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Books > Arts & Architecture > Architecture > Landscape art & architecture > City & town planning - architectural aspects
In cities throughout the world, there is an increasingly ubiquitous presence of distinct social and spatial areas - urban villages, cultural and ethnic quarters. These spaces are sites where capital and culture intertwine in new ways. City of Quarters brings together some of the most prominent authors writing about urban villages to provide the first systematic and multi-disciplinary overview of this high-profile urban phenomenon. They address key questions such as 'What is the role of urban villages and quarters in the contemporary city?' and 'What are the economic, political, socio-spatial and cultural practices and processes that surround these urban spaces?' Blending conceptual chapters with theoretically directed case studies from all over the world, this book includes issues such as local and regional development strategies, production, consumption, the creative industries, popular culture, identity, lifestyle, and tourism.
Management of big cities is a relatively unresearched area, as compared to city planning and city governance. A study of Warsaw city management reveals the transformation process typically found in European countries in political and economic transition. In A City Reframed, Czarniawska conceptualises city management as an "action-net" under transformation, where three types of action are in focus: "muddling through," or coping with daily problems; "reframing," or changing the frame of interpretation of the world in order to take successful action; and "anchoring," the testing of new ideas on potentially involved parties in order to secure cooperation or minimize resistance. "Muddling through" is central to management in Warsaw, as it no doubt has always been: it is this "muddling through" that makes cities function. The specificity of the Warsaw picture is its demand for "reframing" and numerous and varied attempts have been made to achieve a "change of frame." They were sometimes successful, sometimes not, the skill of anchoring only slowly emerging from the most recent past, with the sediments of the old regimes an obvious obstacle. The study pinpoints the phenomena central to the construction of the action-net of city management, and traces its further connections (or lack of such), both temporally and spatially.
Mega-events represent an important moment in the life of a city, providing a useful lens through which we may analyse their cultural, social, political and economic development. In the wake of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC's) concerns about 'gigantism' and wider public concerns about rising costs, it was imperative in the C21st to demonstrate the long term benefits that arose for the city and nations from hosting premier sporting events. 'London 2012' was the first to integrate the concept of legacy from the moment a bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games was being considered. London proposed an ambitious programme of urban renewal for East London. Subsequent host city bids have adopted the 'legacy narrative' and, as this book demonstrates, aligned this to major schemes of urban development and renewal. Bringing together scholars, practitioners and policy makers, this book focuses upon the legacies sought by cities that host major sports events. It analyses how governments, the IOC and others define and measure 'legacy'. It also focuses upon the challenges and opportunities facing future host cities of mega-events, looking at their aspirations and the intended impact upon their domestic and international development. It questions what the global shift in geographical location of mega-events means for sports development and the business of sport, what the attractions are for cities seeking to harness the hosting of a mega-event, and whether there may be longer term consequences for the bidding and hosting major sporting events in the wake of the widespread social unrest that accompanied the preparations in Brazil for hosting the FIFA World Cup (2014) and the summer Olympics (2016) and in Turkey, where there was significant opposition to bid for the 2020 summer Olympiad.
