Sustainable urban design of historical city centers

In the last few decades, sustainability had been introduced as one of the major concepts of design. It is the key to preserve a safe future for our communities. This concept introduces many techniques that change the way to read the urban configuration of urban heritage to search for the main parameters in urban space that manage the relation between designers think; it changes also the configuration of urban and architectural environment. First we try to space configuration and urban behavior. This study has as aim to create a model of analyzing urban space as a support of urban behavior and a generator of social sustainability through preserving heritage and traditional values. The analysis model is drawn theorically then tested on a set of case studies of historical city centers to prove its efficiency; the main case tested in this work is the historical center of Constantine (Casbah). The analysis model is based on space syntax methods and parameters, using applied analysis based on plans of different historical phases of urban growth and on site investigation. As a conclusion, we try by this work to show parameters of sustainability in urban space and the influence of urban changes on these parameters. The analysis model can be used to show how to use these parameters in future design operations to ensure urban sustainability. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.