Critical Built Heritage Practice and Conservation - Evolving Perspectives supports an alternative point of departure for engaging with the historic built environment, by critically questioning the legitimacy of dominant conservation concepts and methods that are often taken for granted within building conservation, architecture, and adaptive reuse.

The meaning of heritage is changing. From pastness to presentness, from preservation to participation, and from tangible to intangible, heritage is increasingly understood as a dynamic, social, and intangible process across many disciplines. Consequently, the role and remit of the built heritage practitioner - and in particular the architectural conservationist - is becoming progressively complex and in need of a critical gaze. Is restoration really a falsehood from beginning to end? Should the condition of existing materials determine the conservation method? Is authenticity really an inherent quality within old buildings? By engaging with a critical interpretation of heritage, this book makes space for practitioners to consider the evolution of their own role within a rapidly changing context of built heritage practice. Reinforced by a shift in emphasis from materials to meanings, a 'socio-material outlook' is proposed which champions an enhanced focus on intangible heritage within the built heritage sector, whilst still acknowledging the physical condition of old buildings is a priority for many stakeholders.

This book has been written with practitioners, students, and educators of architectural conservation in mind - although will also be of relevance to the broader built heritage industry; as well as academics, researchers, and heritage students with a passion for contemporary dialogues in heritage studies.

Johnathan Djabarouti is a registered architect (ARB), accredited conservation professional (IHBC) and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Following nearly a decade in professional practice working on both new and old buildings in historic contexts, he is currently Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture (MSA), UK. In 2018 he received AHRC funding for his PhD project titled The impact of intangible heritage on architectural and building conservation practices in the UK: a socio-material outlook. He has been an Academy Panellist on the RIBA Advanced Conservation Course since 2022 where he teaches delegates about intangible heritage and its relationship to heritage buildings, and in 2023 he secured an AHRC Innovation Scholars Secondment grant to Historic England for his project Intangible heritage and design in historic contexts. His research on the intersections between the conservation/adaptation of built heritage and critical heritage theory have been published and presented widely.