Across the globe, the historic (built) environment is counted among a country's most precious cultural commodities, which despite its popularity remains exceptionally vulnerable and in constant danger of deterioration and decay. Due to an unusually high density of historic structures in need of protection coupled with a strong property and construction sector, this issue is more prominent in the UK than in other developed country. Built environment professionals regularly encounter historic and protected structures in their professional practice and exhibit a general tendency towards principle support of the concept of conservation. Nonetheless, the heritage discourse and with it the discussion of architectural conservation principles, issues and implications in relation to other built environment professions is, by and large, woefully absent from formal professional education at the tertiary level. This thesis investigated various forms of conservation education in respect to their nature and extent in the context of UK undergraduate built environment degrees in a mixed-methods research approach. The findings suggest that while practitioners as well as educationalists and building conservation specialists all agree to the importance of conservation to both cultural fabric and built environment sector, neither shows concrete tendencies to introduce the heritage discourse into (built environment) higher education on a wide scale. Conservationists prefer to focus their heritage appreciation programmes on young children, while practitioners and built environment educationalists claim building conservation education to be of little relevance to their professional education. In between, the average built environment student is released into professional practice woefully unprepared for encounters with historic, let alone protected structures. This thesis proposes to include adult learners at tertiary level into the built heritage discourse on a much wider scale by suggesting the development of a curriculum for novice conservation education and a subsequent Conservation Game as a custom-created digital teaching and learning tool building on the principles of experiential and game-based learning to be implemented in higher education institutions across the UK. Modelled on Dawid W. Shaffer's Epistemic Games, the theoretic and conceptional background behind the Conservation Game is laid out as an interactive and engaging simulation of conservation practice to introduce conservation novices to concept and practice in a risk free, fun environment with the aim to increase baseline building conservation understanding and appreciation in young UK built environment practitioners.

The sustainability of cultural heritage management of the resources is strongly related to support from local community via participation. It is evident that active community involvement can improve local residents’ quality of life based on better environment, social and economic conditions. However, there is little research into the question of whether the involvement of local community in heritage management derives from a genuine interest and desires to protect and conserve their local heritage assets. In the case of Malaysia, a truly local community collaborative approach is often limited due to the ways in which the community in question is conceptualised and involved in the process. In other words, local community involvement is extremely rare because they have been neglected especially in the decision making process. This has created a negative relationship between local community and government authorities in resource conservation. Therefore, it is pivotal to investigate the influence of the local community attachment towards heritage, in order to understand the local community involvement in heritage management. The attitudes and perceptions of three groups of respondents were examined by using the concept of heritage trail development, as an illustrative example to triangulate the relationship between local community involvement, government administrative structures and tourists’ experiences. The results revealed that, despite the fact the local community is highly attached to the heritage assets; the level of community involvement in cultural heritage management in Malaysia is low due to operational, structures and cultural limitation to engage the local community in both management and tourism development in the Melaka World Heritage Site. This is to say that the participation approach in Malaysia is highly controlled by the centralised government structure. The research recommends that the authorities consider implementing two major improvements in order to develop and maintain a system of sustainable cultural heritage management: Firstly, to overcome the limitations of community participation in the decision making process. Secondly, to consider the community attachment towards cultural heritage elements, before developing tourist attractions in heritage settings, in terms of residents’ emotional and functional attachments.

