Heritage Values in Vernacular Settlement Morphology: An Integrated Framework for Climate-Responsive Conservation and Urban Regeneration

Vernacular settlements retain tangible fabric and intangible knowledge that can support climate-responsive conservation, adaptive reuse, and urban regeneration, yet these dimensions are often assessed separately. This study applies a values-based conservation framework to examine how heritage significance is expressed through settlement morphology, material systems, environmental performance, community knowledge, and continuing use in two historic settlements and one contemporary neighbourhood in Oman. Heritage significance is interpreted through six interconnected domains: historical-continuity, architectural-spatial, environmental, material-technical, social-cultural, and functional-economic value. A comparative mixed-method case-study design combined field observation, photographic documentation, urban and architectural morphological analysis, semi-structured interviews, and building-performance simulation. The findings show that the historic settlements achieved greater built intensity through attached buildings, shared walls, limited setbacks, shaded routes, mixed functions, and layered public–private organization. Interview evidence associated these characteristics with privacy, shared-resource management, traditional construction knowledge, social continuity, adaptive reuse, and continued occupation. Simulation results indicated substantially lower cooling-energy demand in the representative vernacular dwellings, whereas the contemporary villas achieved higher daylight levels and thermal conditions closer to neutrality under mechanical cooling. The study concludes that vernacular heritage should neither be conserved as static physical fabric nor reproduced literally. Interventions related to tourism, infrastructure, accessibility, privacy, commercial reuse, and residential continuity should be negotiated among stakeholders.