Abstract

In historic quarters of most cities, old buildings can provide sound housing for local communities if rehabilitated sensitively and if their interior configuration is appropriately redesigned. Most of heritage disused buildings have poor technical facilities and their facades are in bad condition, but they are still durable, beautiful and well-located which make conservation and conversion economically viable options. This paper aims to find an approach to improve the pattern of residential development in order to preserve the identity of conservation areas. The methodology of dealing with the research problem is three-fold. First, the relationships between the context and the local housing typology are analyzed by examining the case of the Turkish town of Alexandria. The purpose of this analysis is to evaluate the different architectural designs of the targeted area. Secondly, new design guidelines are proposed for the development of vacant plots. The third part investigates the mechanisms of implementation of the regeneration process. It is observed that conservation and development are a part of the same continuum of change. The questions are: Which design is appropriate? What kind of change must take place? And what must be done to implement it?