Buildings account for about 40% of global energy consumption and contribute 30% of all CO2 emissions. This research project investigated extant office building development in Abuja, Nigeria with a view to establishing typical energy performances. Energy end uses were critically analysed to identify energy saving potentials. The research evaluated design variables that can be used to facilitate low energy building design and determine enhanced performances in the Nigerian and regional context. The research initially adopted a case study approach that involved fieldwork surveys and walk-through energy audits in which 22 office buildings were investigated belonging to four performance based categories developed for the research. Also, based on a building inventory survey form developed for this research, building information obtained included the buildings physical components, energy use management and energy end uses. This enabled typical energy performances of the office building categories to be deduced using three widely used indicators; the Energy Use Index (EUI), the Energy Cost Index (ECI) and the Carbon Emission Index (CEI). Also, disaggregated energy end use showed an average distribution pattern of air conditioning, lighting, equipment and building services in the ratio 59%, 15%, 43% and 4% respectively. This showed the potentials of energy savings by reducing cooling load. With the aid of computer based simulation (using IES-VE software) the research further evaluated the impacts of nine architectural design variables (identified from design guidance for low energy buildings as well as design recommendations for tropical climates) on building energy consumption using simplified models of the case study office building categories. From all these, an impact hierarchy of the design variables was deduced and the appropriate low energy design strategies were developed. This showed potential energy savings of up to 20% was achievable. Also benchmarks for enhanced building performance targets for all the categories were proposed for the furtherance of a sustainable built environment in a developing world context.

This study explores the career of British architect Oliver Hill (1887-1968), focusing mainly on the twenty year period from 1919 to 1939. The interwar era marks the most productive phase of Hill’s oeuvre, embracing the unprecedented changes in architecture and society. As a figure marginalised by recent Modernist historiography, Hill is commonly viewed as an eclectic architect of lightweight concerns. Hill’s Modern buildings are seen as poor relations to the work of the fêted Modern Architectural Research group, a view this study seeks to redress. This new research into Hill’s oeuvre will reveal the significant role he played in the development of British interwar architecture. Hill’s complex position is assessed in terms of national tradition and modernity. A study of Hill’s formative years draws out the constant cultural threads that shaped the core of his architectural outlook. Key forms of precedent and influence, studied and assimilated by Hill, are investigated and set within a wider context to evaluate the avant-gardism of his approach. Analysis of Hill’s response to architectural journalism and cultural theory of the period seeks to identify his place within contemporary movements. In light of these strands of influence, selected Hill buildings and texts are compared and contrasted to establish his position within the interwar British milieu. This thesis contributes to current discourse, which seeks to challenge the view that modernity and tradition represent binary opposites. Using Hill’s career as a touchstone, it chronicles the shifting definition of modernism in 1930s Britain against the theoretical perspective of writers, such as Pevsner and J.M. Richards.

In the context of Italian colonialism, relations between the colonisers and the colonised have often been constructed and conducted through materialities (objects, things and artefacts) as means for the transmission, exchange and exercise of power. Practices of architecture, infrastructure and spoliation have then created and intensified systems of circulation connecting the metropole to the periphery. Along this axis the movement of materialities justified the colonial order within a capitalist system of production, trade, migration, communication and conquest. This dissertation interrogates the relationship between ‘materiality’ and ‘circulation’ as central categories of analysis that allow the evaluation of Italian colonialism as a historical event and the deciphering of the complexities of Italy’s post-colonial present. It offers an in-depth analysis of specific materialities that from the earlier phases of Italian colonisation in the Horn of Africa and Libya up to the post-colonial present have circulated between Italy and its colonies, tying the centre to the periphery. This thesis reveals that as a parallel to the movement of humans between the metropole and the colonies, between the Global North and the Global South, an ensemble of materialities – road infrastructure, an obelisk, anthropometric artefacts and skeletal remains - seem to be epistemologically crucial in describing power relations between the colonisers and the colonised in both the colonial and post-colonial epochs. Formerly instrumental for civilisational claims of Italian superiority in relation to native populations, since decolonisation these materialities have turned into objects of dispute, emblems of postcolonial identities and bargaining chips for posthumous justice for colonial violence and pillage. Within such a context, the discourse on memory and the elaboration of the colonial past together with the definition of new power relations and techniques of government over ‘others’ – migration policies, development and humanitarianism – constantly develop while revolving around those same materialities that, in the first place, served the purposes of the colonial mission.

