Reflections on Computational Design Through Interactions With Materiality and Physical Mock-Ups

Abstract

The “Medium is the Message” is an environmental art installation project intended to explore the interrelationship of art and democracy upon the platform of public space. The various attempts at instigating dialogue and public engagement have served to demonstrate Michael Sorkin's premise that “the accommodation of differences is the key project of contemporary democracy.” This active engagement in contemporary social issues provides a framework for deeper understanding of academic knowledge in the design professions and opens up potential for its future application, unveiling public space as the critical stage upon which positions of identity are established and negotiated.     

LAFENTERPRISES’ ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITY IN CONSTRUCTION OF RESILIENT URBAN WATER SYSTEMS IN CHINESE CITIES

This article focuses on enterprises’ role and responsibility in improving urban resilience of water environment of Chinese cities, starting with the research efforts of Beijing Enterprises Water Group in recent years, the application of water pollution remediation technologies, then to the current status, key tasks, and problems in China’s water environmental remediation, as well as how to change people’s awareness of grey water facilities and infrastructures and promote public engagement. Mao Jianhua, the interviewee, argues that it is important to understand that the regional situations vary in China, water environmental problems are complicated resultants of industrial structure, infrastructure construction, and social management; to deal with China’s water environmental issues, we shall develop phased roadmaps combining with social-economic development. He believes that a working water environmental remediation is guaranteed by grey infrastructures and is facilitated or improved by ecological infrastructures. He also emphasizes that public engagement plays a decisive role in improving the resilience and sustainability of urban water environment.     

顺水而为: 武汉长江主轴滨水公园

The evolution of the Yangtze Riverfront Park in Wuhan, China highlights what many waterfront cities around the world are facing with respect to converging forces of urbanism, growth, resiliency, and ecological degradation. This site emphasizes why the public realm is a critical component in addressing all of these often-conflicting issues. By re-envisioning the 16-kilometer-longriverfront landscape, Wuhan is creating a new paradigm for its parks by embracing flooding as a regular occurrence and a driving force in the shaping of its public realm. This strategy of working with Nature and not against it allows visitors to understand and appreciate the river’s complex dynamics. The proposed development of the Yangtze Riverfront Park aims to harness the power of natural processes to nurture a rich regional ecology, improve ecosystem services, and enhance public health and recreational amenities. Informed by an extensive public engagement process and crowdsourced data, the redesign of the park reinforces Wuhan’s cultural identity by preserving decommissioned industrial infrastructure and other artifacts along the river that symbolize the city’s industrial legacy and urban history. The vision for an updated Yangtze Riverfront Park strives to create a socially inclusive, culturally relevant, and ecologically meaningful waterfront that emphasizes Wuhan’s identity of living authentically with an everchanging river.     

An augmented and interactive exhibition of an archived model for Frederick Kiesler's Endless House, 1959

This research explores the potential of an immersive and interactive online archive to enhance our understanding of historic architecture through the study of models. It reports on implementing an augmented reality mobile application that exhibits a model for the unbuilt Endless House, 1959, by Frederick Kiesler. A reflective critique, from the researcher's point of view, and initial feedback from a small sample of architecture students, provides an insight into users' experience of the exhibition, its value as a research tool, and as an educational resource. Building on existing technologies and established research methods, we present an alternative way of exhibiting a large-scaled model for public engagement and research collaboration between academics, archivists, and conservators. Results discuss the development of the mobile application with interactive features specifically designed for an architectural audience. It touches on issues associated with documenting, interpreting, and exhibiting architectural models, emphasizing accessibility, accuracy, engagement, combining 3D and 2D digital assets, and user experience. It was found that the interactive and immersive features of the exhibition enhanced the researchers' scope to spatially inspect the model, visually experience it, collaborate with others, and strengthen connections between the model and other examples of Kiesler's textual and visual archival materials.     

Planning for Climate Change: Is Greater Public Participation the Key to Success?

