Sustainability of Heritage Structures: Conservation Issues & Challenges

Conservation of heritage structures for their sustainability requires an interdisciplinary approach. The challenges in understanding the structural behaviour and the ability to make correct decisions for structural intervention become complex and tedious due to non availability of exact documents and drawings, data regarding actual use of materials and methodologies , constructional techniques, processes of decay and damage, present safety level & possible risk of consequential distress. Present article briefly explains some of these challenges in conservation of heritage structures while emphasizing their sustainability aspects. Two case study examples are presented describing the historical, structural and architectural investigations, condition assessment, safety evaluation and structural intervention to highlight these issues.