The myth of informal place-making: stitching and unstitching Atarim Square in Tel Aviv

The metaphor of stitching/unstitching can be applied to the mechanism employed by authorities, professionals and users alike—each for a different purpose and under different circumstances—for appropriating the urban space. It views the urban space as a socio-political arena that involves ongoing negotiation. The metaphor is used in this paper to debate some basic premises of architectural discourse of the everyday. Analysis of Atarim Square on Tel Aviv's shoreline—focusing on three periods: the 1930s, 1960s and the 1990s—reveals ongoing and often simultaneous processes of ‘stitching and unstitching’. The key contention here is that formal (official and professional) spatial processes are not necessarily limiting, just as informal processes (personal and communal) are not always liberating, and that both are endemic to the socio-political construct of the everyday.     

Zagreb

Urban planning, renewal and their actors are always closely connected with the sociopolitical changes and therefore the transitional post-socialist Croatia provides an interesting context for the analysis of spatial changes. This paper is a comparative study of urban transformations in Croatia (the City of Zagreb) in three important time periods: (a) socialism in the 1970s and the 1980s, (b) period during and immediately after the Homeland War and the beginning of transition from 1990 to 2000 and (c) period since 2000 and the acceleration of processes which started in the previous period. These periods of time have been chosen because of major changes in the socio-political system and consequently in spatial planning and management. Also in each of them we can observe the changing power of different types of actors and the appearance of new actors. The main aspects of urban planning are determined as well as the power of various urban actors throughout each period. Since 1990 and especially since 2000 urban planning has been given little attention in Zagreb resulting in the disappearance of system or method and thus in sporadic, random building.     

Toward equitable urban water supply and sanitation in Dar es Salaam: The dialectic relationship between policy-driven and everyday practices

Many cities in the Global South continue to struggle with providing services with increasing inequalities in the distribution of and access to safe drinking water. For lower-income inhabitants, access changes over time and is shaped by the interplay between practices driven by policy and the range of diverse everyday practices in low-income areas. Existing practices are entangled with the evolution of the natural and built environment in which human-nature interactions are continuously negotiated in situ and over time through different infrastructure and service configurations that can alter water flows, social relations, and practices. Focusing on the case of Dar es Salaam, this paper examines policy-driven practices by the utility (and other key players in formal service provision) and their interaction with everyday practices to spell out implications for urban (in)equality.The paper draws on research grounded in a normative perspective based on principles of environmental justice, emphasising agency-structure debates and intersectionality scholarship. The approach enables a critical multi-scalar analysis that reveals differential abilities and vulnerabilities among poor women and men toward enabling and restraining structural processes and conditions, whereby time, space and socio-environmental relations intersect with and influence infrastructural and service configurations and vice versa. Findings confirm a dialectic relationship between policy-driven and everyday practices with multiple examples where practices reproduce, reinforce, or distort existing inequalities. However, the findings further show instances of more transformative practices that challenge unjust processes and outcomes toward more equitable service provision.     

信息流介入公共空间活力营造——基于城市公园的大数据循证分析

【目的】基于多源城市大数据,探寻信息流与公共空间活力的关系。【方法】以深圳市125个城市公园及其用户生成内容（user generated content, UGC）为例,在控制区位特征、可达性、公共空间特征后,量化信息流对公共空间活力的影响。【结果】研究发现：信息流对空间活力具有显著的积极效应;信息流的不同变量（评分、情绪值、曝光度）与信息流类型对空间活力效应具有显著差异。【结论】研究结果证实了信息流的显著效应及其异质性,为公共空间的活力营造提供定量数据支撑与策略。通过分析信息流介入活力营造的现象与机制,进一步反思人、技术与城市的关系,以重新理解公共空间活力营造的当代性。     

日常公共空间——公共空间的终结与重生

根据美国学者迈克尔·索金提出的＂公共空间的终结＂这一问题,从公共空间的历史及现存状况进行分析,认为由于政治的隔绝与全球化资本侵蚀,致使（经规划设计的正规性）公共空间不断衰落甚至面临着终结。但与此相对的是在日常生活中,人们根据个人需求不断建构的属于自己的公共空间——日常公共空间,而且这种日常公共空间已经成为都市公共空间的一个重要补充,并重新让公共空间焕发了生机。     

