Rehabilitation and Conservation of the Old Center of Awarta Village

The architectural heritage of a region reflects the identity and the civilization of that region and represents the connection between its past and future. It is also a real and obvious evidence of its originality and greatness. That architectural heritage must be looked after, conserved, rehabilitated and updated to suit Modernization. This research aims to focus attention on urban and architectural heritage in the Palestinian villages so that it can be protected and authenticated to find an outlet for proper solutions and patterns to conserve it, keeping in mind actions of destruction and change done continuously and intentionally, moreover, studies researches and conservation projects mainly focus on great cities. On the other hand this research does its best to face challenges and continuous attempts to demolish and change our Palestinian architectural heritage. The first chapter in this study contains the study problem, the study importance, goals, hypotheses, plan and methodology. Also it includes information about the study area and the previous studies about it. The theoretical material forms two chapters of this research the second chapter and the third one, the second chapter deals with the architectural heritage and conservation. However, the third chapter deals with the Palestinian village with regard to location, development, and architectural items, the factors that influence and problems. The fourth chapter deals with the area of Awarta- a village located near Nablus. The study focuses mainly on the old center of Awarta. A special study and analysis concentrates on the open spaces in Awarta until the 1950s. Moreover, this chapter deals with analytical study for old buildings, it deals with the most famous ones during the same period. Awarta was chosen because of the historical and cultural potentials in addition to the unique urban and architectural aspects. The descriptive analytical approach has been followed in chapter four depending on site survey and photography of all open spaces and old houses in the village .The survey showed problems and needs of the Village of Awarta. The fifth chapter identifies the vision of conservation in the old center in Awarta and sets several goals and specifying the strategies that can achieve them, and it provides suggestions and attempts to conserve that area in order to introduce complete prototype of detailed projects dealing with architectural and urban aspects to conserve and rehabilitate the old Palestinian villages; The goals, strategies and solutions are introduced according to the previous stages of the study. Chapter six shows the results based on all the previous study, analysis, suggestions and projects. The results show that projects of conservation and rehabilitation for the old regions should be executed according to the correct criteria that suit the architectural heritage to invest all the social, cultural, economical, and tourism potentials of these villages. General goals and strategies have been suggested to conserve Old Palestinian villages. Besides several recommendations were introduced to the authorities and related entities with regard to conservation of the old Palestinian villages and the conservation of Awarta Village in particular.