Water routes and open spaces for the urban regeneration of the Kasbah of Algiers

Dealing in a continuous shift between preservation and innovation, projects for the restoration and regeneration of historic settlements must be grounded on the need to preserve the overall historic and cultural characteristics of the urban landscape. This is particularly true for the World Heritage Sites that have been affected by processes of abandonment or trauma and that now need extensive and consistent actions of urban regeneration. This is the case of the Kasbah of Algiers that, after a long period of overpopulation and lack of maintenance, today need extensive actions of regeneration to return to being white, to solve problems of hydrogeological instability that caused extensive collapses of its building fabric. Between conservation and innovation, restoration and urban regeneration, this paper aims at exploring methodologies for an urban renewal that has as its core the regeneration of the open spaces, which can be transformed into the real ‘knots’ of a capillary action that has as epicenters the small squares and open areas traditionally used by the local society. Reconciling the need for urban regeneration with that of maintaining the characters of integrity, authenticity and Oustanding Universal Value, it proposes to re-establish the network of water routes, channels, fountains and gardens as the streams for the urban restoration.