The Provision of Educational Needs of the Old City of Sana'a According to the Concept of Sustainable Preservation

The idea of ​​sustainable development begun in the eighties of the 20th century, soon after, this concepts started to be use in different fields, including the preservation of historical cities, which known as sustainable preservation. Sustainable preservation cares about using the valuable cultural heritage to meet the modern needs of the historical cities as a way of continuously preserving the heritage, and to bring it to the next generations as good as possible.

The current lack of educational environment in the old city of Sanaa is one of the main dangers to preserve the authentically of the ancient city, especially in light of high density of school-age children in the city, which leads the indigenous population to abandonment the old city. Leaving their homes either unoccupied susceptible to devastation or to be used contrary to the original function. thus the old city lose a very important property which is being alive integrated system.

The aims of this research is to develop the educational environment in the old city of Sana'a, according to the concept of sustainable preservation, which will help in the conservation process of the old city and makes it to get  a modern life inside the authentic and historical architectural structure. In addition, the paper methodology depended on analyzing data and statistics collected from referenced sources and through field visits, and on urban architectural analysis of schools and mosques of the old city, as well as studying the possibility of introducing the educational function to the old city's mosques.

The research shows that the student's rate of school-class space in the old city of Sanaa is very small ranges between 0.4 m2 and 0.8 m2, and despite the lack in educational spaces there are some schools in the city like Nashwan not working at full capacity. In addition, the research demonstrate a possibility of reuse of the ancient city of mosques for educational propose especially for the first three levels of basic education.