Within most democracies there is an assumption that greater public participation and engagement in policy processes results in more effective policy measures. These assumed benefits include better framed and more robust policies and a more informed, articulate and engaged citizenry. Similar assumptions exist also in planning for climate adaptation where more public participation and engagement are seen as vital components of any adaptation strategy and policy development process. This article explores these assumptions and considers whether there is any evidence that the success of planning for unavoidable climate change is related to the extent of public participation. Using an evaluation framework based on three aspects of participation we critically review a set of climate adaptation policy instruments developed within each of the three levels of government in Australia but with a specific focus on the region of South East Queensland.     

The potential of public participation to facilitate infrastructure decision-making: Lessons from the German and European legal planning system for electricity grid expansion

The article examines the potential role that public engagement and participative pro-cesses to play a role in effective infrastructure planning in the context of energy policies. For example, by 2050, at least 80% of Germany’s electricity has to be derived from re-newable energy sources if Germany is to meet the goals of its own energy policy. This includes the comprehensive and accelerated extension of the electricity grid. As a result of the magnitude of these changes, the German energy transition is not proceeding without debate and controversy. Public engagement is certainly no panacea for en-hanced social acceptance, yet it offers substantial potential to facilitate the energy tran-sition. The paper draws together social science and legal expertise in order to investi-gate the role of public participation in legal planning processes concerning energy infra-structures. The paper not only focuses on the extension of the German power grid, but also deals with participative policy at the European level. To this end, the paper analyzes the potential role of the German legal planning system in grid expansion and in the Eu-ropean processes of nominating Projects of Common Interest (PCI) and of drawing up the Ten Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP).     

微观情境视角下日本社区营造运动的全球本土化分析

This paper first explains the etymological connotation of Glocalization and interprets its authenticity and contemporary significance for studying community building. It argues that understanding Glocalization in specific contexts offers an ideal analysis framework to comprehend the globalization processes of local societies. This paper, by adopting a perspective of micro-globalization, studies the community building in Japan to manifest the influence of the process of Glocalization on Japanese societies. In addition to the political and sociological factors prevalent in the public engagement of community building advocated by western countries, Japanese practice is characterized for emphasizing the cultural significance of the traditional Japanese spatial image. Taking the community building case in Kagurazaka of Tokyo, it illustrates the creative discourse practice in the local community building to probe into the complexity and driving forces in Japan’s Glocalization. In addition, this paper focuses on the role of the localized community in shaping the social relations in Kagurazaka under globalization. By analyzing the contradictions and associations between the bottom-up building and the top-down planning, it discusses the opportunities and challenges faced by the community building in Japan and hopes to offer inspirations for the current community-building movement in China.     

建成环境对公共健康影响的尺度与方法研究

近年来,建成环境对居民健康的影响成为跨学科研究的重点。在不同的空间尺度上,建成环境对健康影响的机制与研究方法均有所差异。通过对国际上相关理论和实证的文献研究,总结建成环境对公共健康影响的研究基础;分析其研究尺度,包括宏观(全球/国家/区域)、中观(城市/县)和微观(街道/社区)3个层次,明确不同尺度建成环境对健康影响的要素;并围绕指标测度和研究方法进行评述。最后,提出健康导向下不同尺度的建成环境构建策略,以期为我国健康城市的建设提供借鉴和参考。     

The Eco-City as Urban Technology: Perspectives on Caofeidian International Eco-City (China)

Caofeidian International Eco-City, in North-East China, is among several large-scale new eco-city initiatives currently in development across Asia. Built from scratch across an area of 74 km², with an expected population of 800,000 by 2020, the city's plan boasts an abundance of urban sustainability features, from integrated public transport services and advanced water and waste recycling systems, to public parks and an extensive wetland area. This article uses the historical and conceptual perspective of “techno-city” to analyze the city's urban technology features. It highlights the relationship between the city and its hinterland, discusses the focus on science and technology driving the city's concept, and explores the international, modernist design language used. In doing so, the analysis points to several key tensions and contradictions at work, including a disconnect between the city's green technology focus and the high-carbon heavy industry of the surrounding area, and a lack of engagement with the local culture and community. Caofeidian Eco-City exhibits several features of twentieth-century techno-cities, although these are re-cast within the twenty-first-century context of global climate change policy and China's ongoing rapid urbanization processes.     

