Social quality in the conservation process of living heritage sites

The "UNESCO World Heritage Convention" was ratificated on November 16, 1972. Since then, both public and private sectors around the world have attached growing importance to the safeguarding and conservation of selected cultural and natural "objects", focusing on physical characteristics. World Heritage sites receive major publicity and as a result become notable attractions for large numbers of tourists from all over the world. However, in spite of the clear economic benefits and political prestige, this massive influx of tourists disrupts and in most cases, in the long run, destroys the social quality of indigenous community. The deterioration of social quality could ultimately undermine the application of conservation policy. The aim of this research is to: 1) identify the negative impact of conservation policies implemented in living World Heritage sites on the social quality of traditional communities; 2) develop a design tool constraining spatial morphology to overcome the negative influences on the social quality The study leads to a new approach to conservation planning that takes into account sustaining social quality while enforcing UNESCO World Heritage conservation program. Given the complexity and novelty of social problems as new activities and actors enter into traditional living communities, a comparative case-study approach has been adopted, employing on-site survey and in situ investigations by the author . Two cases of UNESCO World Heritage sites have been chosen: the Dayan town in Lijiang, Yunan province of China, and the Ogimachi village in the Chubu region of Japan. In both cases, the conservation program has been applied with respect to physical features of the sites. However, they have been implemented differently from a planning and design point of view, and thus have had different impacts on the social quality of local communities: negative in the case of Dayan and positive in the case of Ogimachi. In the first instance, the study has been used to identify the various aspects and parameters of the problem, and to develop a hypothesis about the role of constrained physical organization in retaining social quality; in the second instance, the study aims to test the model derived from the hypothesis and to develop a complementary design guidelines. Drawing from literature, the study defines social quality in terms of observable, measurable social indicators in the context of living heritage conservation. The data obtained from case studies have been analyzed and generalized within the MOP (Morphology, Operation, Performance) framework. Given the above analysis, the conclusion arrives as a new knowledge-based design tool in the form of design guidelines. The guidelines constrain spatial morphology to enable social interactions and enhance social quality. Extrapolating from this study, the new knowledge-based design tool works in parallel with the conservation of physical objects as applied by current UNESCO policy to safeguard social quality of indigenous community. The conclusions of this dissertation are limited by: the number and the type of cases selected; the methods of data collection and data analysis adopted. These limitations might affect the generalization of the conclusions and applicability of the tool. However, they suggest directions for further investigations towards understanding better the relation between social quality maintenance and environmental conservation