Interdisciplinary in approach, this volume explores and deciphers the symbolic value and iconicity of the built environment in the Arab Gulf Region, its aesthetics, language and performative characteristics. Bringing together a range of studies by artists, curators and scholars, it demonstrates how Dubai appeared - at least until the financial crisis - to be leading the construction race and has already completed a large number of its landmark architecture and strategic facilities. In contrast, cities like the Qatari capital Doha still appear to be heavily 'under construction' and in countries like the Sultanate of Oman, ultra-luxury tourism projects were started only recently. While the construction of artificial islands, theme parks and prestige sport facilities has attracted considerable attention, much less is known about the region's widespread implementation of innovative infrastructure such as global container ports, free zones, inter-island causeways and metro lines. This volume argues that these endeavours are not simply part of a strategy to prepare for the post-oil era for future economic survival and prosperity in the Lower Gulf region, but that they are also aiming to strengthen identitarian patterns and specific national brands. In doing so, they exhibit similar, yet remarkably diverse modes of engaging with certain global trends and present - questionably - distinct ideas for putting themselves on the global map. Each country aims to grab attention with regard to the world-wide flow of goods and capital and thus provide its own citizens with a socially acceptable trajectory for the future. By doing that, the countries in the Gulf are articulating a new semiotic and paradigm of urban development. For the first time, this volume maps these trends in their relation to architecture and infrastructure, in particular by treating them as semiotics in their own right. It suggests that recent developments in this region of the world not only represen
First published in 1985, this book presents seven games for use in the teaching and study of planning, urban studies or land administration. These simulations are all built on researched case studies and deal with a number of critical planning and developmental issues; for each one the book provides full operational instructions and all gaming materials required. The games in this volume cover a number of scenarios, including the design of a mixed retail, social and service centre in a new city, new development in a run-down inner city area, rehabilitation or renewal of housing, tourist development in the Mediterranean and a new cross-town motorway in a major north American city. In addition, sets of guidelines for those wishing to design and operate their own case study simulations are also included. This book will be a valuable resource for students of town planning or urban development who are keen to gain 'hands-on' experience of using the professional skills they have acquired on their courses.
The so-called 'creative industries' are increasingly being presented as an important tool of urban regeneration and economic development. Until now, research on the clustering of such activities has been limited to economics, geography and urban policy. This book is the first to gather together emerging research in urban design and spatial planning that explores what characteristics of the built form of cities support the distinctive activity patterns of various creative industries, and how and why they cluster together at a range of local scales. The book offers detailed case studies and comparative analyses of creative city neighbourhoods on five continents. Contributions examine urban forms, building types, and other qualities of place that attract and retain creative workers and foster creative production, outlining a range of methodologies for studying them. Taken altogether, Creative Milieux offers new insights for urban design practice, and for its role in wider urban policy. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Urban Design.
Added Value in Design and Construction takes a holistic, student-centred approach to offering public and private sector clients the ultimate reward; doing more for less. The Latham Report was a call to action and this book provides students of construction with the theoretical and practical knowledge to deliver the recommendations of the report. It describes the principles and techniques crucial to adding value and reducing costs in design and construction in the twenty first century. This book examines in detail a wide range of strategies that can be applied during the design and construction process to add value and bring the best interests of the client sharply into focus.
As a formative exemplar of early architectural modernism, Bruno Taut's seminal exhibition pavilion the Glashaus (literally translated Glasshouse) is logically part of the important debate of rethinking the origins of modernism. However, the historical record of Bruno Taut's Glashaus has been primarily established by one art historian and critic. As a result the historical record of the Glashaus is significantly skewed toward a singlular notion of Expressionism and surprisingly excludes Taut's diverse motives for the design of the building. In an effort to clarify the problematic historical record of the Glashaus, this book exposes Bruno Taut's motives and inspirations for its design. The result is that Taut's motives can be found in yet unacknowledged precedents like the botanical inspiration of the Victoria regia lily; the commercial interests of Frederick Keppler as the Director of the Deutche Luxfer Prismen Syndikat; and imitation that derived openly from the Gothic. The outcome is a substantial contribution to the re-evaluation of the generally accepted histories of the modern movement in architecture.
First published in 1988, this book argues that discussions of urban development often neglect to consider that much of the urban environment is designed by architects and planners, and that the particular world-view of architects and planners is crucial for the way proposals are taken up, modified and carried out. The author explores the world-view of architects and planners, considering their approach to design and the factors which influence this - work patterns, career paths and the firms in which they operate. The author also studies their place in the political decision-making process as it affects urban questions and then explores how architects and planners roles are changing.
This collection of essays focuses on contemporary issues in city cultures and urban politics. The chapters range from discussions of the city in works of fiction to critiques of urban politics and explorations of the experiences of being in the city.