Situating Fortaleza: Urban space and uneven development in northeastern Brazil

The academic literature on Brazilian cities focuses overwhelmingly upon the metropolises of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. While fruitful in its own right, this research confronts scholars of Latin American cities elsewhere with two ongoing limitations: (1) Despite estimates that nearly one quarter of Brazil’s urban population inhabits the conurbation of Rio and São Paulo, at least 75% of urban space in Brazil, an area populated by roughly 120 million people, is consistently overlooked; and (2) the findings from these two megacities are often (and unfairly) extrapolated across other urban contexts in Brazil, perpetuating lingering misgivings about the overall ‘nature’ of Brazilian cities.In this paper, I consider the Northeast of Brazil, drawing upon my own research from the favela (slum) community of Pirambu, located in the city of Fortaleza, to help understand urban development outside of the Rio/São Paulo corridor. By considering historical circumstances, geographic specificity, theoretical implications, and the course of Brazilian development, I highlight informal urban growth in an oft-overlooked region of Latin America while, at the same time, revealing many of the geographic attributes that give Rio and São Paulo their truly exceptional character. My goal in this work is not to refute the work of others, but rather to underscore the importance of geographic context to socio-spatial processes of urban development.     

Resilient cities: meaning, models, and metaphor for integrating the ecological, socio-economic, and planning realms

Urban designers, ecologists, and social scientists have called for closer links among their disciplines. We examine a promising new tool for promoting this linkage—the metaphor of “cities of resilience.” To put this tool to best use, we indicate how metaphor fits with other conceptual tools in science. We then present the two opposing definitions of resilience from ecology, and give reasons why one is more appropriate for linking with design. Additional specific tools and insights that are emerging from, or being increasingly used in, ecology can further support the linkage with urban design. These include recognizing the role of spatial heterogeneity in both ecological and social functioning of urban areas, the integrating power of watersheds, social and ecological patch dynamics of cities, the utility of spatial mosaic models to capture function, the use of an integrated “human ecosystem” modeling framework, and the consequent perspective of metropolitan areas as integrated ecological-social systems. Three additional tools are related to the adaptability of people and human institutions. First is the recognition of a “learning loop” in metropolitan ecosystems in which people respond to and affect ecological change, the use of urban design as experiments whose ecological and social outcomes can be measured, and finally the potency of a dialog between professionals and citizens, communities, and institutions, to support both research and design. The metaphor of resilience, and its technical specifications, draw these diverse strands for linking ecology and planning together.     

上海城市绿地土壤肥力变化分析

城市绿地土壤是城市生态建设的基础,其质量和变化趋势直接影响城市绿地生态和景观效应。以2002、2014和2018年3次大规模的上海绿地土壤调查为基础,研究不同城市绿地土壤肥力的变化特征,旨在为城市绿地土壤的养分管理提供科学指导。结果表明:上海城市绿地土壤呈碱性,2002、2014和2018年土壤pH平均值分别为8.36、8.20和7.79;土壤速效养分(N、P、K)充足,3次取样均达到绿化种植土标准;土壤通气孔隙度较小,3次取样均小于绿化种植土标准阈值(5%)。从时间变化趋势上看,上海城市绿地土壤pH值在逐渐降低,土壤有机质含量在逐渐提高,土壤肥力综合指数也在逐渐提升;但土壤物理性质逐渐退化,容重逐渐增加,通气孔隙度逐渐变小。不同类型绿地间土壤肥力的变化趋势基本一致,其中受人为活动影响剧烈的附属道路绿地土壤容重和通气孔隙度自2002年起严重退化,与2018年无显著差异。     

Underrated transformations in the open space—The case of an urbanized and multifunctional area

The open space in Flanders is subjected to different transformation processes. These processes are related to dynamic interactions within an urbanizing society and to competition for space by an increasing number of functions. Despite the acknowledgement of dynamic land use demands, the current categorizations of land use and land cover are not always able to catch transformations related to e.g. newcomers in land use, ecosystem services and multifunctionality in mixed urban–rural areas. Remote sensing tools and census data are insufficient when studying a complex and intensively used space. This research therefore aims to identify underrated transformations in the study area Flanders (the northern part of Belgium) using two main sources: (i) open expert interviews and (ii) three case studies. The interviews serve to formulate a renewed framework that can be used to describe transformations in the open space. The transformation processes that emerge from the interviews and case studies are compared to those defined and recognized in the current spatial planning policy and in existing monitoring data, in order to identify bottlenecks and options for future spatial planning policy. The major conclusions of this paper are (i) a critical view on the analysis and categorization of functions and open space as it is currently practiced in land use monitoring and land use planning programs, (ii) additional data needs to encompass transformation processes in the open space and (iii) the need for a more integral vision for open space.     

