underground built heritage as catalyst for strategies...

Giuseppe Pace

Institute for Studies on the Mediterranean

National Research Council of Italy

[email protected]

Underground Built Heritage as catalyst for strategies of community engagement and regeneration policies

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Summary

1. The Underground Built Heritage (UBH)

2. Success stories: the challenge

3. Problems and constraints

4. The Cost Action Underground4Value (CA18110)

5. Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL)

6. Community management tools: Strategic Stakeholder Dialogue (SSD) and Transition Management (TM)

7. The Strategic Transition Management (STM)

8. Conclusions

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• Underground artefacts with historical and cultural exclusivity

• Its long history extends back several thousands of years, when cavities becameshelters from inclement weather or wild animals, cultural and religiousplaces, spaces for housing or mining activities, food production and storage,and natural resources’ distribution.

• Typologies of UBH sites: natural and anthropic caves, undergroundburial/rites structures, mines and quarries, other man-made caves forexploitation and dwelling, underground infrastructures (cisterns, ancientdrainage systems, tunnels, etc.), ancient buried structures and settlements.

• These places influence people’s sense of belonging and of ‘ownership’ ofparticular localities, as well as daily routines, local rituals, traditions,ambiences, and atmospheres.

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UBH is an unique cultural resource, which might contribute to individual andcollective identity, social cohesion and inclusion, and epresents a valuableresource for the sustainability challenge:

• Potential of catalysing urban/rural regeneration and attracting tourism;

• Raising community awareness and making local communities more resilientto globalised systems of production and consumption by preserving theirunique environmental and cultural aspects.

• Spaces with a relevant role for heritage-led urban regeneration initiatives

• Integrated in these schemes, they generate popular, successful characteristicurban quarters, where people enjoy living, and engender economicdevelopment through job creations

• They can create social well being through crime reduction, health, educationand social capital.

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2. Success stories: the challenge

The Classic Karst (SI)

Three underground natural caves located on the Classic Karst: PostoijnaCaves, Škocjan Caves, and Križna Cave.

Postojna Cave is the best-known cave in the world and the largest show cave of the Classical Karst in Europe.

Križna cave is the most famous water cave in Slovenia, with more than 20 underground lakes and numerous excavation sites.

Škocjan Caves is a natural phenomenon connected to the creation of the Reka River. Significant example of regeneration and valorisation since visitors’ information centre and tours date back to 17th century.

Natural caves of this complex have been historically used to solve aboveground climatic and social conflicts.

Škocjan Caves is UNESCO’s list since 1986, Ramsar since 1999, Karst biosphere reserve (MAB) since 2004.

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2. Success stories: the challengeGöreme, Cappadocia (TR)

Located on the central Anatolia plateau, the region is set in a moonlike landscape of giant rock cones, housing historic cave-dwellings and Byzantine churches.

Turkish governments restored the natural, archaeological and historical heritage, and a part of the valley became Göreme Open-Air Museum in 1950. Since 1985, Göreme Open-Air Museum is UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS).

It apparently offers a sustainable balance between heritage conservation, cultural tourism development

Concern about local heritage values to be re-discovered and protected

Vital developing new social and economic activities to balance site conservation with local community needs, between new way of living and traditions

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3. Problems and constraints

Significant gaps:

• Knowledge (UBH sites are largely unexplored, even not documented, and indeed under-utilised, conservation and re-use of UBH sites requires adequate scientific and technical knowledge, technological capabilities and financial resources

• Geotechnical and geo-environmental concerns (perception that the underground space is a high-risk and costly area of intervention

• Absence of a specific planning legislation (physical planning tools as a constraint to local community development, UBH constraint for underground space development because decision-makers and builders take into account underground space for its ‘invisibility’ and potential ‘space availability’)

These gaps UBH conservation is seen as a cost and a barrier to regional and urban development