The dynamics of trust during public participation

Literature often relies on ex post feedbacks from participants to investigate how public participation affects social capital. However, some scholars suggest that the actual achievement of own interests might bias the participants' ex post perception. Therefore, we designed an on-going evaluative system to monitor the dynamics of trust during public participation, and we tested it in a real case of engagement with local community of stakeholders. The evaluative system could track both processes of creation and destruction of trust over the time, designing complex patterns of evolutions. This study also provided hints for a more effective use of participatory tools.     

A framework for governance of public green spaces in cities

Public authorities that seek to transfer the cost of managing green spaces to the private sector face apprehension about the extent of community input in managing of public green spaces in cities. In practice, the governance arrangements for managing public green spaces are neither a purely private or public sector responsibility. They are part of complex and contested governance schemas that involve multiple stakeholder groups with varying interests and responsibilities. This paper proposes a simple framework to support different modes of governance appropriate for the management of public green spaces in cities. The framework classifies stakeholders’ desires for engagement based on ecosystem service characteristics defined on a spectrum of excludability and rivalry. The framework is applied to case studies in Australia and Canada. Finally, we discuss the new insights for governance arrangements for public green space management in cities.     

TV,Boon or Bane? Participation and a Televised Town Meeting

As a public participation tool, television has been particularly vexing for planners who see promise in its ability to reach large audiences, but have issues with its expense and love of “sound-bites”. In 2009, a regional planning organization in the middle of the USA put the power of television to the test with a live televised town meeting. This study evaluates the event's effectiveness using democratic principles. The program was successful at reaching huge numbers in a short time period, at being inspiring, at increasing political efficacy, and at creating networks. It fell short, however, where the medium of television is inherently undemocratic (in the timing and scheduling of the show and engagement, in expense, and in reinforcing passivity). Comparing the strengths and weaknesses of television reveals that planners can use television to its best participatory advantage when they focus on collaborative participation and when they have realistic expectations.     

Application of AHP and a mathematical index to estimate livability in tourist districts:The case of Al Qasba in Sharjah

Urban planners must ensure that urban public spaces are enjoyable to use to create a lively city that expresses their culture and traditions and welcomes social diversity. This study aims to develop a theoretical index for assessing the livability levels in tourist districts. Therefore, a survey-based study accompanied by a literature review is used to derive criteria for livability. In addition to using the analytic hierarchy process to develop an importancebased hierarchy of criteria, mathematical analysis is applied to derive the livability index. Furthermore, one of Sharjah’s well-known public spaces, Al Qasba Tourist District, is assessed as a case study. This study discussed the main concepts and factors of livability in urban public spaces to examine the livable extent of Qasba and the significance of criteria. Results show that the current livability level in Al Qasba is less than 50%, confirming its urgent need for further urban improvement. This study explores the livability assessment criteria and their influencing parameters. Using the suggested conceptual livability index enables decision makers to assess the livability level, analyze the influencing factors, and suggest solutions to improve the overall livability levels of open public spaces.     

Theorizing Inside Activism: Understanding Policymaking and Policy Change from Below

To further our understanding on policymaking and policy change we need to recognize the significance of individual key actors in policy and planning processes. This article theorizes on the characteristics and policy influence of inside activism in which individual public officials act strategically from inside public administration to change government policy and action in line with a civic engagement and value commitment. Based on initial empirical findings from Swedish local government, we argue that inside activism is empirically relevant but not satisfactorily covered by other key actor concepts. We theorize that inside activism is 1) dualistic: open, deliberative, consensus-seeking and tacit, tactical, power-driven; 2) influential through informal networking inside and outside of government; and 3) dynamic as it varies over time and between critical situations. Due to current trends in society and public administration (e.g. governance), we expect inside activism to be increasingly relevant and we encourage further theoretical, empirical as well as normative research and discussion on this phenomenon.     

