Abstract
The city of Gaza is considered as one of the oldest cities in history with its roots extends to three thousand years BC. The City was a cradle for many civilizations including Canaanite to the Byzantine and Christian periods and then to the Islamic era and subsequent periods, i.e. Mamluks and Ottoman rule. All these periods have affected its development and left us a unique legacy and cultural heritage represented by a lot of historical buildings. In order to preserve this heritage from destruction, the researcher aims to develop an approach to adaptive reuse historical buildings in the city of Gaza as much as possible by adopting a scientific research method relied on the description and analysis based on five main themes. The first point addressed some concepts related to the adaptive reuse of historical buildings in terms of the principles and goals. The second section attempted to shed light on Gaza City and its urban heritage and the most important historic buildings. The third part presented a proposed approach for adaptive reuse of building, which includes three phases: preparation of historical studies, on site survey to assess the current status of the building and the technical studies phase. The fourth issue handled the analytical study of Hammam Alsamra in the old city of Gaza as a case study. The last section referred to the most important findings and recommendations concerning the aim of the study.