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The Challenge

• Establishing a network, with knowledge exchange and dissemination, and training, for promoting Underground Built Heritage as a valuable resource to celebrate and preserve and, when sustainable, to re-use and valorise, realising its full potential to support local communities’ development

• The Action is active from April 2019 to April 2023

• Currently the Network is composed by 26 Countries, 110 members, organised in 5 Working groups, and is open to all interested organisations

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A multi-disciplinary network

Keywords• Underground Built Environment• Heritage-Led Regeneration• Heritage Conservation Methods• Sustainability Transition• Technological and Social Innovation

Areas of Expertise Relevant for the Action• Social and economic geography Spatial development, land use, regional planning; Databases, data

mining, data curation, computational modelling • History and Archeology Preservation of cultural heritage• Civil engineering Preservation of cultural heritage • Environmental engineering Remote sensing• But also: Community Psychology; Ecology; Sociology; Economics

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Research Objectives• O1: Managing and treasuring the wide-ranging participants’ competencies

• O2: Setting up and coordinating small teams of participants for performing every year four case-studies assessments

• O3: Interacting with local communities, disseminating innovative thinking and supporting them to explore alternative social trajectories

• O4: Improving network openness by delivering presentations at regional and local conferences

Capacity Building Objectives• O5: Providing a balanced and sustainable methodology for supporting the conservation and re-

use of the UBH

• O6: Developing new skills for planners, decision-makers, promoters, and local development facilitators

• O7: Realising the potential of UBH for empowering local communities

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Activities

• Each expert will share research experience, best-practices and ideas on UBH

• Repository for new research and for developing training tools, open and accessible to all parties interested to the UBH

• Platform and tools provide knowledge on main technical and organisational barriers to the UBH conservation and reuse

• Knowledge contributes at:

• Promoting continuity of use and significance (construction of meaning) to the underground historic fabric, revitalizing the public realm and developing skills for townspeople.

• Assisting local communities’ decision-making with cultural, scientific and technical support from many aspects (i.e. archaeology, geo-technics, history, urban planning, cultural anthropology, economics, architecture, cultural tourism).

Planning Tools

Local teams &

Stakeholders

CA18110 - Underground Built Heritage as catalyser for Community Valorisation

UBH Case-study Selection

MC

WG1

WG2

WG3 WG4

WG5

T1 T2

T4T3

Setting-up knowledge

base

Preparing surveys and

datasets

Defining standards

and formats

Community Empowerment

Living Lab Living

Lab

Living Lab

Living Lab

Dissemination and Conferences

STSM

Science CommunicationManager

Training Facilitators

Conservation and Monitoring

ICT tools

Developing skills

UBH Regeneration

strategies

UBH classificati

on

Co

llective learn

ing

Cases storytelling

Theoretical & practical

School Handbook

Training material

One Year scheme

STSM coordinator

Tourism, creativity,

social innovation

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Case-studies

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Living Labs

Protected spaces for developing and experimenting new practices, and promotes external landscapes (i.e. local communities independent from vested interests and the lock-ins created by lobbying and regulatory capture) (EEA 2016).

What they should do:

• Operate, document, and manage strategies for fostering sustainability, innovation, learning and social inclusion at different scales

• Encourages new forms of collaboration of key actors to develop a more favourable environment for culture, talent, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation

…pursues social

innovation, by empowering

local communities,

recognizing and respecting

their cultural heritage,

while co-developing

innovative and traditional

practices to favour more

effective management and

governance of

multifunctional landscapes

and contributing to their

resilience and adaptability

(G. PACE, 2019)

Local teams &

Stakeholders

T1 T2

T4T3

Living Lab Living

Lab

Living Lab

Living Lab

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The

recommendation

on the Historic

Urban

Landscape was

adopted on

10/11/2011

by UNESCO

General

Conference

Historic Urban Landscape aims at:• Moving beyond the monument

preservation, focusing on the entire human environment with its tangible and intangible qualities.