Counterpoints With Crisis

As conflict swept the west Balkans in the post-Soviet years of the 1990s, a new form of mainstream spatial expression emerged – turbo architecture. This manifested itself in popular, showy and postmodern self-built constructions. As the political situation matures, Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss of Normal Architecture Office (NAO) argues the case for a ‘normal architecture’ in the region, which rather than focusing on the need for self-expression among individuals, enables a new level of public engagement in urban life.     

Peaceful,Pleasant and Private: The British Domestic Garden as an Ordinary Landscape

This paper uses narrative accounts of private gardens in Britain from the Mass-Observation Archive (MO) to explore ideas of landscape, privacy and attachment that emerge from daily practices and routines in these ordinary domestic spaces. We argue for the domestic garden as a vernacular or ordinary landscape that displays tensions between the private and the public nature of home within ambivalent emotional responses. Extended personal narratives offer privileged access to a site of intense engagement and carefully guarded privacy, yet with varying levels of attachment. The garden is a space well described in Britain in its public form but less well known as a private, everyday landscape. In this way a cultural landscape study becomes a contemporary critical geography of an ordinary space.     

Challenges to the Implementation of the Water Framework Directive in Scotland: A Personal View

The Water Framework Directive was implemented in December 2000 and has to be transposed into Scottish legislation by 2003. The Directive provides a major opportunity to enhance the water environment of Scotland and to improve its management through the implementation of river-basin management planning with stakeholder and public engagement and the delivery of a programme of environmental-improvement measures to deliver good ecological status. Whilst the Directive provides unparalleled opportunities, there are significant challenges to its successful implementation in Scotland, where a step-change in managing the water environment will be required. This paper explores some of the challenges which include technical aspects, scale and timing issues, and capacity limitations.     

Thoughts on Synergetic Development of Watershed Management and Regional Economy

Zhu Qingping, the interviewee, is a prominent expert in China’s watershed management. Starting with the modes of China’s watershed management and the changes of water management philosophy, Zhu emphasizes that watershed management often involves various factors, including public resources, infrastructure construction, ecosystems, historical and cultural traditions, and population, all of which shall be taken into consideration as a whole. The interview then goes to the management of the Yellow River Basin, where Zhu explains the impacts between river flows and urban development, suggests a great opportunity for development the cities in the lower reaches of Yellow River Basin have, and proposes an idea of building a national ecological and cultural belt along the river. He further argues that watershed management requires collaborations across industries, disciplines, and administrative regions and divisions. He also believes that public engagement and maintenance plays an important role in watershed management and an intelligent water / watershed management system needs to be established by networking integrated big-data platforms to facilitate a more intelligent and coordinated water resource management while better ensuring water security at varied scales.     

面向气候变化的绿色雨水基础设施设计——来自欧洲北部的经验

【目的】世界各国城市都面临着众多可能因气候变化而加剧的水问题。【方法/过程】聚焦丹麦、英国、荷兰3个受气候变化（尤其是洪水）强烈影响的欧洲北部国家,重点分析4个不同空间尺度的绿色雨水基础设施（green stormwater infrastructure, GSI）项目。这些项目是应对未来城市自然灾害和宜居性挑战的韧性解决方案的典范。之所以选择这些项目,是因为它们具有独特的创新性：如将主要机动车交通走廊更新为宜居、可步行的街区,在区域尺度创建多功能GSI以提供社会福利,利用分层种植、密集种植和生态美学的力量来产生生态系统服务等。【结果/结论】除分析项目设计外,进一步讨论促成这些项目实施及提升的关键因素,以及建成后提升公众认同和环境社会效益的关键因素。这些因素包括：对宜居性的重视、将城市更新和气候适应相结合的设计方法、跨机构合作、多重资金来源的利用,以及以扎实的公众参与获得对城市气候适应举措的支持。     

基于“第三场所”理论的居住小区空间组织研究

第三场所是具有积极社会性意义的社区公共空间,以第三场所理论为基础,从居住小区的基础理论"邻里单位"、城市居住区规划设计规范和小区案例3个层面,分析社区公共空间的可达性、社区设施的多样性以及居民的参与互动性,探讨基于社会性内涵的居住小区空间组织模式。