What is the relationship between how cities work and what cities mean? Spatial Cultures: Towards a New Social Morphology of Cities Past and Present announces an innovative research agenda for urban studies in which themes and methods from urban history, social theory and built environment research are brought into dialogue across disciplinary and chronological boundaries. The collection confronts the recurrent epistemological impasse that arises between research focussing on the description of material built environments and that which is concerned primarily with the people who inhabit, govern and write about cities past and present. A reluctance to engage substantively with this issue has been detrimental to scholarly efforts to understand the urban built environment as a meaningful agent of human social experience. Drawing on a wide range of historical and contemporary urban case studies, as well as a selection of theoretical and methodological reflections, the contributions to this volume seek to historically, geographically and architecturally contextualize diverse spatial practices including movement, encounter, play, procession and neighbourhood. The aim is to challenge their tacit treatment as universal categories in much writing on cities and to propose alternative research possibilities with implications as much for urban design thinking as for history and the social sciences.
Produced by PLAYLINK, a registered charity which assists local communities to create adventure playgrounds for children. Established in 1962, PLAYLINK is recognised as the national authority on good practice for play provision of this type. This essential handbook draws on PLAYLINK's 35 years experience with adventure playgrounds, introduces recent changes to legislation and gives guidance on the interpretation of legal responsibilities. It is intende for all those working as play officers, playworkers, playground designers or consultants in supervised play provision, legal advisers and regulatory authorities. It will also be of interst to anyone involved in leisure and recreation management and the design and construction of sports facilities.
The Emerging Politics of (Re) making Cairo's Old Quarters examines postcolonial planning practices that aimed to modernise Cairo's urban spaces. The author examines the expanding field of postcolonial urbanism by linking the state's political ideologies and systems of governance with methods of spatial representations that aimed to transform the urban realm in Cairo. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the study draws on planning, history and politics to develop a distinctive account of postcolonial planning in Cairo following Egypt's 1952 revolution. The book widely connects the ideological role of a different type of politicised urbanism practised during the days of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak and the overarching policies, institutions and attitudes involved in the visions for (re) building a new nation in Egypt. By examining the notion of remaking urban spaces, the study interprets the ambitions and powers of state policies for improving the spatial qualities of Cairo's old districts since the early 20th century. These acts are situated in their spatial, political and historical contexts of Cairo's heterogeneous old quarters and urban spaces particularly the remaking of one of the city's older quarts named Bulaq Abul Ela established during the Ottoman rule in the thirteenth century. It therefore writes, in a chronological sequence, a narrative through time and space connecting various layers of historical and contemporary political phases for remaking Bulaq. The endeavor is to explain this process from a spatial perspective in terms of the implications and consequences not only on places, but also on the people's everyday practices. By deeply investigating the problems and consequences; the strengths and weaknesses; and the state's reliability to achieve the remaking objectives, the book reveals evidence that shifting forms of governance had anchored planning practices into a narrow path of creativity and responsive planning.
Focusing on the working-class experience of gentrification, this book re-examines the enduring relationship between class and the urban. Class is so clearly articulated in the urban, from the housing crisis to the London Riots to the evocation of housing estates as the emblem of 'Broken Britain'. Gentrification is often presented to a moral and market antidote to such urban ills: deeply institutionalised as regeneration and targeted at areas which have suffered from disinvestment or are defined by 'lack'. Gentrification is no longer a peripheral neighbourhood process: it is policy; it is widespread; it is everyday. Yet comparative to this depth and breadth, we know little about what it is like to live with gentrification at the everyday level. Sociological studies have focused on lifestyles of the middle classes and the working-class experience is either omitted or they are assumed to be victims. Hitherto, this is all that has been offered. This book engages with these issues and reconnects class and the urban through an ethnographically detailed analysis of a neighbourhood undergoing gentrification which historicises class formation, critiques policy processes and offers a new sociological insight into gentrification from the perspective of working-class residents. This ethnography of everyday working-class neighbourhood life in the UK serves to challenge denigrated depictions which are used to justify the use of gentrification-based restructuring. By exploring the relationship between urban processes and working-class communities via gentrification, it reveals the 'hidden rewards' as well as the 'hidden injuries' of class in post-industrial neighbourhoods. In doing so, it provides a comprehensive 'sociology of gentrification', revealing not only how gentrification leads to the displacement of the working class in physical terms but how it is actively used within urban policy to culturally displace the working-class subject and traditional