• Increasing sustainability of planning and design interventions, by taking into account the existing built environment, intangible heritage, cultural diversity, socio-economic and environmental factors along with local community values

• Involving more people in preservation efforts, raising levels of awareness, and seeking innovative schemes.

«Tangible and intangible heritage are sources of social cohesion, factors of diversity and drivers of creativity, innovation and urban regeneration – we must do more to harness this power»

Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO at the World Urban Forum (Naples, 2012)

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1. Full assessment of the city’s natural, cultural and human resources

2. Participatory planning and stakeholder consultations to decide on conservation aims and actions

3. Assess the vulnerability of urban heritage to socio-economic pressures and impacts of climate change

4. Integrate urban heritage values and their vulnerability status into a wider framework of city development

5. Prioritise policies and actions for conservation and development, including good stewardship

6. Establish the appropriate (public-private) partnerships and local management frameworks

7. Develop mechanisms for the coordination of the various activities between different actors

HUL suggests developing:(a) Civic engagement tools(b) Knowledge and planning tools(c) Regulatory systems(d) Financial tools

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6. Community management tools

The need for new planning approaches brings to:

• Establishing community participation and collaboration.

• However, participation does not guarantee development and sustainability, nor does it automatically lead to either community involvement or local development (Pace, 2018)

• The impact of participation, especially in terms of community empowerment, is critically dependent on the processes followed during its establishment and implementation

• Processes usually structured in partnerships (Edwards el al., 2000)

• The process where ‘partnerships’ put in place sustainable mechanisms to realise and manage the ‘place’ product is called Place Management

• The Place management must be supported by an innovative approach of community engagement

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6. Community management toolsA) Strategic Stakeholders’ dialogue (SSD)

Need for information:- Expectancy gap (understanding of what

are the Stakeholders’ expectancies)

- Perception gap (concerning the project and the public body behavior)

The dialogue: a tool for

facilitating effective communication between companies, government, NGOs, science and other societal groups

Participation and mutual influencing, incorporating different opinions, arguments and preferences

It is Voluntary and its nature and influence determine the level of dialogue (see Harris)

Open Dialogue (cooperation in problem analysis with stakeholders strong collaboration in the implementation of the policy) complex issues structural processes building trust

Shift relations from confrontation and competition towards

consultation and cooperation

- Involve me- join me- engage me

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Dialogue- Cooperation (where everybody is a winner –

‘and-and’ mentality )- Empathic (where the other party is an

opportunity)- Being yourself - Listen to the other party so you can talk- Convince- Constructive (and with mutual understanding

and respect)- Vulnerable attitude (many truths and may

parties to learn from each other) - Giving and receiving - Sharing and serving - Collective responsabilities

- More Process-oriented than issue-oriented

- More Continuous than with a start and an end

- Learning and discovering- Exploring and reaching

an agreement

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Stakeholder dialogue Three reasons for involving stakeholders: 1. Pragmatic, involving stakeholders renders policy more effective

2. Moral, increasing legitimacy of the policy (what do we want and

why?)

3. Contents, resulting in more and better reasons to base policy on

- A way of communicating- A process to build a long-

term relationship based on mutual trust

- A willing participation of all participants

- A search for win-win situations

The pragmatic approach can easily turn a dialogue into a discussion, not encouraging participants to develop innovative ideas

When a stakeholder dialogue is not appropriate

- Lack of time - When important decisions have

already been made- Tough deadlines

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What is strategic dialogue? Characteristics and goals

• Better solutions for complex problems• Integrating different insights and generating new

insights • Bringing together the most important stakeholders

and building mutual trust • Creating effective long-term win-win situations• Self-regulation as mean for dealing with

sustainability in a more effective way• Preventing information asymmetry between players• Sharing responsibilities• Creating commitment• Putting people first• Letting creativity and intelligence prevail

- A structured, interactive, and pro-active process, aimed at creating sustainable strategies

- To find a balance between collective values and the pragmatic approach of solving strategic problems

- To enhance the capacity for interactive learning, transforming new knowledge into coordinated action

