Urban Design

A new meaning for the organic. The morpho-ecological approach of the organic city

by Catalina Ionita

a brief introduction to my study published in The Hybrid_Link
Passaggi all'ibrido. Prospettive ibride sul contemporaneo
Web Magazine - Rivista digitale - ISSN: 2039-4608

This research proposal introduces and elaborates a specific approach to urban design based on a redefinition and... more This research proposal introduces and elaborates a specific approach to urban design based on a redefinition and re-evalutation of the concept of ‘organic’ in a morpho-ecological and parametrical paradigm, assumed to unveil new ways of understanding and “planning” the city.

The Sensory Experiencing of Urban Design: The Role of Walking and Perceptual Memory

by Gillian Rose

co-authored with Monica Degen; published online in Urban Studies April 2012

Experience is conceptualised in both academic and policy circles as a more-or-less direct effect of the design of the... more Experience is conceptualised in both academic and policy circles as a more-or-less direct effect of the design of the built environment. Drawing on findings from a research project that investigated people’s everyday experiences of designed urban environments in two UK towns, this paper suggests at least two reasons why sensory encounters between individuals and built environments cannot in fact be understood entirely as a consequence of the design features of those environments. Drawing from empirical analysis based on surveys, ethnographic ‘walk-alongs’ and photo-elicitation interviews, we argue that distinct senses of place do depend on the sensory experiencing of built environments. However, that experiencing is significantly mediated in two ways. First, it is mediated by bodily mobility: in particular, the walking practices specific to a particular built environment. Secondly, sensory experiences are intimately intertwined with perceptual memories that mediate the present moment of experience in various ways: by multiplying, judging and dulling the sensory encounter. In conclusion, it is argued that work on sensory urban experiencing needs to address more fully the diversity and paradoxes produced by different forms of mobility through, and perceptual memories of, built environments.

THE FUNCTIONS OF COLOR IN URBAN SETTING

by Mahdi Torabi

Reyhaneh Behbudi, S. Z. A. Idid and Mahdi Torabi
Aceh Development International Conference (ADIC2012), Malaysia, Mar. 2012

We are surrounded by the colors. The first and the most eye-catching information we collect from our living... more We are surrounded by the colors. The first and the most eye-catching information we collect from our living environment is something in color. The noticeable role of this tangible element in our built environment has been affirmed by scholars as well as practitioners. The color in urban context can be seen in different ways. It is able to induce different feelings and conveys variety of functions. This study, regarding the importance of the issue, is going to investigate the roles, functions and scales of the color in urban environment. For the purpose of this study we have read through and covered existing literature and illustrated related pictures. Reviewing the related texts revealed that color has been assigned a role of identity maker in city context. It can significantly improve the aesthetic features of the city and can be applied in different scales from urban details such as windows and walls to streets, squares and districts. So many factors distinguish the colorscape of the cities but the final composition of colors remarkably affects the visitors and residents perceptions towards the place they visit and they live in.

Urban Design_Landscape Architecture _Sustainable Design_Giornale Iuav 107_2012-01-12_Light

by Mauro Marzo

The Space of Citizenship: Visually Perceived Non-Spatial Dimensions of Housing

by Thereza Carvalho

Sull'immagine sonora della città

by Antonella Radicchi

INTERSTÍCIOS URBANOS E O CONCEITO DE ESPAÇO EXTERIOR POSITIVO

by Maria Rosália Guerreiro

Design Charrette A Vehicle for Consultation or Collaboration

by Nicola Dawn Smith

As a model of participation and creativity, the design charrette has huge potential for reshaping the engagement of... more As a model of participation and creativity, the design charrette has huge potential for reshaping the engagement of design professionals and the dynamic processes available to businesses and organisations seeking ongoing innovation. Design charrettes in their current form largely remain the preserve of design firms, used both for internal project analysis and synthesis of large volumes of complex information. Charrettes are most often used as a consultant tool for engaging the community in participatory workshops on potentially controversial developments.

Taking the format of charrette as developed in the field of planning and urban design, this paper will reflect on the enquiry by design process and explore the potential of stimulating innovation through drawing as a way of collaborating with stakeholders outside of the key design professions.

Development, facilitation and analysis of a student workshop explores abstracted principles of a design charrette and indicates possibilities for more open, inclusive and holistic engagement between design professionals as consultants and others as collaborators.

