Housing and the Material Imagination – Earth,Fire, Air and Water

This paper focuses on the possibilities of the material imagination as a theoretical and practical lens for contemporary housing research. The emphasis is on housing/home as complex material cultural assemblages interwoven across the four key ancient elements: earth, air, fire and water. The principle behind the material imagination is that “matter” – which we are immersed in and indeed ourselves composed of – is important, indeed underpins everything, and yet is typically rendered invisible within housing theory and research. As a critical response to social scientific engagement – “a needed radical corrective” – the potential of the material imagination for housing theory and practice is considered in ways that purposively attend to the elemental dimensions of housing as dynamic, fluid environments comprised of living matter. Suggestions for taking this approach forward through empirical housing studies are outlined.     

On the Scale,Structure and Development Strategy

An important part of the developmentand policies strategy for the cities and townsis to determine the scale and structure of cit-ies and towns that suit the Chinese condi-tions.At present,city planners hold com-pletely different views over the development     

Corporate Capital and the Techniques of Modernity—Problems in the Mass Production of Space,Image, and Experience

This article seeks to accomplish two tasks. The first is to employ a materialist approach to the study of architecture that emphasizes the nature of practice as a set of techniques within history, rather than emphasizing the form of the finished work. The second task is to study the implications of the corporate franchise for the practice of architecture and for the landscape and to argue that this particular device has participated in the establishment of a new category of architectural production, that is, a mass production of architecture. The article also suggests that such mass production has created a new physical context—accessible networks of accommodation—that serves to fulfill a vision of the United States as a complex, integrated market.     

‘Race’, Deprivation and the Research Agenda: Revisiting Housing,Ethnicity and Neighbourhoods

Building on a general account of recent changes and on local case study material, this paper develops an overview of contemporary issues in the interconnected research domains of UK ethnic relations, disadvantage and housing neighbourhoods. It aims to contribute to some rethinking of ethnic disadvantage and discrimination within analytical frameworks, while looking towards more defensible research strategies. Matters referred to in our overview of change include regulatory developments, diversities within and between settled minority ethnic groups, changed patterns of in-migration, disadvantage amongst low-income white households and convergence between ethnic groups in internal socio-economic differentiation. A West Midlands case study used to complement this broad coverage provides reminders of shared problems across ethnic boundaries, and of the merits of caution when hypothesising causative links between deprivation and ethnicity in disadvantaged areas. The section ‘Towards Better Research Practice?’ discusses research approaches and priorities, suggesting that it may be useful to revisit the ‘traditional repertoire’ deployed in the UK ethnic relations and housing.     

CIAM and the Communist Bloc, 1928–59

Despite a widespread perception of close linkages between CIAM (the International Congresses of Modern Architecture) and Soviet housing and planning, there was in fact very little direct overlap between the two after 1933. Although CIAM concepts of housing and urbanism were closely related to mostly theoretical developments in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s and early 1930s, by the time the Soviet ‘Communist Bloc’ came into existence in the late 1940s, CIAM and other examples of Western avant-gardism had long been officially proscribed by the Soviet authorities. In that era of Stalinist ‘Socialist Realism’, various forms of modernised neoclassical planning became the official direction instead. After 1954, when Stalin's death and his successor Nikita Khrushchev's subsequent repudiation of Socialist Realism again made modernism possible in the USSR, Soviet architects began to build in a Western functionalist way, but without any involvement by CIAM architects. With a few exceptions, the same was largely true in Eastern Europe down to the end of the Communist Bloc there in 1989. So the topic is a paradoxical one: social and architectural ideas that were fused together in the 1920s, leading to CIAM's ultimately unsuccessful effort to hold its Fourth Congress in Moscow in 1933, followed different paths thereafter. This article examines these parallel but separate trajectories in more detail.     

The Industrial Heritage and the New Architecture： Teaching, Researching, Designing the Place Identity

The new architecture may provide unusual opportunities for the abandoned areas involved by former industrial processes, both in the city centers and in the landscape. In fact, it may create new centralities and give new collective function for deprived areas. The case study of the architectural and educational project for a new museum park devoted to the technique and the science in the Apennine＇ s landscape near Parma （Italy） may give an interesting point of view about the role of the teaching and the research of the architecture in the former industrial heritage, and to avoid the abandonment and the pauperization of the territory around.     

Entangled Landscapes and the ‘Dead Silence’? Humphry Repton,Jane Austen and the Upchers of Sheringham Park,Norfolk

This paper explores two aspects of designed landscapes in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries that are often neglected—first, the importance derived from intersecting (auto)biographies of designers and patrons; and second, how they relate to global social, economic and political networks. Sheringham Park, Norfolk, reveals the significance of the relationship between the designer, Humphry Repton, the patron and his wife within their respective (auto)biographies. It is positioned alongside Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (1814), its exact contemporary, to draw out relationships between the principle actors and the wider colonial world. The paper will therefore address questions about the role of designed landscapes in personal and historical narratives, and in particular, their position within the international issue of colonialism.     

and the problems

in application of the distributed optical fiber sensors based on optical time domain reflectometer(OTDR,BOTDR,ROTDR) are summerized.At the same time,the measuring precision and measuring range of th     

The palace,the city and the past: controversies surrounding the rebuilding of the Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, 1990–2010

In step with economic and political growth, the Korean government is in the process of restoring the main palace, the Gyeongbok Palace, of the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), which was destroyed by the Japanese during the colonial era (1910–1945). The ensuing public debate regarding the method and extent of the restoration has brought to the fore the significance such a project carries in Korean society of the twenty‐first century. The restoration of this palace complex has created a number of controversies relating to history and the built environment, urban morphology and national identity. Questions about historical authenticity, both in terms of what has happened to the site since the palace was destroyed and the best means of restoring it; questions about the historical origins of Seoul and the need to restore the palace to make its role in this clear; questions about the methods and materials of restoration, are all matters of debate. There are also cultural and political issues: the role of the built environment in aiding public education; sustaining a sense of national identity; encouraging the development of traditional craftsmen’s techniques for public benefit; bolstering self‐confidence for national progress and expanding the infrastructure for the Korean tourism industry. This paper argues that not only is the physical restoration of the ‘new’ historic buildings and structures important, but also the cultural and social meanings (as outlined above), and that these justify the controversial restoration of the national historic monument.     

