TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF ADAPTIVE REUSE RESEARCH (2000–2025): A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS AND FUTURE RESEARCH AGENDA RESEARCHER

Abstract

The application of adaptive reuse to transform existing structures into new uses has become an important approach that has evolved in the context of sustainable urban development, heritage preservation, and circular economics. Although much literature is now available in this domain, there has not been any bibliometric analysis carried out thus far in order to synthesize knowledge generated by this stream of literature. Hence, the purpose of this study is to perform bibliometric analysis of 1,000 peer-reviewed articles selected from the OpenAlex dataset based on the topic of adaptive reuse during the period of 2000 to 2025 using Bibliometrix in R and VOSviewer software. The dataset consists of contributions made by 1,867 authors in 472 journals with a yearly growth rate of 15.54%, which confirms exponential growth in the field, especially since 2013. In terms of publication output, Italy (n = 184) ranks first, whereas Australia shows its strong citation potential (2,547 citations) due to the crucial role of the Australian research tradition that includes such scientists as Bullen, Langston, Wilkinson, and Conejos. There are four major thematic areas: (1) adaptation and architectural design issues; (2) sustainability, circular economy, and environment; (3) preservation and renovation of cultural heritage sites and cities; and (4) technical assessment and engineering aspects. There is an apparent geographical bias, with countries belonging to the Global South remaining under-represented, although this region accounts for the largest building stocks needing adaptive approaches. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first bibliometric analysis of literature on adaptive reuse based on the data provided by the OpenAlex platform, which is different from previous scientometric studies conducted via Scopus or Web of Science and allows free and repeatable access to the data. A five-priority research agenda is proposed, addressing Global South contexts, digital tools, circular economy integration, social equity, and whole-life carbon accounting.