Sustainable architecture in urban historic contexts: A systematic literature review

This paper presents a systematic literature review to reveal the wider arguments in approaches and guidelines in conservation areas, as well as, the role they play in guiding new architecture. This paper discusses and enable a comprehensive understanding of definitions of and relationships between urban heritage conservation, sustainable development and architectural design, aiming to find research gaps in the crossed fields. Architecture in urban contexts concerns the introduction of new architecture in existing urban contexts, meaning consolidated urban areas. Depending on their cultural values, consolidated areas can be in part or fully included in conservation areas, either as protected zones (listed as heritage) or as buffer zones, created around the protected zones, levelling the limits of acceptable change, between the conservation areas, where change is hardly accepted, into the other urban areas, where most is possible. There is a strong debate on the role of conservation areas, and buffer zones in particular, guiding new architecture, setting the limits of acceptable change, tangible and intangible. The effectiveness of conservation areas is questioned under varied grounds e.g. when they foster gentrification, when new architecture neglects the guidelines. Therefore, the development of conservation areas is required to be assisted and respected to be sustainable, both on the level of heritage management and architectural design. This is also a challenge for sustainable development to implement sustainability on architectural design in urban historic context as a specific field.