The introduction of iron - and later steel - construction and decoration transformed architecture in the nineteenth century. While the structural employment of iron has been a frequent subject of study, this book re-directs scholarly scrutiny on its place in the aesthetics of architecture in the long nineteenth century. Together, its eleven unique and original chapters chart - for the first time - the global reach of iron's architectural reception, from the first debates on how iron could be incorporated into architecture's traditional aesthetics to the modernist cleaving of its structural and ornamental roles. The book is divided into three sections. Formations considers the rising tension between the desire to translate traditional architectural motifs into iron and the nascent feeling that iron buildings were themselves creating an entirely new field of aesthetic expression. Exchanges charts the commercial and cultural interactions that took place between British iron foundries and clients in far-flung locations such as Argentina, Jamaica, Nigeria and Australia. Expressing colonial control as well as local agency, iron buildings struck a balance between pre-fabricated functionalism and a desire to convey beauty, value and often exoticism through ornament. Transformations looks at the place of the aesthetics of iron architecture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period in which iron ornament sought to harmonize wide social ambitions while offering the tantalizing possibility that iron architecture as a whole could transform the fundamental meanings of ornament. Taken together, these chapters call for a re-evaluation of modernism's supposedly rationalist interest in nineteenth-century iron structures, one that has potentially radical implications for the recent ornamental turn in contemporary architecture.
The last five years have brought an enormous growth in the literature on how urban development can meet human needs and ensure ecological sustainability. This collection brings together the most outstanding contributions from leading experts on the issues surrounding sustainable cities and urban development.The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Cities is fully international in scope and coverage. It will be the basic introduction to the subject for a wide range of students in urban geography, planning and environmental studies, and is essential reading for professionals involved with the successful running and development of cities.
In the rapidly expanding public space debate of the past few years, a recurring theme is the 'loss of publicness' of contemporary urban public places. This book takes up the challenge to find an objective way to prove or disprove this phenomenon. By taking the reader through a systematic and multi-disciplinary literature review it asks the deceptively simple question: 'What is publicness?' It answers this by first developing a new theoretical approach - 'The dual nature of public space', and secondly a new analytical tool for measuring it - 'The Star Model of Publicness'. This pragmatic approach to analysing public space is tested then on three new public places recently created on the post-industrial waterfront of the River Clyde, in the city of Glasgow, UK. By seeing where and why certain public places fail, direct and informed interventions can be made to improve them, and through this contribute to the building of more attractive and sustainable cities. By adopting a multi-disciplinary approach to shed light on this 'slippery' concept, this book shows how urban design can complement other disciplines when tackling the complex task of understanding and improving the built environment's public realm. It also bridges the gap between theory and practice as it draws from empirical research to suggest more quantitative approaches towards auditing and improving public places.
Despite extensive efforts to understand the overall effect of urban structure on the current patterns of urban mobility, we are still far from a consensual perspective on this complex matter. To help build agreement on the factors influencing travel behaviour, this book discusses the influence of alternative urban structures on sustainable mobility. Bringing together two existing and complementary methods to study the relationship between urban structure and mobility, the authors compare two case studies with distinct urban structures and travel behaviour (Copenhagen and Oporto). Of particular concern is the influence of urban structure factors, namely land use and transport system factors, and motivational factors related to the social, economic and cultural characteristics of the individual traveller. The research presented in this book highlights the relevance of centrality in travel behaviour and in more sustainable travel choices. Different operational forms of the centrality concept are revealed as important: it is shown that more sustainable travel can be influenced by several urban structure factors and that no particular combination is required as long as a certain level of centrality is provided. Finally, the book concludes that urban structure can, on the one hand, constrain and, on the other hand, influence travel choice.
This book explores the role of technology in ecological urban design and regeneration. Part I provides theoretical and methodological insights into technological approaches that offer optimum respect to existing cultural and natural environments, while offering minimum impact and carbon footprint. Parts II and III provide contextualised examples that demonstrate the use, or proposal of, sustainable technologies and solutions for regenerating parts of the urban and peri-urban. The case studies offer insights from the Mediterranean and the Middle East in a diverse range of spaces, from central urban squares, oblique cities, urban waterfronts, decaying suburbs, to peri-urban areas such as touristic waterfronts, former industrial areas, hyper-commercial areas, humid zones and parks.
