Community participation’s role in the sustainability of adaptive reuse

Many historical buildings have lost their original function and remained as ruins in the form of full structure or as parts only. Some of these buildings acquire conservation importance according to their location, history, and the events that accompanied them. Therefore, it becomes necessary to preserve them, with the possibility of re-using them with a new contemporary function, especially when their original functions are not in need. In Iraq, many examples of historical and traditional buildings could be conserved, rehabilitated and re-used. However, the used methods of rehabilitation may not be successful and acceptable according to the society in most of the conservation projects. This leads to the research problem which is stated as the need for activating the role of community participation in the adaptive reuse of historical buildings as a sustainable approach. The research aims to provide knowledge about adaptive reuse as a sustainable conservation approach, and community participation concept, by concentrating on decision making type of participation. This is done by conducting a public survey to analyze and compare conservation methods and the proposed new function of the award winners’ proposals for rehabilitating the Old Baghdad Governorate building as an example of adaptive reuse. The research finds that community participation is useful and their opinion is reliable because of the approximate viewpoints for both the society and the specialists.