**1. Introduction**

*Without the understanding and support of the public at large, without the respect and daily care of the local communities, which are the true custodians of world heritage, no amount of funds or army of experts will suffice in protecting the cites. —Mr. Koïchiro Matsuura, Former Director-General of UNESCO* 

For the time being, we are interested in preserving the heritage because of the loss of culture, heritage, and inherited buildings. For more than 100 years ago, there has been an increasing research interest in the preservation of architectural heritage, restoration of monuments and historic buildings, urban renewal policies, traditional architecture and its identity, etc. On the other hand, there is a growing interest in sustainability.

On this basis, there is an important need to formulate guidelines for planning and designing decisions of contemporary architecture that belongs to the sustainability and appear in the traditional architectural environment, which preserves its past and maintains its identity. Modern cities must meet humans' needs and preserve their urban identity. Planning policies must be developed in order to achieve the sustainable development goals, which meet the needs of the present and protect the future rights that preserve the past and constitute a strong basis for the present and future.

### **2. What is the purpose of this book?**

This book tries to answer many questions, in order to reach to the required conclusions and recommendations. The questions are as follows: What is the urban conservation? How do cities with historic depth deal with modern planning policies? What are our policies to preserve and rehabilitate the urban fabric of historic cities and heritage buildings? How do we explain urban conservation, sustainable heritage, and historical sustainability? How can we add new additions to the current building heritage and what is their contribution to sustainable development? What is the role of the organic additives in heritage structures? Shall we rethink of identity, through the study of traditional architecture within sustainability? Our book meets human needs and energy consumption and maintains the architecture identity with respect to sustainability.

### **3. What is heritage conservation?**

The preservation of identity in the cities has a great relationship with the correct planning policies that relate to heritage buildings and traditional architecture,

 where the traditional cities contain organic fabric with narrow, twisted, or broken roads with incomplete visual axes. The streets in the traditional cities are shaded and sometimes even roofed, as in Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo, etc. In addition to the inner courtyards, this made them an inward-looking buildings [1], in contrary to what we see those days in modern cities.
