Planning Perspectives and Approaches for Activating Underground Built Heritage

Carlos Smaniotto Costa, Marluci Menezes, Petja Ivanova-Radovanova, Tatiana Ruchinskaya, Konstantinos Lalenis and Monica Bocci
Additional contact information
Carlos Smaniotto Costa: CeiED Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Education and Development, Universidade Lusófona, 1749-024 Lisbon, Portugal
Marluci Menezes: LNEC-National Laboratory of Civil Engineering, 1700-066 Lisbon, Portugal
Petja Ivanova-Radovanova: CAWRI-BAS-Climate, Atmosphere and Water Research Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1784 Sofia, Bulgaria
Tatiana Ruchinskaya: TVR Design Consultancy, Willingham CB24 5JA, Cambridgeshire, UK
Konstantinos Lalenis: Department of Planning and Regional Development, University of Thessaly, 38334 Volos, Greece
Monica Bocci: Department of Agriculture, Food Sciences and Environment, Università Politecnica delle Marche, 60131 Ancona, Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 18, 1-15

Abstract: This paper delivers actionable recommendations towards building a rationale for activating and promoting Underground Built Heritage (UBH) based on the nexus heritage, territory and society, and making use of existing literature and findings from five international cases. The research was conducted in the framework of the working group on Planning Approaches of the COST Action Underground4value. The analysis of the cases aims to provide guidelines for this working group and to benchmark good practices in activating UBH. It highlights the importance of community-led initiatives, leadership and dialogue and power sharing between the local/regional authorities and communities aiming for better understanding of the potential of UBH. The successes and/or failures of the five cases emphasise the importance of knowledge and experience in participatory approaches. Success was verified, when effectiveness and democratic principles were combined in the planning process, and local history is integrated with citizen science, co-creation and placemaking. The analysed approaches stimulate a new hybrid layer for activating UBH, provide mechanisms of mediation between people and heritage, and contribute to cultural and social dimensions of sustainability. This is a highly challenging endeavour, as it seeks to support and advance a sound understanding of UBH as a sustainable resource, backed by strategic stakeholder dialogue and contextual knowledge. Such effort requires a dynamic understanding of UBH values, knowledge, abilities and skills, towards creating more effective coalitions of “actors” within localities, by developing structures, which encourage long term collaborative relationships.

Keywords: underground heritage; placemaking; place and citizen-based approaches; public participation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10349/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10349/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:18:p:10349-:d:637011

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().