Adaptive reuse: an innovative approach for generating sustainable values for historic buildings in developing countries

Abstract Sustainable development has become a goal for all countries seeking a balance between social, environmental and economic needs. The principal vision of a sustainable built future is about developing creative designs that utilize energy and materials effectively. However, this vision should consider historic buildings that were built centuries ago. Although many of these buildings are standing in a stable state, they are obsolete and their values are not fully utilized. Towards revitalizing and generating sustainable values of these buildings, adaptive reuse is adopted as a process of modifying, adapting and reusing obsolete buildings with their existing structures to extend their life cycle whilst performing a new function. This is currently practiced worldwide, specifically when a building has a unique architectural character and is in a stable condition. The adaptive reuse of a historic building should have minimal impact on the heritage significance of the building and its setting. This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of adaptive reuse as an innovative approach for generating sustainable values of historic buildings in developing countries. To achieve this aim, a research strategy is designed to accomplish four objectives: first, literature related to sustainable development, sustainable values, adaptive reuse and developing countries is reviewed; second, two case studies are presented and analysed to investigate the role of adaptive reuse towards increasing the sustainable value of heritage buildings; third, a strategy with its action plan is developed for facilitating adaptive reuse of historic buildings in developing countries and finally, research conclusions are outlined and recommendations useful to professionals concerned with adaptive reuse of historic buildings are proposed.