What does architectural heritage mean in the mid-2020s?
Synopsis:
This SAHGB conference, supported by Docomomo-International and Docomomo-Scotland, will explore the idea of ‘future heritage’. Taking place on 12 and 13 June in Edinburgh and aimed at historians, conservation professionals, students and the interested public, it will draw on current and recent research and practical projects, especially within Central Scotland, to consider themes including energy and sustainability, gender and inclusion, and the heritage value of mass housing and recent architecture.
There will be a keynote lecture by Professor Ola Uduku (Roscoe Chair of Architecture, University of Liverpool). The papers and discussion will allow attendees to share ideas and to define new agendas.
Registration will include tea and coffee on both days, a drinks reception on 12 June and lunch on 13 June; attendees should make their own travel and accommodation arrangements.
Optionally on 14 June, two tours of Edinburgh heritage will be offered: a walking tour led by Miles Glendinning, and a small-group visit to the former Royal High School on Calton Hill, in association with Simpson and Brown architects.
Co-organisers:
Dr. Moa Carlsson (Lecturer in Architectural Design; Conference Convener)
Dr. Alistair Fair (Reader in Architectural History, and Programme Director of the MA Architectural History and Heritage)
Prof. Miles Glendinning (Professor of Architectural Conservation, and Director of the Scottish Centre for Conservation Studies)
Hosted by the Scottish Centre for Conservation Studies, University of Edinburgh.
Itinerary:
-
In partnership with Historic Scotland (session chair, Roger Curtis, HES)
Lila Angelaka (Historic Environment Scotland): Energy efficiency and building conservation - research by HES 2008-2023
Lila will give an overview of the work of Technical Research over the last 17 years, including key findings and principles concerning good practice in the maintenance and retrofit of traditional buildings to achieve more energy-efficient but healthy structures, whilst retaining their traditional character.
Scott Abercrombie (John Gilbert Architects): Sustainable Spence: conservation and retrofit of a Modernist intervention in Edinburgh’s Old Town
Scott Abercrombie will discuss the recent conservation of a Basil Spence-designed housing block in the Canongate, Edinburgh, which also achieved an energy use reduction of over 50%. The talk will explore the project's evidence-based design approach, and highlight the sensitive retrofit interventions and technical conservation work implemented in its delivery.
Victoria Lee (University of Edinburgh) and Daniel Lodge (Scottish Borders Council Heritage Officer): Future-proofing historic homes - voices from the community
As part of the Scottish Government’s wider planning reform, there is a renewed focus on improving public engagement and building trust in the planning system—particularly in the context of the climate emergency. This presentation shares key insights and practical lessons from recent engagement with historic property owners in Edinburgh, exploring how listed buildings and conservation areas can be sensitively conserved and adapted to meet contemporary needs. It highlights both the opportunities and challenges of balancing heritage protection with the urgent demand for climate resilience.
Fiona McLachlan (University of Edinburgh): Rethinking, reinvigorating - Colour design at Cables Wynd House and Linksview House, Leith
In parallel with an energy-led retrofit by Collective Architecture, the proposed colour design for two, Category A listed, brutalist housing blocks in Leith has offered an opportunity to consider how colour may enhance the everyday lives of residents and act as an agent in forging an expression of an evolving civic identity.
-
Session chair, Moa Carlsson
Kirsten Carter McKee (University of Edinburgh): Dissonant Heritage - confronting colonial legacies in Scotland’s historic sites
A growing body of prominent scholarship over the past decade has brought renewed attention to Scotland’s central role within the structures of empire. This talk will explore how Scotland’s involvement in colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade might be more critically and visibly integrated into the interpretation and discussion of the historic built environment.
Luca Csepely-Knorr (Liverpool Uni): Green Vision - everyday landscapes of postwar Britain
This talk will discuss the lessons of the collaborative research and public engagement project ‘Women of the Welfare Landscape’, which aimed to broaden our understanding of landscape heritage, by focusing on the often overlooked and under-appreciated work of women in post-war British landscape architecture.
Suzanne Ewing (University of Edinburgh): Work Experience: How ways of remembering a professional working life inflect understandings of 'architectural work'
The ‘Voices of Experience’ intergenerational conversations (2016-24) and exhibitions (2019, 2025) reveal a wide scope of what is defined as architectural work, how it takes place and how this knowledge enters professional records and culture. The talk foregrounds often overlooked immaterial, social and personal aspects of architectural work.