The backbone of a City Information Model (CIM): Implementing a spatial data model for urban design

by Jorge Gil

with Júlio Almeida and José Pinto Duarte

29th eCAADe conference, Ljubljana, 2011

We have been witnessing an increased interest in a more holistic approach to urban design practice and education. In... more We have been witnessing an increased interest in a more holistic approach to urban design practice and education. In this paper we present a spatial data model for urban design that proposes the combination of urban environment feature classes with design process feature classes. This data model is implemented in a spatial database that becomes the backbone of a City Information Model (CIM), integrating urban neighbourhood formulation, design, and evaluation methods into a comprehensive urban design support system. We demonstrate its application to urban design analysis and evaluation through the development of a tool for AutoCAD Map 3D that is integrated with the PostGIS spatial database.

TŘÍDA 1. MÁJE V LIBERCI

by katerina kapletova

Á procura do centro: Marvila

by Cristovao Pereira

The Garden Valley: Remembering Visions and Values in 1950s Cleveland with Allan Jacobs

by Bradley Flamm

Appeared in the Berkeley Planning Journal, Volume 18, 2005, pages 101-118.

Authored by Bradley Flamm.

In the summer of 1954 a young graduate from the University of Pennsylvania’s city planning program was asked to design... more In the summer of 1954 a young graduate from the University of Pennsylvania’s city planning program was asked to design a public housing complex in the heart of Cleveland, Ohio. Ambitions were high; the Garden Valley, as the project was christened, was to be a modern, clean, mixed-use, racially and economically integrated community that would be a “model neighborhood for all of Cleveland.” The ambitions belied the setting, for the project was planned for a decidedly inauspicious location: Kingsbury Run, a dangerous, disreputable, polluted gully that had been the site of the dirtiest industrial facilities, Depression-era shantytowns, and an infamous series of murders. The young planner was Allan Jacobs, now a figure of great renown in city planning for his public, academic, writing, and consulting careers. Jacobs is currently professor emeritus in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. Based on his work developing an overall plan for the Kingsbury Run site, hundreds of new publicly and privately owned apartment units would be constructed in a garden-like setting, providing housing for thousands of low- and middle-income Clevelanders. Yet within just two years of the first units’ construction the Garden Valley was already considered rundown and undesirable, a reputation that would grow and deepen with time, a reputation the area has struggled with ever since. How is it that an auspicious combination of good intentions, significant resources, and uncommon talent was not enough to ensure the success of the project? Did the original conceptual design and the dominant values that influenced it play a role in setting the stage for the difficulties to come? This article, based largely on a series of conversations with Allan Jacobs, explores these questions by telling the story of his first summer of professional design work in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.

Post Industrial Possibilities and Urban Social Ecologies

by Damian White

Thinking about the legacy of Murray Bookchin after his death for environmental social theory and politics. Yes, he could be a big pain in the ass. However, his focus on urban ecology, post Malthusian social ecological politics, post scarcity focus, ecological humanism and attempt to initiate a discussion about the need for a 'green industrial revolution' was seminal and still unacknowledged and much of his broad aspirations were proposing an much more interesting agenda than anything being proposed in much environmental sociology, cultural geography or political science.

Technonatures Introduction White Wilbert

by Damian White

An attempt to survey and think through the political implications of hybridity discourses such as Latour and Haraway for environmental politics. This is the introductory chapter from D.White and C.Wilbert (Eds) Technonatures: Environments, Technologies, Spaces, and Places in the Twenty-first CenturyISBN13: 978-1-55458-150-4, 2009.

Lots of other really interesting cuts in the book from Erik Swyngedouw, Sarah Whatmore, Mike Michael, Steve Hinchliffe and others ...check it out at Available from http://www.wlu.ca/press/Catalog/white-wilbert.shtml

Autonomy Solidarity Possibility The Colin Ward Reader -Aug 27th August 2010-2

by Damian White

Preface/Introduction to Wilbert/White "Autonomy, Solidarity and Possibility: The Colin Ward Reader; A.K Press Edinburgh/Oakland. pp. 1-35. 2011.

Conservation Necessity of Neighborhoods in the Historic Core Areas: A study of the city of Patan,Nepal

by Manish Joshi

Published in SCITECH Nepal: A Journal of Scientific and Technical Studies, Vol. 13 No. 1, Nepal Engineering College, Changunarayan, Bhaktapur, Nepal.

