A Framework for Certified Adaptive Reuse of Heritage Building

One of the significant tools in conservation is adaptive reuse, which allows the obsolete heritage buildings (HB) to be sustained for new generations. In addition to the already accepted positive contribution of reusing existing buildings to sustainability, a current debate is to propose effective strategies to accomplish green certification of heritage buildings, for both environmental sustainability, and cultural sustainability. In order to make the adaptation of heritage buildings more ecologically sustainable, environmental rating systems propose precise criteria for evaluating the various aspects of a building’s environmental impact, including heritage value. This study examines the effective factors of sustainability concept in conservation of architectural heritage through an examination of different adaptive reuse models and environmental rating systems developed worldwide, where both are related with architectural heritage. Thus, the aim is to prepare a framework that can provide the integration between adaptive reuse of HB and environmental rating systems considering HB. Within this approach, the aim of this research is to enlighten the ecologically sustainable ways of conserving heritage buildings for future generations. In order to reach comprehensive results, qualitative data have been collected by literature survey through grounded theory method. In the following step, the content analysis method as a qualitative research method has been used to extract related criteria and sub-criteria from existing systems and models. The gathered data have been examined in detail, in order to extract criteria and sub-criteria which have been illustrated via related tables and figures. In order to find their effective weights, this quantitative method has been applied through Microsoft Excel© software. These criteria and sub-criteria have been used to develop a holistic framework which is a combination of both qualitative and quantitative strategies. The Prerequisite Criteria Schema (PCS) provides a tool to be used by conservators for the examination of the prerequisite criteria for achieving ecologically certified adaptive reuse projects for heritage buildings. Selected worldwide HB examples, which consider ecologically sustainable approaches, have been examined during the development stage of the framework. ‘Boğaziçi University Tarsus-Gözlükule Excavations Research Centre’, with LEED Gold certificate, has been selected for testing and verifying the PSC tool.