With its celebrated World Heritage List, UNESCO steers the global heritage agenda through the definition and redefinition of what constitutes heritage and by offering the highest-level forum for heritage professionalism. While it is the national governments that nominate sites for inclusion in the World Heritage List, and the intergovernmental World Heritage Committee that makes the final decision on inclusion or non-inclusion, it is the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) for cultural heritage that determines whether the necessary level of 'outstanding universal value' is met. Focusing on the discourses of ICOMOS and their transmission to the local context, this book is the first in-depth historical analysis of the construction of heritage value in the context of cities illustrated through a case study of Old Rauma in Finland. The book contributes to the understanding of the discursive and constructed nature of World Heritage values as opposed to intrinsic values, critically scrutinizes the role of ICOMOS in making valuations concerning urban heritage, and sheds light on the interactions and tensions of universal and local (urban) perspectives in the practice of heritage valuation. Valuing World Heritage Cities is the first in-depth historical analysis of the construction of heritage value in the context of cities in the transnational discourses of heritage. This unique and timely contribution will be of interest to scholars and students working in Heritage Studies, Cultural Geography, Urban Studies and Tourism.
Examining the debate between activists and professional planners over the vision of the future of a large growth corridor in Sydney, Australia, this case study maps the history of development from the late sixties to the mid-nineties, during which time serious environmental and financial problems arose. The book outlines five major visions of the future development and examines forms of political, economic, and institutional power applied by the parties in the project, with emphasis on the processes of infrastructure privatization and ecological impacts. The conclusion reflects on contemporary dilemmas about pluralism.
First published in 1987, this book provides a wide-ranging account of how modern cities have come to look as they do - differing radically from their predecessors in their scale, style, details and meanings. It uses many illustrations and examples to explore the origins and development of specific landscape features. More generally it traces the interconnected changes which have occurred in architecture and aesthetic fashions, in planning, in economic and social conditions, and which together have created the landscape that now prevails in most of the cities of the world. This book will be of interest to students of architecture, urban studies and geography.
With increasing population and its associated demand on our limited resources, we need to rethink our current strategies for construction of multifamily buildings in urban areas. Reinventing an Urban Vernacular addresses these new demands for smaller and more efficient housing units adapted to local climate. In order to find solutions and to promote better urban communities with an overall environmentally responsible lifestyle, this book examines a wide variety of vernacular building precedents, as they relate to the unique characteristics and demands of six distinctly different regions of the United States. Terry Moor addresses the unique landscape, climate, physical, and social development by analyzing vernacular precedents, and proposing new suggestions for modern needs and expectations. Written for students and architects, planners, and urban designers, Reinventing an Urban Vernacular marries the urban vernacular with ongoing sustainability efforts to produce a unique solution to the housing needs of the changing urban environment.
Modern urban spaces are, by definition, mixed socio-spatial configurations. In many ways, their enduring success and vitality lie in the richness of their ethnic texture and ongoing exchange of economic goods, cultural practices, political ideas and social movements. This mixture, however, is rarely harmonious and has often led to violent conflict over land and identity. Focusing on mixed towns in Israel/Palestine, this insightful volume theorizes the relationship between modernity and nationalism and the social dynamics which engender and characterize the growth of urban spaces and the emergence therein of inter-communal relations. For more than a century, Arabs and Jews have been interacting in the workplaces, residential areas, commercial enterprises, cultural arenas and political theatres of mixed towns. Defying prevailing Manichean oppositions, these towns both exemplify and resist the forces of nationalist segregation. In this interdisciplinary volume, a new generation of Israeli and Palestinian scholars come together to explore ways in which these towns have been perceived as utopian or dystopian and whether they are best conceptualized as divided, dual or colonial. Identifying ethnically mixed towns as a historically specific analytic category, this volume calls for further research, comparison and debate. |
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