A Climate-Aided Methodological Approach for Regenerating Cultural Heritage in Fragile Landscape

The notion of building construction, survival, and destruction unde-niably intersects with intricate climatic, political, social, and economic agendas. From ancient Mesopotamian cities until the end of time, buildings have not only been generators of meanings and stories but they have also been encapsulating these stories. Therefore, the destruction of architecture, along with being a very unsustainable practice, fuels the loss of the collective spatial memory of an urban settlement and empties it of meanings related to identity and belonging. The paper focuses on the importance of architectural preservation and rehabilitation practice of modernist buildings that emerged from 1920s-1940s during the colonial era of Beirut, Lebanon. Moreover, it discusses how classifications of what constitutes culturally significant sites can aid the process of memory capsulation of such edi-fices, by using a case study approach of the St. George Hotel & Bay, the first reinforced concrete modern building in Beirut city. The paper will discuss not only the interlinked relationship between modernist heritage rehabilitation and Climate-aided Design (CADe) but also how data-driven environmental design strategies can mitigate and adapt to climate change risks by utilizing advanced digital prototyping tools and regenerative design principles to enhance anti-fragile and resilient actions in Mediterranean coastal cities like Beirut.