Whereas designers of new buildings adapt schemes to meet the needs of climate change, the MSc Sustainable Building Conservation holds human adaptation as its core tool.

The project this year questions universal values for maintaining religious built heritage in the context of changing values. In concentrating on the concerns of what were often the first built heritage assets to be protected, the history of their management provides insights into future and emerging risks. Who will be or has been responsible for change? What are the limits and what are the new constraints? How are the concerns of global and local significance and governance to be balanced?

Examples in the Western tradition have hitherto led legacies for global cultural heritage management practices. Students this year met with experts at St Paul’s Cathedral in London and at the Cathedrals of Florence and Pisa. These visits illustrated many of the issues relating to the long-term custodianship of Religious World Heritage Sites.

The students’ work presented here draws examples from India, Saudi Arabia, the UK, China and Spain prompting new suggestions for adaptation regarding complex challenges such as mass tourism and its inter-relationship with issues such as climate change and changing patterns of belief.