From Heritage Diagnosis to Integrated Urban Rehabilitation: A Spatial Strategy for Gibara’s Historic Coastal Landscape

Rehabilitating historic urban landscapes requires integrating built heritage conservation with the spatial, functional, environmental, and socioeconomic conditions that shape sustainable urban transformation. This study developed an integrated urban rehabilitation strategy for Gibara’s historic waterfront in Cuba and conducted a preliminary specialist appraisal by professionals with prior project-related involvement. Guided by the Framework for Integrated Urban Rehabilitation (FRUI), the applied case study followed four phases: integrated characterization, diagnosis, strategy formulation, and specialist appraisal. Documentary and cartographic analysis and field inventories covered 107 buildings, seven public spaces, and five functional street segments. Findings showed that substantial heritage and landscape values coexist with building deterioration, limited functional diversity, infrastructure deficiencies, incompatible uses, and limited opportunities for people to remain in public spaces. The resulting strategy coordinates built heritage conservation, public-space and waterfront recovery, mobility and accessibility, compatible use diversification, green infrastructure, and improvements to urban services. Thirteen specialists with prior professional involvement in the study context provided generally favorable assessments of the proposal; the six-item evaluation instrument yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.725, providing an exploratory indication of internal consistency. The study illustrates how multidimensional heritage diagnosis can inform coordinated spatial interventions. Its implementation feasibility, realized sustainability outcomes, and transferability require assessment through implementation, monitoring, and application in other historic coastal settings.