Sustainability, Vol. 12, Pages 2932: Sustainable Regeneration through the Cultural Conversion of Urban Heritage (Sustainability)

As the industrial structure rapidly changed, the buildings and facilities at the helm of the previous industrialization era lost their original functions and became idle. These spaces contain elements of local history, culture, and time and provide the basis for this study. Therefore, it focuses on the role of a city’s sustainable media if they are converted to fit the city’s social and local context. In this study, we examine sustainable regeneration by adopting the methodology of the “new directions in planning theory” method, which means a contradictory approach to the sustainable values of long-standing industrial heritages from both physical and cognitive perspectives. We argue that its physical appearance, landscaping, and tectonic relation, composed of a specific spectrum of time accumulation, help people experience a sense of collective memory. In this way, a sense of time and place are embedded in materiality and are important to consider when moving toward urban sustainability. Our findings have implications for a new perspective on concrete regeneration strategies.