Preventive and Planned Conservation (PPC) of architectural heritage requires coordination between multidisciplinary needs and digital implementation. This study develops a requirement-driven framework to reduce misinterpretation and unsupported individual judgements during requirement translation, improve collaboration, and support standardised, traceable and comparable information across stages. PPC knowledge and organisational, asset, project and exchange information requirements inform a role-appropriate question library and a rule-supported translation mechanism. Clients provide project purposes and conditions; specialists supplement professional facts. The system assesses applicability and translates applicable PPC Needs into Digital Requirements. Configuration rules generate Recommendation, and professional review establishes Target. Configuration templates and implementation lists guide digital personnel. Implementation evidence supports Actual assessment, and comparison against acceptance criteria identifies Gap. A software prototype supported application to the Galleria Grande at the Reggia di Venaria Reale, Italy, within HERITALISE, an EU-funded project on cultural heritage digitisation. The knowledge structure contains 34 PPC Needs and 320 Canonical Facts. Case records cover 58 type groups and 1532 Historic Building Information Modelling (HBIM) objects. Shared outputs included building information modelling execution-plan configuration content, naming rules, 12 common data environment directory categories and 13 configuration self-check entries. Linked requirement, configuration, implementation and assessment records supported decision traceability and quantitative comparison within the assessed scope, informing progress checks and subsequent task planning. Project practice also indicated reductions in document interpretation, coordination and duplicated work; their magnitude requires quantification. Complete workflow coverage and cross-case applicability require further validation.
Adaptive reuse helps bridge conservation needs and current demands on heritage buildings; however, current decision-making prioritization processes in historic cities are often disjointed across stakeholders and disciplines. This research assesses five case studies of empty/building underused heritage sites for adaptive reuse (Al-Khatib, Al-Saket, Al-Azab, Al-Sukkar, and Al-Muasher B) located in As-Salt historic center—a UNESCO-listed historic nucleus in Jordan—using a convergent mixed-methods multi-criteria decision-making framework. Sources triangulated include 810 resident/tourist questionnaires, 29 semi-structured interviews, architectural/spatial documentation, and AI-generated visualization, which acted as a communication tool with stakeholders. Ten operational criteria were evaluated, and 15 institutional and conservation experts completed Best–Worst Method (BWM) comparisons, producing 255 substantive judgments. Geometric-mean aggregation and linear minimax optimization assigned the greatest weight to heritage, cultural, and symbolic significance (0.2816), followed by structural and architectural integrity (0.1689) and regulatory and governance readiness (0.1126). The BWM solution was highly consistent (xi* = 0.0563; CR = 0.0126). TOPSIS ranked Al-Khatib first (CC = 0.6821), followed by Al-Sukkar (0.6386), Al-Muasher B (0.5339), Al-Saket (0.4516), and Al-Azab (0.1540). Al-Khatib remained first in 39 of 40 one-at-a-time weight-perturbation scenarios; Al-Sukkar moved to first only when the structural-integrity weight increased by 20%. The findings show that heritage significance alone does not determine reuse readiness; structural condition, governance, ownership, community support, spatial suitability, and investment capacity jointly shape project priority.
Liangzhou Xianxiao is a narrative–singing tradition of north-west China recognised as intangible cultural heritage. This study asks which recurrent performance procedures constitute transmissible heritage knowledge and how they are reconfigured across contrasting narrative contexts. A purposive maximum-contrast corpus of six pieces drawn from public–historical, family–ethical and mixed/contemporary repertory is examined using post-approval interviews and observations, consent-based audio-visual documentation, local audio and score collections, and analytical transcription. A three-layer procedure links textual–narrative action, musicological detail and situated interpretation. Five recurrent procedures were identified: dialectal prosody, tonal stability, leap–descent contrast, rhythmic density and vocal–instrumental dialogue. Their recurrence is not a fixed sonic code: the same procedure acquires different functions as narrative context changes. We describe this bounded pattern as procedural heritage continuity—the maintenance of recognisability through the transmission and reconfiguration of practical relations among voice, dialect, timing, melodic return and sanxian rather than through exact replication of musical texts. This case-specific formulation adds an operational level to heritage analysis by specifying what performance knowledge can be compared and documented. Safeguarding should therefore document not only repertory but also the relational procedures through which performers make it transmissible and adaptable.
Heritage guides often profile visitors with a typology and icons, while generative artificial intelligence (AI) now offers to infer a profile from a visitor’s own words. Whether either captures how visitors see themselves is rarely tested. In an exploratory survey, 37 cultural visitors, mostly in Greece, gave the same preferences in four ways (reading six unlabelled icons, choosing interest pictograms, choosing photographs and describing an ideal day) and rated themselves on the eight profiles of the ACUX typology. A locked large-language-model profiler (Gemini) scored the texts. Only two of six icons were read as intended by over two thirds of respondents, and misreadings were systematic. Visitors described themselves as mixtures of profiles and formed no distinct clusters. Beyond the profile shape shared by the whole sample, pictograms ranked first and the AI profiler last, but no difference survived multiple-comparison correction, and the AI’s agreement rose with text length. The AI best reproduced the average profile, consistently across runs. Over half the texts described how to visit, which no profile names. Visitors valued explanations more than they trusted AI suggestions. Heritage guides should label and test icons, keep profiles multi-label and correctable, and validate AI profilers beyond the average visitor.
Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) increasingly circulates through commercial and branded environments alongside museums, festivals, and community-based settings. This article examines Starbucks China’s heritage-themed retail spaces as a case of brand-mediated ICH, focusing on how consumers evaluate such representation. Drawing on critical heritage studies, brandscape theory, authenticity scholarship, heritage affect, and cultural appropriation research, the study tests a conditional affective legitimation model. In a stimulus-based online survey, 289 Chinese consumers living outside Guangdong Province viewed an approximately 40-s video and a written description of Starbucks China’s Guangzhou Yongqingfang ICH concept store. The original questionnaire assessed perceived cultural authenticity, cultural pride, brand attitude, and perceived cultural appropriation. These measures are interpreted, with explicit qualifications, in relation to perceived heritage authenticity, affective heritage resonance, consumer-level evaluation, and appropriation concern. Higher perceived authenticity was associated with stronger pride-related responses and more favorable brand evaluation. The estimated indirect association through pride was weaker at higher appropriation concern, although it remained positive. The study thus illustrates how favorable responses to commercially mediated heritage can coexist with ethical concern. Its empirical claims concern evaluations of a standardized representation, not sales performance, actual store experience, or legitimacy granted by heritage communities.
