Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology developed on the basis of the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) notion applied for the city of Cuenca in Ecuador. The identification of cultural values – among all the actors involved in the city – draws up a series of sustainable urban development strategies. Design/methodology/approach: This methodology is based on the city analysis from the local community and multiple disciplines such as geomorphology, environment, urban planning, historic cartography, architecture, archaeology, anthropology, and economy. Further qualitative data collection methods included 16 workshops with 168 citizens, specific surveys, mapping, and on-site observations. The challenge of this methodology is not only its implementation in the world heritage city of Cuenca in Ecuador, but also the integration of the management of the historic centre within the overall city development plan. Findings: The application of the HUL concept has allowed the identification of a series of strategies for the urban development where the points of view coming from different stakeholders were gathered. The project reveals the existence of values and attributes, so far overlooked in the actual heritage management system. In addition, a Geographic Information System database has been created with all the information related to Cuenca with the possibility of making it available for the community in the future. Research limitations/implications: The project has been developed within one year with scarce economic resources: that is the reason why the planned activities took longer than expected. Social implications: Social participation has played a key role in the development of the project. Originality/value: This research process in Cuenca has led to its incorporation as a Latin-American pilot city for a programme developed by the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for the Asia and the Pacific Region.

Governance, and specifically local management and institutional systems, is among the key factors affecting the management of World Heritage (WH) properties in urban contexts. The adoption of the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL approach) promotes a governance reform towards more inclusive and integrated management. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the HUL approach may help to solve the key governance challenges affecting WH in urban contexts. The governance of WH in three European cities is compared. Edinburgh, Porto, and Florence were chosen for their familiarity with the HUL approach and willingness to provide guidance and review policies and review their policies as management plans. The methodology includes a policy analysis of the management plans followed by a comparative analysis based on the six key governance challenges addressed in the recent literature. The results show that the HUL approach is supporting the governance of WH in urban contexts, and that more inclusive and integrated management has helped address the challenges affecting heritage management.

The 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) is the most recent incorporation to the global process of heritage production that was triggered by the 1972 World Heritage Convention. Five years since the publication of the Recommendation, it is clear that, despite UNESCO’s efforts, opportunities for the implementation of the HUL on a global level have been scarce. An increasing awareness regarding public participation has provided an additional opportunity for the HUL, due to an enhanced understanding of an ideal urban heritage management that, avant la lettre, disregards traditional up-down decision-making processes. Our paper provides a critical evaluation of the positive and negative aspects which have arisen from the implementation of HUL Recommendation with regards to charters and theory. We have also taken into consideration the risks that are concomitant to its ambitious holistic approach, as well as the ambiguities with regards to the definition of landscape on which the HUL is based. This paper also identifies the opportunities that a renewed focus on heritage values and authenticity management, as reflected in the cases of Cuenca (Ecuador) and Ballarat (Australia), may offer for the successful implementation of the HUL approach.

In recent times, teaching in higher education has undergone a significant transformation. Current advances and innovative proposals in educational science research are centred around a transdisciplinary approach, the so-called integrated curriculum and the incorporation of the transversal concept of sustainability. In summary, the so-called learning processes through problem-solving. The Solar Decathlon Competition is the most prestigious international university student competition for sustainable habitat. The aim of this article is to show how the Aura Strategy, developed by the University of Seville Solar Decathlon Team to participate in the Solar Decathlon 2019 Latin America and Europe competitions, is aligned with the aforementioned proposals. Among the results, the generation of a transforming teaching network of the departmental structures in the University of Seville is to be highlighted. These transformations in teaching lead students to new, broader and more holistic approaches to study, as well as new capabilities and skills. The question of interdisciplinarity requires new tools and research lines to achieve successful implementation in higher education, and the participation in the Solar Decathlon Competition is one of them.

Modern science is going through a period of important reflection on the role of different agents and multiple disciplines in the management and safeguarding of architectural heritage. This new focus generates a greater amount and diversity of information, so the implementation of a unifying tool in the framework of digital information models would mean a better knowledge of cultural heritage as well as aiding its safeguarding and protection. In addition, it must be taken into account that, for the correct management of information in its broadest dimension, this tool must make it possible to relate alphanumeric data about an item of heritage to its spatial location. In this sense, this article proposes a Heritage Information System (HIS)—understood as a digital knowledge tool—that consists of a relational database and a map manager with Geographic Information System (GIS) technology (a geodatabase). The methodology suggested here sets out the steps that make up the HIS, so that the system can be applied to other geographical elements or realities. For this reason, a study was made of “La Cultura del Agua” in Valverde de Burguillos (Spain), a heritage ensemble that consists of rural architecture and dispersed preindustrial elements, which are currently at risk. The HIS seeks to develop a more complete identification of these elements (individually and as a system) and a justified argument for their being given value and great visibility. This new approach encourages sustainable development in terms of efficiency and effectiveness for the analysis, diagnosis, and reactivation of cultural heritage, always placing importance on the balance of social participation with the territory in which the system is applied, and with global society.

The notion of Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) has brought to discussion some of the principles established in early international agreements such as the 1972 Convention, where importance is attributed to a larger ample of assets and values. The HUL approach has been applied to the World Heritage Site Cuenca in Ecuador. It is recognised by values revealed on its settlement, buildings and culture but adequate protection is reduced to the second. This research aims to develop a strategy to integrate components beyond buildings including values that involve a wider scope of stakeholders. The research aims to identify eight elements; geomorphology, environment, hydrology, urban planning, historical cartographic review, land uses, symbolic and iconic images of the city, and finally intangible aspects. Those elements are then mapped as layers of information. This creates a supporting graphical tool to visualise studies which use information gathered from several sources and existing databases. The studies are combined and managed with ArcMap facilitating the combination (overlapping) of the different information layers. The objective is to develop an integrated tool that can be used by all stakeholders and facilitate social participation in heritage conservation at the urban level.