Conservation and Rehabilitation of traditional architecture in Jericho for the sustainabLE DEVELOPMENT in Palestine

Roberto Sabelli

Dipartimento di Architettura (DiDA) Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via Micheli, 2 - 50121 Firenze, roberto.sabelli@unifi.it

ABSTRACT

In 2009 some professors and students of the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence and of the Birzeit University were attended at an international workshop in Jericho, according to the Ministry of Public Works and Housing and with the Municipality of Jericho. The workshop goals, based on the study and valorisation of traditional adobe brick architecture, local materials and local building cultures, were to do a conservation project of the most significant historical buildings of Jericho and to develop a new project to encourage the development of scientific research and activities in an area rich with resources, but severely lacks this kind of performances. The archaeology discoveries have revealed that the adobe brick was utilized at Tell Es Sultan dating from 8000 years before Christ. The archaeological and architectural patrimony of Jericho is unique worldwide. The unique characteristics of the area provide excellent opportunities for proper valorisation and promotion of existing resources, mainly those with adequate potential for further development and application such as the adobe brick, which has been widely used as main building material. The conservation project, of some historical buildings in adobe brick in the City of Jericho, respects the principles of eco-sustainability, biocompatibility, the lifecycle of the materials and renewable sources and technologies, according to preserve the cultural heritage and the local know-how inherited from generation to another but also to reflect about the interaction between the human-being and his environment in this area, nevertheless that this heritage lost a plenty of its significance due to the continuous instability in the geo-political aspect. The project, developed from the study and promotion of traditional architecture in earth, wants to be an example of reference for further development of the existing local resources, natural and human, towards a sustainable balance between the human being and his environment, not only in the area of Jericho but in Palestine.

The conservation project was preceded by a survey, cataloguing and analysis of the materials used and their state of decay. The structural elements that characterize a buildings were summarized in a diagram and collected in on-site investigations.

Key-words: Jericho, ottoman architecture, bioarchitecture, sustainable development, renewable energy.