is the rise in awareness of, particularly local, museums’ role towards their local community, and their responsibility to ‘CONNECT’ to their audience on various levels. Generally, it is important to acknowledge that museums, as cultural institutions, represent a very important architectural typology; museums contribute to the definition and celebration of cities’ identities; probably replacing the ancient domination of religious/spiritual buildings, to identify the shift from religious to cultural representation as one of the major ‘place’ characteristic. This paper documents a semi-life project experience for Year One BSc Architecture Design Studio. The demonstrated design project intended to introduce Level 4 architecture students to an approach for perceiving architecture as a connecting catalyst within its context; where they were asked to study, analyse, and resolve their design proposals as ‘a layer that connects …’. The paper demonstrates the collaboration between the design studio and The Harris Museum, Library and Art Gallery (1882-93), which is currently searching for new ideas for engagement with the public; Re-imagining the Harris is a new project through which The Harris actively opens the doors for discussions, particularly with young generations, to know more about what the people of Preston, as well as the wider Lancashire, actually expect and require from The Harris as a cultural hub. Not only the paper would present the contribution of this project to the overall year pedagogical objectives and learning outcomes, but would mainly demonstrate a classification to the students’ design proposals in regards to their analysis of various special challenges of The Harris and its connection to the public. The project received good feedback from the museum’s leading team, where a sample of the students’ design proposals were displayed at The Harris for raising public awareness of the museum’s engagement. The display period also witnessed the Heritage Lottery Fund’s visit to the museum, as part of The Harris’ £10M bid application discussion

DEVELOPING A SIGNIFICANCE-BASED STRATEGY FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES

Cultural heritage sites are commonly identified on the basis of their heritage values and significances. Though, cultural heritage significances are often acknowledged, yet are probably too intangible to be integrated into the management and development processes of heritage sites. This paper demonstrates a research work that has been looking at developing a strategy for interpreting/understanding cultural heritage sites based on identifying their significances, and the possibility for evaluating such significances for the purpose of connecting them to site management objectives. The research employed qualitative research methodology, where the investigation employed critical literature review and content discourse analysis of data and heritage management documents (with main focus on UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites documents and ICOMOS’ charters), questionnaires and site observation. The research mainly focused on the study of two World Heritage Sites: Liverpool Mercantile City and Historic Cairo, but also expanded to include other cultural heritage sites that are not on the World Heritage List, including sites from: Ningbo, Hangzhou, Zhouzhuang, Suzhou and Beijing cities in China, and Preston, Nottingham, Manchester, and London Cities in United Kingdom. The paper proposes a process that identifies and evaluates fifteen cultural heritage significances, namely: architectural/monumental, historic, memorial/remembrance, social, spiritual/religious, artistic/inspirational, climatic/ecological, environmental/contextual, symbolic/iconic, panoramic/scenic, function-ability, scientific, technological, economic, and political significances. The proposed process relates the significance classification to five types of cultural heritage resources: object/collection, building/construction, heritage route, historic city, and urban/rural heritage landscapes. The research then classifies the management objectives of cultural heritage sites into eight types: appropriateness, representativeness, narration, memory-recalling, engagement, uniqueness, balance, and movement. The different objectives thereafter are connected to the main overarching five-pillar significance interpretation strategy, UNCAP (Understanding people, Narrating the story, Conserving the spirit of place, Architectural intervention, and Preserving the built heritage)

Integrated Approach for Year One Design-and-Build Studio

Communicated modules in architectural education target, in the first place, enhancing and developing students’ understanding of design requirements, via improving their innovative capabilities. Architecture students are expected to practice the integration of gained knowledge that affect the architectural design-construction-use phases, obtained through all taught modules, into their design projects; such knowledge would include construction technologies, ecological considerations/technologies, socio-cultural influences, tangible/intangible heritage, building regulations…etc. Achieving such integration, several approaches have recently been employed in different architectural pedagogical systems all over the globe. In United Kingdom, as an example, the integrated process within architectural design studios is an essential requirement that is stressed by both the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Architects Registration Board (ARB). This paper displays the University of Nottingham’s approach in teaching core ‘Integrated Design in Architecture’ modules. The proposed study focuses mainly on the most recent integrated design-and-build project (functional cardboard shelter) undertaken in the undergraduate architecture course’s Qualifying Year, at Ningbo Campus, in China. The project employed a learning-by-doing approach, where the project’s brief employed non-ordinary conditions for the students to think of design basic requirements. The paper analyses the outcomes of the project, compared to its objectives; measures the effect of the students’ experience upon their designs, by comparing anonymous sample design work before and after conducting the shelter project

Experiential Design Learning and the Support System in UK: the Case of Architectural Education at UCLan

Based on the information and analysis of the author's visit to the Grenfell-Baines Institute of Architecture at the University of Central Lancashire in 2016, this paper gives an in-depth introduction to the experiential design education of the GBIA, including the teaching concepts, the training strategy, the concrete pedagogical measures and the support system