Abstract
Contemporary design practices are often characterized by capitalist paradigms bringing about drastic transformations in historic urban fabrics. Modern societies are often heterogeneous and become spatially fragmented based on realms of social parameter. Such contemporary developments and infrastructures pose a challenge for the continuity of historic identities along with the creation of different urban futures. The UNESCO Historic Urban Landcaspe recommendations 2011 highlights the need for a better understanding of city’s spatial configurations, which includes attributes of cultural landscapes and inclusion in urban design and decision making. These attributes of geography, heritage, spirit and feeling and socio-spatial configurations have sustained over time due to the culture-nature linkages between inhabitants and the landscape. However, the contemporary design interventions of alterations, adaptive reuses, conversions and new developments without the cognizance of these attributes may introduce spatial heterogeneity and lead to a deviation of the city’s historic landscape characteristics and its spatial order, As explained by French philosopher Henry Lefebvre representational spaces are key in integrating social aspects and shared existence within contemporary designs to foster trust and a sustainable urban life. The identification of physical and metaphysical attributes of memory and identity, and continuity of historic landscapes, its characteristics encompassing social-spatial dynamics plays a crucial role for preservation beyond the protected or designed historic districts. The absence of an inclusionary process of design and decision making to address the contemporary issues in historic cities, threatens to lead to socio- spatial heterogeneity and disharmony, weakening the continuity of collective identity and memory. Hence, it becomes essential to acknowledge the spatial resource of heritage, identity and continuity in the context of contemporary design practices. Such spaces are diachronic and the discourse of evolving territories is contingent on the understanding of the urban landscape as a cultural construct, informed by a history of change. The UNHABITAT New Urban Agenda (2017), contemporary designs and processes have a potential to leverage socio-economic and socio- cultural developments. This research explores the case study of a culturally heterogeneous historic port town Jaffa, which is now part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, in an effort to highlight the contrast and the socio- spatial heterogeneity resulting from contemporary design and planning decisions. Through the developed method of strategic cultural resilience assessment, the article will aim to establish how contemporary design methods in this historic town result in irreversible changes in the historic landscape and have the potential to render cultural identities as desolate if not included in planning frameworks. The method of visual representation and datascaping of quantifiable and qualitative attributes will be explored as a potential tool to document identities and values of cultural heritage and inform design and planning decisions and discerning its characteristics and indicators for inclusive urban heritage design.
