Built Heritage Conservation
Executive Summary
The built heritage in a community or a culture acts as a source of identity that needs to preserve for the sake of cultural preservation and the future generation. Therefore maintaining the built heritage does not only require one party but requires the involvement of all stakeholders to achieve the desired goals. Hence, this project plan will seek to evaluate the relevance of built heritage and its impact through the theory of restoration and modern conservative approach. The plan will also involve a qualitative method of data collection to formulate findings through the help of the research problem and objectives.
Table of Contents
Built Heritage Conservation
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background
Most architectural heritage is usually considered irreplaceable by specific communities all around the world due to their uniqueness (Ashworth, 2017, p.248). Wells (2018, p. 36) explains that most historical architecture defines and as well expresses the diversity and the richness that a country possesses. From the various studies on heritage conservation, building the heritage not only focuses on the beauty of a community but also brings along the technological benefits of the culture. For instance, heritage preservation across the world goes through specific strategies that help protect future generations. Also, Ashworth (2017, p.249); through such procedures, the heritage receives protection as the community tries to maintain its beauty. On that note, one will find that by preserving the built heritage, the process turns out to be expensive and, at the same time, challenging, primarily when focusing on the elements and materials to use for renovation (Wells & Stiefel, 2018, p. 12). Due to the conservation process facing such difficulties, the only thing that remains is the urge of sustainability, which can be made a success through strategies maintenance and intervention reassessment by the relevant stakeholders (Lai &Lorne, 2019, p.850). With that regard, the kind of decision to be made will lead to successful approaches that will help in improving the conservation approaches. Quite a high number of scholars have involved themselves in the study to research the importance of built heritage conservation. Therefore, the Singapore case study on heritage conservation will try to evaluate the possible ways that can be employed even when calamities arise, especially now that Corona Epidemic has put the whole world at a standstill. The study will also attempt to evaluate the rules that the government has subject to the heritage conservation and the construction industry.
1.2 Research Problem
The primary determinant of heritage conservation is sustainability in terms of materials cost, site requirements, and environmental factors. Now that the world is facing the coronavirus pandemic, businesses, especially the construction industries, have much suffered as they try to observe prevention measures. With that regard, the Pearl Garden conservation needs to adhere to the guidelines that will not expose those responsible for renovating the building to the pangs of Corona Virus as they continue operating. By determining the best methods that will be employed, the decision-makers need to formulate a clear outline of how they will intervene in the situation as they maintain the beauty of the building. Hence, the research will evaluate answering the critical question on the measures to be put aside to ensure that the Coronavirus does not lead to abandoning of the beautiful heritage. Therefore, the paper will try to focus on the following research questions.
1.3 Research Question
The following research questions will provide insight into the required study objectives regarding the research problem. Therefore, the study on heritage conservation will be guided by the research questions below.
- How will the heritage be transformed and preserved, especially during a pandemic like Corona Virus?
- Which are the existing laws and regulations by the government concerning heritage conservation?
- To what extent is Singapore ready to conserve cultural heritage?
1.3 Aims of the Study
The main aim of the study is to evaluate the effect that the Corona Virus brought in built heritage conservation.
1.4 Objectives
The problem objectives will be connected with the problem identified in investigating the relationship between heritage conservation and the measures put to curb Corona Virus. As a way of widening the research for a supportive conclusion, the following objectives will be used.
- To evaluate the need to conserve already built heritage in Singapore during the Corona epidemic.
- To evaluate the existing rules and regulations by the government.
- To investigate the efforts that the construction industries are enforcing to ensure that the construction gets to standard without overlooking essential factors.
- To provide recommendations based on the research on how Singapore should carry ou the heritage conservation during the epidemic period.
1.5 Scope of the study
The study will investigate the drives towards built heritage conservation. With that regard, the study will be limited in focusing on the benefits and impacts that come along with conserving the built heritage.
1.6 Significant of the Study
Through built heritage preservation, there is continuous and productivity improvement of the conditions of the building. In return, communities and countries can perfectly preserve their cultures. As well, through the government involving stakeholders in decision making on how to improve the built heritage, there will be a great urge by the community to conserve the heritage appropriately. The country’s economy will also rise since such conservation will attract tourists, both domestic and foreign tourists, thus uplifting the living standards of the historical heritage.
