PhD by Research

Heritage-Led Regeneration Schemes and Heritage Values of Historic Buildings within the UK

Investigator: Umut Gedik Kilic

Supervisors:

Alan Chandler, Caroline Watkinson, Maria Segantini

Facing a situation where new regenerative urban development schemes are often led by the priority of financial gain to the detriment and neglect of cultural heritage, sustaining cultural heritage in developing areas and sites of redevelopment is of vital importance for retaining the identity and historic value of a place. The historic value of a place can be understood as both the spatial fabric but also the patterns and scale of uses that it facilitates. Use patterns and ownership frameworks are invariably set aside in large scale developments given the motives and imperatives of the developers who provide a singular set of interests in places that were historically complex networks of human associations. How social fabric is understood as an intrinsic part of historic building fabric requires a very different set of evaluation criteria, the definition of which is the purpose of this research.