CHAFARIZES DE LISBOA – MONUMENTO E FUNÇÃO PRÁTICA

by Cristovao Pereira

Venice bound: the reuse of the boundaries to release pressure from the core

by Lorenzo Mattozzi

Author Lorenzo Mattozzi, publication "Ten Hypotheses for the Lagoon" - ILAUD Workshop, Venice 2002

Alternative title (italian version)
Abbordare Venezia: il riutilizzo dei bordi per togliere pressione dal nucleo.

The scenario tries to answer every question and topic related to the workshop. It is really from the interlacing of... more The scenario tries to answer every question and topic related to the workshop. It is really from the interlacing of the answers that springs out our proposal.
Venice has never been modern in the meaning that Berman gives (All that is solid melts into air: the experience of modernity, 1982), even having lived a small and short industrial revolution, nor it is actually post-modern in the meaning of Harvey (The condition of postmodernity: an enquiry into the origins of cultural change, 1988).
Venice is only contemporary, because it belongs to the actual age more than anything else: at any given time in history it has always belonged indissolubly to its current age and not to one specific, finding in every time its role, its configuration, its space and reason of being. If we want to introduce the term "modern" for Venice, we must first give the word a specific meaning that is different from the one commonly used from the end of the XVII century to today, otherwise it is better to use "modern" with the meaning of "present" and "actual" or "current".
Venice will never be able to homologate itself to a certain kind of modernity lived by or proposed for other cities. If we want to talk about modernity, it cannot be exclusively in terms of implementing great engineering works.
Venice, the lagoon, the life that takes place in them, the urban and metropolitan organisation, the relation with water and nature, finally the concept of time bound to distances are realities different from those of any other contemporary city.
It is the evidence that we can live in another way, that a life exists without the car in which walking and sailing times determine the pace of every other activity.
Venice is an artificial city, bound to a constant ordinary and extraordinary maintenance done by man, immersed in the natural lagoon landscape, a mixture that produce beauty and a difficult, yet high quality life: these are the specific and peculiar characters of Venice that make the city so special and unclassifiable, that should make us reflect on the significance of modern and post-modern life in other realities, in other cities.

Saigon South: Parallel City in the South

by Peter Gotsch

in Somma, Paola (ed.); At war with the city;  Gateshead.

The ongoing (neo-liberal) restructuring of production and consumption networks on a global scale is leading to the... more The ongoing (neo-liberal) restructuring of production and consumption networks on a global scale is leading to the emergence of new urban and regional forms and typologies. The study of contemporary New Towns is of particular importance for the understanding of contemporary urbanism. It is here, where all the different forces and ideologies (local and global, political and economic, historic and modern) clash, interact and materialise, in the most direct and unobstructed manner, on new grounds, and almost without a historic layer. In exploring the particular case of Saigon South, this investigation seeks to contribute to the understanding of the production means and urban typologies of contemporary urbanism.

Emerg.cities4all: Towards a sustainable and integrated urban design

by Sara Eloy

Authors: Alexandra Paio, Sara Eloy, Joaquim Reis, Filipe Santos, Vasco Rato, Pedro Faria Lopes
Published on the proceedings of the UIA2011 Tokyo Congress - Design 2050, Academic Program

The right to adequate housing is recognized as a fundamental right to people’s life (UN, 1948). The... more The right to adequate housing is recognized as a fundamental right to people’s life (UN, 1948). The Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and South America, witness a rapid urbanization with deepening poverty, mass homelessness, environmental degradation and increasing slums. The current situation of informal urban settlements does not allow the achievement of adequate shelter for all. This paper describes an ongoing research project which proposes a generative computer-aided planning system, for cities with low-income housing using a descriptive method as the Shape Grammars (Stiny 1980) and based on multi-agent rule-based system.
The aim of this research is to encompass several scales of intervention, from the physical level of the city, through the level of building construction system. In this research several areas will be involved: architecture, urbanism, sustainability, construction, computational design, programming and industry. The architecture and urban design areas will meet the goal of generating urban and housing units solutions which should be modular, scalable, adaptable, customizable and affordable. The proposed solutions must be environmentally sustainable and energy efficient, while respecting certain social and cultural qualities in the context of new Portuguese-speaking emerging urbanities.
The computer system provides a direct approach to input in order to solve the usual digital barriers felt by target group end users.