The aesthetics of city-scale preservation policy in Beijing

What Is the Critical Factor and Relationship of Urban Regeneration in a Historic District?: A Case of the Nanluoguxiang Area in Beijing, China

Although investigations and evaluations are being carried out, there is little research on the relationship between urban regeneration factors, in which various stakeholders participate, and various projects are underway simultaneously. Therefore, this study aims to understand the critical factors and influence relationship among factors in urban regeneration projects in the Nanluoguxiang area, where such projects have been carried out for the historical and cultural preservation in Beijing, China. The implications of this study are as follows: First, both factor public space environmental improvement and building restoration and improvement were analyzed as the most important factors. Second, the elements of the public space environmental improvement and the building restoration and improvement were closely related, influenced by policies and plans, guidelines and criteria, investigation and research, and the subsidy support project. Third, despite the fact that the project was promoted with the aim of revitalizing culture, it was analyzed that the influence of cultural elements on other factors was very minimal because of excessive commercialization.

Evaluating the adaptive reuse potential of buildings in conservation areas

Purpose

Adaptive reuse of building assets is an important approach to sustainability. Adapting a building for new uses often involves complex factors in the decision-making process, particularly in conservation areas. The paper aims to show an evaluation process of the adaptive reuse potential of historic buildings that are subject to change in the Grand Canal area, a world heritage site in Hangzhou, China.

Design/methodology/approach

For this purpose, a model has been established with aggregated views of professionals on the degree to which a variety of factors affect the buildings’ potential for adaptive reuse. The model intends to help prioritise some of the buildings in the area for adaptive reuse, which is important for effective allocation of public resources. Interviews with professionals, analytic hierarchy process and the Delphi method have been used to establish the evaluation model. It is then applied to the Grand Canal area to generate indices for buildings’ adaptive reuse potential and the ranking of priority. The indices are generated through public scoring of historic buildings against the variables and calculated through the model.

Findings

The paper concludes that the evaluation process is an effective way to engage the public in the decision-making process and to balance conflict interests of various stakeholders in the management of historic building assets in conservation areas.

Originality/value

The research has proposed an evaluation model to help set priority of buildings subject to adaptive reuse and to help distribute public fund effectively. It facilitates wide public engagement in the decision-making progress of adaptive reuse of historic buildings.