Yolene Handabaka is a graduate architect from the Faculty of Architecture at Ricardo Palma University (Peru), and holds a master’s degree in conservation of the built environment from the Université de Montréal.
Thesis project title: Revaluing Non-Heritage but Significant Community Buildings to Meet the Agenda 2030: From Demolition to Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
At a time when sustainable development is at the heart of all global, national and local exchanges, the contribution of built heritage to sustainability is recognized not only as a key factor, but also as a facilitator of the local development of sustainable communities. However, little research has focused on how non-heritage but significant community buildings can help accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) announced in the United Nations’ Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 SDGs introduces targets for sustainable practices. It is in this context that we first seek to answer the following questions: What are the limits of current approaches to sustainability in the built environment? How effective are current measures for monitoring the performance of existing buildings? What are the existing value-based approaches to assessing the suitability of buildings for communities, and how effective are they? How can a holistic approach to sustainability contribute to achieving Agenda 2030 and its SDGs? In a second step, our aim is to explore the different ways in which non-heritage but community-significant buildings can be revalued and integrated in the development of adaptive solutions to address the five key areas of Agenda 2030 and its seventeen goals through a holistic, values-based approach.