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Introduction
Built heritage has been, for all societies, one of their most precious assets because it brings together a series of values that make it essential for the development of social life. Cities, architecture, public spaces, infrastructure, that is, everything man builds to create a “second nature,” a living space, is a legacy of diverse characteristics, with different temporalities, which must be preserved and at the same time transformed constantly to ensure adequate living conditions for people.
This heritage is constituted by buildings of all types, of a more or less distant past, most with a long existence or a unique aesthetic value, even linked to a relevant historical deed, but at the same time it includes fundamentally the so-called vernacular or traditional architecture. In addition, anything that is built or is materialized, even in recent times, that is part of a settlement, whether urban, rural or isolated, is incorporated into the built environment, contributing in many ways to its configuration in time and space, that can be considered part of that accumulated heritage that not only is used in the present, but shall be, if it is so decided, inherited to future generations.
In today’s environmental crisis we live in both, cultural and natural heritage conservation, have become a priority. The new circumstance humanity is facing, where artificial and natural environments are deteriorating rapidly, the idea to preserve, reuse and take advantage of the pre-existing, has gained importance not only as a possibility, but as an obligation to contribute to the reduction of the environmental impact that the built context has on natural systems. The notion of “heritage” and the values associated with the built space expands enormously and includes monumental architecture, as well as the traditional, the vernacular and even more recent buildings that can increase their life cycle.
To talk about environmental sustainability today is increasingly difficult, since it’s a term or notion that has acquired multiple meanings, to the extent that antagonistic ideologies have embraced the same concept. It seems that the so-called sustainable development is something desired by all, suitable for humanity, but despite this, we have seen that its day-to-day implementation is much more complicated.
In this order of ideas, we are interested in built heritage conservation which believes...