The Beyond Heritage: Culture as Urban Renewal Resource Session focuses on the contemporary approaches in using cultural heritage as a tool for urban renewal. Based on the results of the recent two very different UPAT workshops in China – Suzhou’s “Panmen-Shantang Street in the Grand Canal National Culture Park” and Wuhan’s “New Hangzheng Avenue” - the Session will look beyond the layers of history, and examine how to use heritage as a motor to promote cultural values, restore social cohesion, foster sustainable economic growth and revive public spaces. In Suzhou, the international team of ISOCARP experts worked together with the planning professionals of the Jiangsu Institute of Urban Planning and Design (JUP) on transforming the Panmen Historic Watergate site into an attractive node in the future Grand Canal National Culture Canal. Using research-by-design approach, the team produced renewal strategies on several spatial levels. The strategies demonstrate how to identify and combine different heritage assets (from tangible - historical buildings and waterways – to intangible - poetry and local crafts) to revive tourism, diversify existing functionalities, and promote spaces for social cohesion in the wider Panmen neighborhood. In Wuhan, a group of ISOCARP planning professionals from around the globe took part at the “New Hangzheng Avenue” Design Charrette together with their Wuhan Design and Planning Institute (WDPI) colleagues, as part of the Wuhan Placemaking Week. The Charrette work focused on using the Hangzheng heritage corridor as inspiration and binding element to redevelop the Hancou side of the Wuhan waterfront. The Charrette looked beyond the heritage and opened up new perspectives on climate-adaptive waterfront planning, new mobility schemes and placemaking values implementation. The results of these two workshops will be used to break open an international expert panel discussion. The panel will search for answers on some of the main questions of the role of heritage in the urban renewal process: how to plan within preservation and conservation rules in a complex, dynamic urban environment, how to define unique, location-responsive approaches, and what can be applicable recommendations for adapting the heritage to the modern tourism-and-culture consumers demands. Presenter: Milena Ivković, Director Urban Planning Advisory Teams ISOCARP Institute / Member of Board of Directors ISOCARP Format: - 45 minutes of project presentations: Wuhan and Suzhou workshop results, different speakers - 45 minutes of experts panel on “Beyond Heritage”. Moderation Milena Ivkovic Guests on the peer-to-peer experts panel: Jiangsu Institute of Urban Planning and Design (JUP), Urban Planning Society of China (UPSC) UN-Habitat ROAP (Regional Office Asia Pacific) PPS (Project for Public Space), ThinkCity Foundation Malaysia. Guests still to be confirmed.