2.0 Literature and Gap
During the Greek-Roman period, civilization was regarded as spiritual, cultural, and a social structure, though during the 16th century, the Latin’s modernized the culture meaning to something of high value and precious (Amar & Armitage, 2019, p.81). Most scholars indicate that the traditional heritage conservation approach exposed the heritage to more deteriorating factors. In such instances, one will find that most historical sites were left without many renovations or none (González Martínez, 2019, p.1062). One of the significant challenges that such situation exposed to the heritage sites, was the ineffectiveness and the unsustainability of their cultural and historical value. Hence, when the modern heritage conservation was introduced, the cost of protection and the timing becomes an issue (Lai &Lorne, 2019, p.850). For instance, the Pearl Garden in China Town, despite being built in 1976, the renovation for its restoration is happening 43 years later (Ding et al., 2019, p. 4326). That is best explained by the theory of restoration, which helps in integrating the artwork with both aesthetic and historical aspects to avoid it being fake. Hence, like the issue of the Pearl Garden, the restoration will help preserve the community culture for the sake of the future generation. Wells (2018, p. 39) believes that heritage conservation has been exposed to danger due to urban planning, where most governments are not giving historical sites much attention. Wells and Stiefel (2018, p. 23) also say that heritage conservation has evolved through regional and international governance, where many governments and communities have adopted urban regeneration and rehabilitation. Many scholars have challenged urban conservation since it, at times, acts as the hindrance to the historic site conservation where at times, such buildings are demolished. Also, Amar & Armitage (2019, p.84) postulate that in a mid to reduce the gap between urban and historic site conservation, many institutions have ended up doing some collaborative projects with the society. With that, they have managed to reduce biasness since they can quickly identify the exact needs regarding conservation issues for both the historic urban environment. Hence, as Wells (2018, p. 42) explains, through such collaborations, the question of heritage conservation has improved in the modern world since the stakeholders can identify threats and ways to curb them. In addressing that, modern conservative theory helps scholars and institutions to understand the history of the heritage in its uses, values, and aesthetic value. Hence, that helps ensure that modern interventions do not bypass the historical and artistic value of the culture (González Martínez, 2019, p.1068).
3.0 Methodology
The case study of built heritage conservation in Singapore tries to unpin the effects that the Corona epidemic has on the restoration of ancient building heritage. The methodology to be adopted will involve the collection of data that will be obtained from the study will be reflecting the study objectives. The objectives will then help in developing a conceptual framework that will help determine the community and the government’s responsibility in conserving built heritage. The methodology will involve either the qualitative or quantitative type of analysis, which will enable the analysis in explaining further why the methods used were chosen in the first place. Through the quantitative approach, the research variables will undergo measurements involving mathematics and statistics to come up with findings. For the qualitative research, non-numerical data will help to understand the phenomenon regarding society and their take on built heritage conservation.
4.0 Project Plan
The plan is set to take an approximate of 30 days, and it will involve 16 males and 14 females to unravel the issues behind built heritage conservation. The study will mainly aim to give a clear picture of the research questions through options, reasons, and motivations through observations and the participants. With that knowledge then, the Singapore case study will use a quantitative approach. The study will also have an elaborate research methodology with a specific research approach, design, and strategies. Also, there will be an outline of the methods that will engage in collecting and analyzing data as well as limitations of the study, ethical consideration, and recommendations.
5.0 Conclusion
This section provides the study summary where the analysis, findings, and mostly the discussions regarding the case study will be discussed.
Bibliography
Amar, Johari HN, and Lynne Armitage. “Priceless or Bankrupt: Problems and Prospects from a Built Heritage Conservation Perceptive.” Athens Journal of Tourism 6.2 (2019): 77-96.
Ashworth, G. J. “The experience of heritage conservation: outcomes and futures.” The Construction of Built Heritage. Routledge, 2017. 247-258.
Lai, Lawrence WC, and Frank T. Lorne. “Sustainable urban renewal and built heritage conservation in a global real estate revolution.” Sustainability 11.3 (2019): 850.
González Martínez, P. “From verifiable authenticity to verisimilar interventions: Xintiandi, Fuxing SOHO, and the alternatives to built heritage conservation in Shanghai.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 25.10 (2019): 1055-1072.
Wells, C. “Bridging the Gap between Built Heritage Conservation Practice and Critical Heritage Studies.” Human-Centered Built Environment Heritage Preservation. Routledge, 2018. 33-44.
Wells, C., and Stiefel, B. “Introduction: Moving Past Conflicts to Foster an Evidence-Based, Human-Centric Built Heritage Conservation Practice.” Human-Centered Built Environment Heritage Preservation. Routledge, 2018. 1-30.
Timeline
Gantt chart
The tool will be used to help the researcher to plan and schedule the project. The primary reason why the Gantt chart was preferred compared to other tools is that it will help in assessing the duration, resources, and the order of activities. With such knowledge, the researcher will be in a position to manage all dependencies that might arise during project execution.