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How can ancient cities benefit from the UNESCO world heritage badge and simultaneously avoid becoming a ‘Walt Disney’ for tourists?

There are fears that the UNESCO world heritage badge is being used to start a marketing campaign, based merely on capitalist standards. The common requirement for a rapid return on investment (ROI), however, leads to rapid development and rules out slow-growing and steady sustainability – and deprives local people of having a say during the city’s ‘rehabilitation’. In fact, here we don’t deal with rehabilitation but with reconstruction similar to a set stage fit to serve photo sessions by tourists.
Figure 1: ‘Damascus Barcode’
As to the Walt Disney reference, this was the general concern in an urban design studio at PAR. To simplify the theoretical task we chose the following UNESCO sites: Damascus, Syria, for the winter term 2008 / 2009 and Sana’a, Yemen, for the winter term 2009 / 2010 (still in progress). Understanding is the main base for a sustainable design in foreign cultures: learners – teachers, designers – researchers, locals – professionals, and so on are all communicating directly using all possible web 2.0 achievements. The students learnt how to access research communities and the local Damascene community to work out relevant propositions, which place(d) themselves in between ‘urban acupuncture’ and ‘slow urbanism’.
Our final presentation in Damascus proved this working method ideal and effective.

UNESCO Walt Disney Download (119)

That is what the SAUD 2010 conference in Amman, Jordan, is about. The closing ceremonies will be on Wednesday 14th of July. The topics for the conference are:
– Sustainable Construction Materials & Technologies
– Design with Nature
– Sustainable Housing and Neighborhoods
– Low Energy Architecture
– Eco-Mobility: Sustainability in Transport
– Vernacular Architecture and Sustainability
– Sustainability Assessment & Buildings Performance
– Sustainability in Developing Countries
– Vernacular Architecture and Sustainability
– Urban Sustainability and Low Carbon Development
– Urban Design and Sustainability
– Reflections on Sustainability
– Sustainability in Arab Countries
– Cultural Heritage and Eco-Tourism
– Sustainable Renovation and Restoration
– Urbanism in the Middle East
– Sustainable Design Issues
– Landscape and Ecological Sustainability
– Sustainability Assessment Methods, Applications and Limitations
– Ecological, Social and Cultural Sensitivity
– Eco-Tourism and Sustainability
– Low Energy Architecture
– Ecological, Social and Cultural Sensitivity
– Traditional Architecture and Sustainability
Jula-Kim Sieber will be talking tomorrow at Session 4C on Reflections on Sustainability about “UNESCO = Walt Disney?”.

SAUD2010 conference Download (158)

SAUD2010 conference programm Download (38)

Because of my trip to Damascus, Syria, I cannot post the interview with Kathy. You will get it when I am back from Syria.
We will present some urban design projects in Damascus, so you might drop by to see it:
a new brand for the old town.