The Agenda 2030 includes a set of targets that need to be achieved by 2030. Although none of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focuses exclusively on cultural heritage, the resulting Agenda includes explicit reference to heritage in SDG 11.4 and indirect reference to other Goals. Achievement of international targets shall happen at local and national level, and therefore, it is crucial to understand how interventions on local heritage are monitored nationally, therefore feeding into the sustainable development framework. This paper is focused on gauging the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals with reference to cultural heritage, by interrogating the current way of classifying it (and consequently monitoring). In fact, there is no common dataset associated with monitoring SDGs, and the field of heritage is extremely complex and diversified. The purpose for the paper is to understand if the taxonomy used by different national databases allows consistency in the classification and valuing of the different assets categories. The European case study has been chosen as field of investigation, in order to pilot a methodology that can be expanded in further research. A cross-comparison of a selected sample of publicly accessible national cultural heritage databases has been conducted. As a result, this study confirms the existence of general harmonisation of data towards the achievement of the SDGs with a broad agreement of the conceptualisation of cultural heritage with international frameworks, thus confirming that consistency exists in the classification and valuing of the different assets categories. However, diverse challenges of achieving a consistent and coherent approach to integrating culture in sustainability remains problematic. The findings allow concluding that it could be possible to mainstream across different databases those indicators, which could lead to depicting the overall level of attainment of the Agenda 2030 targets on heritage. However, more research is needed in developing a robust correlation between national datasets and international targets.

Currently, heritage is challenged in the Indian city of Surat due to diverse pressures, including rapid urbanization, increasing housing demand, and socio-cultural and climate changes. Where rapid demographic growth of urban areas is happening, heritage is disappearing at an alarming rate. Despite some efforts from the local government, urban cultural heritage is being neglected and historic buildings keep being replaced by ordinary concrete buildings at a worryingly rapid pace. Discussions of challenges and issues of Surat’s urban area is supported by a qualitative dataset, including in-depth semi-structured interviews and focus groups with local policy makers, planners, and heritage experts, triangulated by observation and a photo-survey of two historic areas. Findings from this study reveal a myriad of challenges such as: inadequacy of urban conservation management policies and processes focused on heritage, absence of skills, training, and resources amongst decision makers and persistent conflict and competition between heritage conservation needs and developers’ interests. Furthermore, the values and significance of Surat’s tangible and intangible heritage is not fully recognized by its citizens and heritage stakeholders. A crucial opportunity exists for Surat to maximize the potential of heritage and reinforce urban identity for its present and future generations. Surat’s context is representative of general trends and conservation challenges and therefore recommendations developed in this study hold the potential to offer interesting insights to the wider planners and conservationists’ international community. This paper recommends thoughtful integration of sustainable heritage urban conservation into local urban development frameworks and the establishment of approaches that recognize the plurality of heritage values.

Consensus exists on the importance of heritage for ensuring sustainable futures, due to its impact on political aspects, ethical reflection and local economic development. Nowadays, using technology has become crucial in the construction industry, including heritage conservation. This paper aims to compare a selected sample of digital platforms, gathering data in support of heritage documentation, both for heritage and archeological sites. Despite the huge potential of digital technologies for contributing to heritage conservation, still there is a need for more clarity on what should be used to achieve different goals and what is the best approach under various circumstances. A team of five experts on digital technologies applied to different types of heritage worked collaboratively to gather the case studies in this paper and to analyse them comparatively. Jordan is a Middle East and North Africa country chosen as unit of analysis, because of the huge potential of digital technologies for heritage documentation. The findings from the comparative case review offers a reflection on what should best adopted for achieving different goals. Differences of approaches were revealed between the characteristics of heritage site and those of archaeological sites in Jordan’s conservation history. The findings called for a prioritization of using digital technology in both heritage and archeological sites. The discussion on digital platforms currently available in Jordan allows for highlighting strengths and limitations of different approaches and methodologies, thus drawing lessons for addressing the strategic choice of the most appropriate digital solution under different circumstances and in different contexts.

Millions of people have been forcibly displaced around the world at an alarming rate. In 2018, approximately 70.8 million people (UNHCR 2018) were living in refugee camps. These camps are the most immediate response to the emergency. However, they have become more than a simple temporary solution, with refugees spending significantly longer than they should. Motivated largely by an economic rationale, the camps are often produced rapidly, cheaply and effectively to accommodate the largest possible number of shelters in the shortest time. The aim of this paper is to explore whether the concept of permanence should be embedded in the spatial configuration of a refugees’ camp, or whether the concept of transient and temporary community would better reflect the aspirations of the users. The Al Za’atari camp has been selected as a case study to explore the nexus between spatial configuration and social aspirations of the refugees’ community. Indeed, the findings revealed that the spatial configuration of the Al Za’atari camp reflects social fabric, habits and organization of the refugees’ community. This has occurred to the point that the camp has taken on the appearance of a sort of informal city. This study therefore suggests recommendations to support the design of spatial and architectural solutions that better meet the actual needs of the final users largely disregarded in the current emergency approach.

Purpose: Across the architecture, engineering and construction industry, the application of building information modelling (BIM) as a digital technology for architectural heritage is becoming increasingly relevant. However, scholarly research on the application of BIM for architectural heritage is still in its infancy stage and the research gaps and future directions of this research area are still unclear. This paper therefore aims to fill this gap by using a systematic and robust review using a mixed-method approach to show the gaps of research for BIM and architectural heritage and point to new directions for future works.Design/methodology/approach: The study includes a quantitative scientometric analysis and mapping and a qualitative study. A total of 354 articles related to BIM and architectural heritage were analysed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative tools. The qualitative study consists of a systematic literature review supported by data collected from stakeholder and training workshops on digital technologies and BIM for heritage.Findings: Findings from this study reveal the gaps in the field of heritage and BIM research according to retrieved articles from different countries and journals. Furthermore, emerging domains for future research were identified and these included: as-built modelling and 3D reconstruction; conservation, preservation and management; documentation; maintenance and restoration; virtual technology and simulation.Originality/value: The common research challenges were identified as an integrated outcome of the findings revealed from the scientometric mapping and qualitative review and resulted in key BIM and heritage research priority recommendations relevant to researchers within this field.