-
Ola Uduku (Head of School, Liverpool School of Architecture, and Roscoe Professor of Architecture, University of Liverpool): Other future heritage – towards a new 21st-century canon
An overview of heritage from the perspective of the Global South, questioning whether the current overall historical framing of heritage values can be adjusted to engage more with themes outside the ‘western canon’ and focusing on concepts of history and heritage in sub-Saharan Africa: specifically, the lecture will compare and contrast conditions and values in West and East Africa.
-
Session chair, Ruxandra Stoica
Ruxandra-Iulia Stoica (University of Edinburgh): Urban conservation for the future - negotiating heritage and community
Citizen science methodology has the potential to enable local communities’ essential input into the identification, analysis, and conservation of local heritage. The presentation will explore the theoretical framework and experimental practice of dialogue between experts and local community in the case of urban and heritage ‘marginalia’.
Lama Said (University of Edinburgh): Rethinking the history of urban conservation in post-colonial Cairo
Seeking to challenge the narrative that urban conservation in Egypt began with UNESCO's 1979 inscription of Historic Cairo, this presentation highlights Edmond Pauty's 1929 proposal as an early milestone. It invites reflection on the colonial origin of heritage and how its legacies shaped the development of urban conservation in Egypt.
James White (University of Edinburgh): Plural authenticities and authentic pluralities in Edinburgh's World Heritage site
Contrasting definitions of heritage ‘authenticity’ suggest different directions in the best-practice treatment and management of heritage. In this talk, James White examines complexities and potentials inherent in the concept of authenticity in the UNESCO World Heritage context, with a focus on Edinburgh’s WH site.
Nikolia Kartalou (University of Edinburgh): Venice unfolded - the tracery of a pattern
This talk delves into the creative responses of second-year Architecture students at ESALA to the ‘Architectural Design: Any Place 2024-25’ studio brief. Framed by Venice, the brief invited students to explore collective living in the city as an enduring—yet evolving—condition of heritage, expressed through the adaptive reuse of existing buildings and the spatial relationships within Venice’s urban context.
-
Session chair: Dimitrij Zadorin; session in partnership with DOCOMOMO
Johnny Rodger (GSA): A double act, a class act - housing and film
Film and Housing as phenomena are of the same 19th century vintage. They are contemporaries born of the necessities and possibilities of the mass society of the industrial revolution. In their histories they both speak to us of the formation, development and decline of that type of society.
Kat Breen (independent researcher): Between tradition and modernity – Wheeler & Sproson’s postwar housing interventions in historic towns
This paper will discuss how Wheeler and Sproson’s postwar housing interventions in Fife’s historic towns navigated the tension between tradition and modernity, blending modernist design with vernacular forms to create sensitive, regionally distinctive architecture.
Dimitrij Zadorin (University of Edinburgh): Socialist standardised housing - experimental conservation strategies
Since the end of the Cold War, socialist housing estates have been subject to various preservation strategies, ranging from physical renewal to attempts at identifying hidden cultural heritage. This paper intimates that the ‘true’ nature of socialist urban housing is its systematic totality, an abstractness craving for preservation.
-
Session chair: Alistair Fair; session in partnership with DOCOMOMO
Joyce Fu (University of Edinburgh): Broadening our heritage markers - exploring the nation-building role of Singapore New Towns
This paper examines how Singapore's new towns spatially embed the state ideology of multiculturalism, fostering social cohesion through lived experiences within public housing settings. Recent developments, however, increasingly undermine these integrative functions. This prompts reflection on the management of these everyday spaces and whether heritage identification processes are sufficiently inclusive.
Penny Lewis (University of Dundee): The importance of the immediate past - Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld Town Centre is a concrete megastructure, a significant physical presence and a thing of meaning in the imagination of two generations of Scots. The locals, disgusted by its neglect, are ambivalent about demolition, but politicians are committed. What does the proposed demolition say about our failure to connect with our ‘immediate past’ and the inability of today’s planning process to enrich public life?
Catherine Croft (C20 Society): Setting the agenda for future heritage: what matters - and how to preserve the legacy of the recent past
Successful preservation of the recent past will depend on direct advocacy for specific cases backed by broader research and campaigning, targeting decision makers in local and national government. It will be necessary to build broader popular consensus about what matters, who it matters to, and to demonstrate how conservation can be achieved alongside economic growth and increased environmental responsibility. In this light, what can we learn from the Sycamore Gap case?
Ticket sales are closed.
Please contact info@sahgb.org.uk if you have any further questions about this event.