Conservation and Maintenance of Modern Urban Architecture: The need for Long-term Maintenance and Sustainable Management of Metropolitan Housing Areas

Journal article, 2007

A problematic legacy of challenging issues – technically, materially, economically, environmentally, and socially – in this context with regard to European built environments – calls for an academic trans-disciplinary, systemic and problem driven methodological approach in order to achieve a needed breakthrough in pro-active and sustainable management of involved housing areas, contributing to sustainable development and increase of quality of life in a town as a whole. This approach is relevant to elaborate in accordance to the currently developing sustainability discourse and the concept of integrated conservation, with its physical and social dimensions, which enables identification of appropriate means to deal with contextual and complex issues, such as e.g. valorisation, planning, interventions and identification of human needs related to urban structures of a general building stock – i.e. “ordinary” recent buildings and environments. The crucial comprehension of urban fabric as an integrated material, economic and social resource highlights the need for a strategic and holistic, long-term approach to the management and conservation of modern metropolitan housing areas as an important aspect of sustainable urban planning and development at large.