This thesis argues that contemporary Arabian Gulf traditional design has lost its values. From large-scale developments to single detailed objects, one can easily see the deep and rapid impact of globalization on Arabian Gulf architecture, Kuwait in particular. The striking forms, rooted in the global influences on the one hand, and the superficial use of traditional Arab architectural motifs on the other, reflect the detachment of the new designgeneration from any true sense of the past. The study reveals that the new generation of designers has become obsessed with the modern styles. What is more, today’s Arab undergraduate educators hold a great responsibility toward their traditions to innovate and examine new ways of teaching design. Thus, rather than considering the discipline as the mere act of decorating, the new design generation will understand that Arab traditional architecture and interiors has never been based simply on formal visual composition, but always on a deeper understanding of experiential reality and human feeling. In this regard, the curriculum, staff attitudes and students’ viewpoints of the Interior Design Educational Department at the Public Authority of Applied Education and Training (PAAET) in Kuwait were examined in terms of how they address and deal with traditional aspects. Three methodological tools, curriculum analysis, interviews and surveys, were used to identify the current situation in the above respect. By comparing the Kuwaiti school with two others in the region, through analyzing curriculums, conducting interviews with staff members and students surveys in (KU) in Bahrain and (KFU) in Saudi Arabia, it was revealed that the identity crisis in the region mainly has its roots in the economic revolution following the discovery of oil. An unintended consequence of economic change has been on the new generations, who, under global influences, have turned their thoughts away from local traditional values. Evidence of a lack of strategies to deal with traditional needs and aspirations were identified i.e. a miscommunication between theoretical and practical contents in the design program was found. Nevertheless, some encouraging ways of treating traditional identity did emerge. It was discovered that the most effective interior design program is one which treats global, local and experiential issues in a dialectical way, rather than treating each one separately. Therefore, the main contribution of this research is to offer a rethinking of traditional identity in interior design education to contextualize global influences, not to resist them. The purpose of this is to free the new design generation’s thinking from the restriction of form and aesthetic aspects by going beyond the superficial meaning of physical design, and to reach inner values. To achieve this, the experiential approach to design, derived from celebrated contemporary architectural phenomenologists such as Steven Holl, Juhani Pallasmaa and others, will be adapted into the context of Arab interior design. The research concludes with developing an experiential framework for interior design education. Although this research is with reference to the PAAET in Kuwait, it could be also applicable to other design institutions in the Arab World.

Facing the impacts of market transformation, low birthrate and transition of the educational system, the Private Higher Technical and Vocational Education needs to innovate and to establish the marketing strategies for sustainable operation. Meanwhile, the educational institutions need to recognize the students as customers and to develop marketing strategies based on the students¡¦ needs and values. Architecture integrating with interior design has become an oncoming market and industry followed the environmental transition and human life quality. The education of architecture and engineering has progressively transformed into the concept of interior and spatial design, and the source of students for architecture of higher technical and vocational education has been oriented to the fields of commercial design and industrial design. This study was to establish the marketing strategies focused on a case of Department of Architecture and Interior Design in ChengShiu University. The research procedure of this study following by the Porter and SWOT analysis including¡G1) establishing the 3 main principles including the school¡¦s ¡§branding¡¨, department¡¦s ¡§products and service¡¨, ¡§vision supply¡¨ based on literature and document review¡F2) scholar and expert opinion survey by the ways of unstructured-direct interviews to establish 18 strategies¡F3) ranking the strategies by the ways of sampling questionnaire. After the statistics and analysis of 335 responding questionnaires by SPSS for Windows 10, the students generally had higher effect on the principle of ¡§vision supply¡¨ including the strategies ¡§creating the opportunities of jobs and advance study¡¨, ¡§alliance with industry¡]supplying part-time and practical training¡^¡¨ and ¡§ counseling for professional certification and national examination¡¨. They had lower effect on the principle of school ¡§branding¡¨. The marketing strategies via this approach would be focused on the ways of vision planning, employment, curriculum and faculty to meet the students¡¦¡]customers¡¦¡^ needs and to create their values. Therefore, the motive for sustainable operation of the department of architecture and interior design is to establish unique ¡§products¡¨ and ¡§services¡¨ based on the students¡¦ need and to create the vision for students.