Thermal modernity and architecture

This paper develops the concept of thermal modernity in order to offer a more detailed understanding of air conditioning and the historical role it has played in transforming urban and built space. An analysis oriented by the insights of Science and Technology Studies stresses how the international ascendancy of air conditioning has been contingent upon certain socio-political forces and cultural changes that occur at the local level. The productive example of Singapore—often referred to as the ‘air-conditioned’ nation—is given to reveal the entanglements between indoor comfort provision, economic development and post-colonial nation-building. At a broader level, the paper points towards the importance of understanding air conditioning's impact on the spread of international modernism in analytically expansive ways, such that we can more fully appreciate how it has acted to remodel the built environment at different scales and reconfigure indoor and outdoor relationships.     

Trial and error in urban restructuring processes: learning from Dutch experiences

In the last few decades, new governance processes have been put in place throughout the Western world. In practice, unfortunately, cooperation in the networks does not always work as expected. In this paper, we identify the factors that contribute to success and failure with respect to network working in urban restructuring and the lessons that can be learnt. A Dutch case study exemplifies these processes. The perceptions of local stakeholders about satisfying or dissatisfying processes and results were used to elicit the information. Our main conclusion is that changed institutional conditions affecting the local authorities and housing associations and economic developments strongly intervene in the processes. Consequently, the functioning of a network cannot be explained by the quality of network management alone. These findings indicate that there is a gap between the suggested importance of the instruments in network theory and their relative usefulness in everyday practice. Dealing with all kinds of constraints in the management of networks will be an ongoing process of trial and error.     

City as Wilderness: The Wilderness Metaphor from Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl to Contemporary Urban Designers

In this text we take a closer look at the development of the wilderness metaphor of the Zwischenstadt, that is, fragmented urban landscapes in Germany. We trace the metaphor's meanings back to its origins in the conservative cultural criticism of Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl of the mid-nineteenth century and analyse the different meanings of ‘wilderness’ in today's urban and landscape planners’ positions. Our aim is to demonstrate that the meanings of the concept of wilderness, as well as those of city and cultural landscape, differ depending on the context in which they appear. We point out that different values can be attached to each individual meaning. These evaluations depend on cultural and political patterns and on one's own world view. We apply the insights thus gained to identify three different types of design strategy for the Zwischenstadt used by urban and landscape designers.     

The shifting spaces of creativity in Hong Kong

This paper focuses on the development of Hong Kong's cultural economy and its translation into urban space. On the one hand it focuses on recent economic development and planning strategies to develop a post-colonial identity based on the international cachet of attracting creative industries. On the other hand, it considers the development of grassroots initiatives that herald the potential articulation of Hong Kong as a culturally dense global city. These grassroots initiatives are analyzed from the perspective of their problematic relationship with urban space, and how urban planning both supports and hinders cultural development. The paper argues that top-down planning is in large part catalytic, yet at the same time can run counter to the development of genuine artistic expression. It stresses the importance of ‘middleground’ actors in facilitating the development of spaces for artistic creation, particularly in their productive interlocking with different forms of artistic expression and public policy initiatives. The middleground can be conceived of as a relational space produced by various processes, actors and structures operating at different scales between institutional actors and the interests of ‘underground’ creativity. The article concludes by problematizing the role of middleground actors and underlines the value of ‘unpacking’ the middleground in order to account for the contested and negotiated processes it embodies. Renewed attention to these processes will contribute to enhancing the development of sites of artistic expression in Hong Kong and other emergent contemporary contexts.     

When the railway reached Istanbul: the making of Sirkeci terminus, 1870–1888

Since its establishment as a capital city, the historical topography of Istanbul has witnessed significant changes, created not only by devastating earthquakes and fires, but also by the implementation of large-scale imperial projects. In the existing literature, the transformation of Istanbul’s urban area in the nineteenth century has largely explored the topics of new urban regulations, institutions and their implication after the Tanzimat (reform) decree of 1839. This article aims to explore a lesser-known dimension of nineteenth-century developments of the city: the extension of the railway into the heart of Istanbul’s historical peninsula, and the spatial change around the Sirkeci district due to the physical expansion of the terminus area. The construction of a larger terminus (inaugurated in 1890) is relatively well documented in architectural history, yet developments prior to this monumental construction have been less explored so far. Thus, this article also aims to investigate the project’s development and implementation phases in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the city witnessed continuous urban reformation processes by focusing on the intertwined relations of different agents in the urban space.     