Rise,Growth and Evolution of the Chinese Urban System

The paper explores the rise,historical growth and evolution of the Chinese urban sys-tem in its spatial context and the implication of these characteristics for the spatial distri-bution of cities and economic activity,the pattern of interaction,and the processes ofgrowth and change.The growth of modern city links with its development history,geographical condi-tions,economic basis and political systems of a country.There has been rapidurbanization in China during the last several decades,as in other developing countries.The purpose of this paper is to review the rise.growth,evolution and development ofChinese urban system in the time-spatial context.First,when did the initial cities emerge?Second,when did the Chinese urban system rise? Third,how did the urban system growand evolute?     

Introduction to a special issue: the future of landscape characterisation,and the future character of landscape – between space,time, history,place and nature

Abstract

In any discussion of landscape characterisation the elephant in the room is the question of just what is landscape? Another way of putting this question is to simply ask: ‘How would you characterise landscape?’ What this implies is that there is a certain circularity in landscape characterisation because, through the very act of characterising landscape, one is also defining what one means by landscape. The European Landscape Convention’s definition of landscape as ‘an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors’ suggests a similar circularity because the character of an area, as it results from the action of natural and/or human factors, is dependent upon human perception, which is presumably also, in addition, one of the human factors acting upon the landscape. This circularity, or ‘circulating reference’, to use Bruno Latour’s term, is fundamental to Denis Cosgrove’s analysis of the origin of the modern concept of landscape as scenic space, and his analysis, we would suggest, helps explain some of the questions raised in this special issue concerning landscape characterisation and the future character of landscape .     

“Glamourized Houses”: Neutra,Photography, and the Kaufmann House

The current debate on reproduction and architectural publication has established new terms for the examination of architectural photographs. No longer treated simply as a species of architectural documentation—such as renderings or plans—photographs of building are acknowledged as sharing in the cultural power of the photographic medium and must consequently be examined as a form of social production. The publication of Richard Neutra's 1946 Kaufmann house reveals the power of the print media in the establishment of an architectural canon; moreover, Neutra's habit of reworking photographs of his built designs suggests the appropriateness of reexamining his contribution to the legacy of involving photography and the media in the architectural process.     

Pleasure,Politics, and the “Public Interest”: Melbourne's Riverscape Revitalization

As global forces have reshaped urban landscapes over the past 2 decades, cities have typically responded with a range of “spectacular” developments, the most common of which have been waterfront projects. In this article we describe the transformation of Melbourne's urban riverscape from an industrial junkyard into a postindustrial “landscape of desire.” A primary concern is identifying winners and losers in this restructuring. To this end, we resurrect and redefine the concept of the public interest. In Melbourne, the production of signature projects geared to global place marketing coincided with a collapse of democratic public planning. Urban development became design driven, more seductive, and more secretive. Urban planning practice was restructured along with the urban landscape.     

Showcasing Vällingby to the world: post-war suburban development,informational infrastructures,and the extrospective city

Vällingby – one of the first post-war suburbs in Stockholm – became a well-known and much visited development, a prominent place in the geographical imaginations of many planners and architects during the 1950s and 1960s. This article will consider the ways in which Vällingby was ‘showcased’ to planners and architects outside of Sweden during this period. It will demonstrate how this was achieved through three practices in particular: (1) the hosting of visitors to Vällingby; (2) the promotion of Vällingby by those governing and marketing the development; and (3) the reporting of the development in English language planning and architect journals. In so doing, the article will speak to the academic literature on policy mobilities and two important concepts within it: informational infrastructures and the extrospective city.     

‘London particular’: the city,its atmosphere and the visibility of its objects

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the smoke-filled atmospheres of London and other industrial cities were the subject of aesthetic, scientific and legal inquiry. Reconstructing the conjunction of such inquiries in a pivotal architectural episode—the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament—reveals an important transformation in the understanding of the relationship between a city and its architectural objects. Where it once seemed possible to regard these objects (and their architects) as independent, discrete participants in the larger material and administrative domains of the city, the expanding knowledge and judgements of the atmosphere and its effects produced an entirely different perception. The city and its architectural objects were co-extensive, involuntary participants in an encompassing process of change registered by two newly recognised categories: decay and maintenance.     

Mind the gap: the UK’s new planning system,landscape conservation and biodiversity

Maintaining biodiversity and natural habitat are essential to achieving sustainable development. The UK’s Planning Policy Statement on ‘Biodiversity and Geological Conservation’ (known as PPS 9) and the ‘South East Plan’ emphasise the need to avoid a net loss in biodiversity, with Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) enjoined to pursue ecologically sensitive options. Our research revealed serious problems hampering the local planning authorities’ efforts to incorporate whole‐landscape scale planning into Local Development Frameworks (LDFs). These are required under the new ‘Spatial Planning’ framework, enacted in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, and the Planning Act 2008.