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What is strategic dialogue? Characteristics and goals

• Better solutions for complex problems• Integrating different insights and generating new

insights • Bringing together the most important stakeholders

and building mutual trust • Creating effective long-term win-win situations• Self-regulation as mean for dealing with

sustainability in a more effective way• Preventing information asymmetry between players• Sharing responsibilities• Creating commitment• Putting people first• Letting creativity and intelligence prevail

- A structured, interactive, and pro-active process, aimed at creating sustainable strategies

- To find a balance between collective values and the pragmatic approach of solving strategic problems

- To enhance the capacity for interactive learning, transforming new knowledge into coordinated action

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6. Community management toolsB) Transition management

What makes possible to modify stakeholders behaviours towards strategic dialogue?

Something (someone) should stimulate the strategic imperative, the spirit of inquiry, the dynamics of dialogue among local stakeholders

Planning often relies on outside expertise in a way that doesn’t create and refine shared mental models to guide decision-making

On the contrary, outside expertise should focus on skilled facilitators (or brokers), characterized by weak ties , or specialists in visual languageand/or system thinking

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The transition management (TM) approach

“seeks to overcome the conflict between long-term imperatives and short-term concerns” (Kemp and Loorbach, 2006)

Key elements of TM:

• system-thinking, in terms of more than one domain (multi-domain) and different actors (multi-actor) at different scale levels (multi-level)

• long-term thinking (at least 25 years) as a framework for shaping short-term policy

• back-casting and forecasting, short-term and longer-term goals

• a focus on learning (i.e. learning-by-doing, doing-by-learning, through experiments)

• an orientation towards system innovation and experimentation

• learning about a variety of options

• participation by and interaction between stakeholders..

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Activities typology:• Strategic activities, deal primarily with the

“culture” of a societal system as a whole• Tactical activities, interest driven and

relate to the dominant structures (regime) of a societal system

• Operational activities, experiments and actions with a short-term horizon often carried out in the context of innovation projects and programs

• Reflexive activities relate to monitoring, assessments and evaluation of ongoing policies, and ongoing societal change

TM for UBH: (1) Explore radical options that fundamentally

diverge from the status quo

(2) Link concrete local actions and broad societal challenges

(3) Orientation toward feasibility in the short term

(4) Acknowledge the central role of social learning for achieving a transition towards sustainability

(5) see the communication and mobilization of people as an integral ingredient of the process.

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7. The Strategic Transition Management (STM)

STM is based on local communities’ experiments and empowerment and a multi-level strategic dialogue

• The community empowerment throughout TM experiments provides new realistic stakeholders to SSD, creating an integrated management tool, the STM

• Approach: community-oriented, experiment-based, addressed to social innovation, and promotes co-design thinking and collective learning

• Uncover practices, imaginaries and local cultures associated with the heritage, renewing community interpretation, and stimulating knowledge and the perspective vision of communities.

• Heritage landscape: experimentation place, in equilibrium with nature, re-associating multiple uses and giving capacity for development at all levels (regional, local) and all temporalities (short and long term, momentary and events, etc.).

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8. Conclusions• This process activates a continuous reflexive learning cycle between experiments and

innovations (learning-by-doing).

• The acquired knowledge, then, empowers the pioneering community, which develops long-term strategic visions and goals (doing-by-learning), at the heart of Sustainable Development.

• It could generate positive and self-sustaining ‘natural’ interdependencies, a place of identity and attractiveness, and activate a favourable environment from both social and economic point of view.

• By experimenting activities through Living Labs, STM promotes a local community’s positive evolution, building capacity in the involved regions, among public bodies, communities, private companies, practitioners, academics and any other stakeholder.

• Sustainability transition for sustaining the cultural heritage vision as an economic resource and a crucial element for recovering individual and collective identity, and building social inclusion and cohesion.

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Thank you!

Giuseppe Pace [email protected]

Questions?

underground built heritage as catalyst for strategies...

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