重塑城市公园开放性——“开放街区化”的理念和启示

研究公园开放的内涵区别于管理开放的研究视角,依据城市空间密度变化和市民步行需求变化,从城市步行空间视角,反思通过管理手段开放的收费公园在空间状态上并未真正开放的现实问题,问题的出现在于收费管理模式引致的空间模式滞后。以公园城市为理念指导、开放街区化为技术路径,鉴别城市中心公园在城市步行网络中现有状态与应承角色之间的差异。多尺度比较传统公园模式与"开放街区"尺度的不协调性,理清传统公园空间模式向开放公园空间模式的转变途径,提出以外部城市空间步行肌理重塑内部公园交通,构建公园空间开放度评价体系(PSOA法)量化开放程度,以期定量描述空间的开放状态,改善并解决空间的开放问题,更好地应对城市中心地区的空间变化需求,服务城市步行体系,实现以人为本的公园空间和管理的双重开放。     

The logic of design: its role in understanding the antecedents of urban informality

ABSTRACT

The everyday life of a city can generate informality in urban space, particularly in emerging economies. Using the grounded theory approach, this paper looks at how urban space in a market precinct is negotiated through tactics of street vendors and strategies of the government. It draws upon Herbert Simon’s work on decision making to show how a vendor moves from an existing situation to a preferred situation and terms this as situation satisfaction. It suggests a theoretical framework to understand the relation between the logic, decision and action of stakeholders to resolve the conflict between planning criteria and ground reality.     

An approach for simulating the street spatial patterns

The form of the urban fabric plays an important role in urban morphology which not only expresses the city’s overall morphological features, but also describes the relationships between buildings and plots, which are called patterns. The majority of morphological studies have focused on the street network pattern, the plot pattern and the building pattern or typology. In the other hand, the form of the urban fabric also reflects the city’s space character, such as street spatial outline, visual variety, and spatial typologies, which are directly related to the quality of urban space. Although these characters influence the urban design decision-taking, the current research has not reached an effective level. With a special focus on potentials for urban design, this paper proposes an account of how building position affects the street spatial pattern. Based on the viewshed analysis in GIS, the variance between the form of the urban fabric and the street viewshed pattern could be measured. The study samples were 600 meters square samples of urban fabric image selected from different cities of Europe, America, and China. This paper proposes a new kind of pattern: street spatial related line (SSRL) pattern. Through viewshed simulating it shows that there is a strong relationship between SSRL pattern and street spatial configuration, and that visual statistical diagrams could indicate the street spatial characters.     

权力视角下的城市空间资源配置研究

空间是权力的隐喻和象征,空间的塑造遵循着权力的逻辑.城市空间资源的配置不仅是计划调控或市场调节的过程,更是一个权力运作的过程.我国当前的城市空间资源配置虽以代议制民主的权力格局和日趋成熟的法团主义权力格局为主体,但仍存在着公共利益难以表达、公共空间被异化,以及城市规划成为支配性权力组织用以维护和扩大其利益的工具等问题.     

Practices of collective action and solidarity: reconfigurations of the public space in crisis-ridden Athens,Greece

The multifaceted crisis that has hit Greece in the past years has had severe consequences on people’s everyday lives. In an attempt to cope with, and also resist dramatic changes in lifestyles, incomes and welfare, several initiatives have sprung up all over the country at many different scales, with diverse targets, varying actors and outcomes. Many people have abandoned their privacy to participate in public actions of solidarity, in initiatives that often involve new or alternative uses of urban space. It seems that practices of solidarity and claims around material spaces are becoming an important “laboratory” for shaping a different public sphere. The paper aimed to reflect on the ways in which such practices and claims arise and develop; how different types of rights and forms of doing politics are enacted in situations of crisis and deprivation; and finally how such practices reconfigure public space. We draw from relevant examples of initiatives in Athens, in order to discuss acts of coping and resistance and to reflect on the extent to which the concept of social innovation may provide fruitful insights into our discussion.     

Sidewalk Informality: An Examination of Street Vending Regulation in China

Street vending represents a vital and growing aspect of the urban informal economy that is often the subject of municipal regulatory efforts that seek to control, confine or extinguish it. In the People's Republic of China, recent developments and discussions on vendor rights and regulation underscore important socio-political and economic changes and concerns around the role of the informal economy in this country. As more of China's rural poor enter urban areas and turn to the streets to survive, the number of unlicensed vendors has risen and municipal efforts at increased regulation and enforcement of street vending licensure have been enacted. These developments within the context of China's ‘state-capitalist economy’ provide a fertile field for research into the informal economy, use and re-appropriation of public space, and regulation of a previously marginalized commercial activity. This paper draws from primary and secondary sources to provide an overview of street vending in China and consider the implications of recent regulatory developments and public dialogue that strive to formalize the informal.