Urban life cycle analysis and the conservation of the urban fabric

Urban projects, plans and other programmes falls under present Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) directive as well as the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) directive. There is a need to adopt more comprehensive understanding of urban built heritage, one that would enable taking into consideration some new and emerging cultural aspects and to integrate them into adapted conservation procedures. This enlarged and more complex view on urban built heritage conservation problems has driven the SUIT project to propose introducing a new concept: the "active conservation". The definition of strategic objectives related to urban fragments heritage active-conservation and their management on long-term is a collective action that necessitates the ability to evaluate the quality of an urban fragment as a whole.