‘Resistance was futile!’ Cycling’s discourses of resistance to UK automobile modernism 1950–1970

This paper investigates the place of utility cycling (cycling as a means of transport rather than as a sport or leisure activity) under urban modernism in the UK. In many western contexts the dominant feature of urban modernism was its emphasis on accommodating private vehicles to the neglect of other forms of mobility. The result was the production of a ‘car-system’ with significant change to urban and rural environments. This paper assesses resistance to what we term ‘automobile modernism’ during the high watermark of its planning and implementation (1950–1970), using the UK Cyclists’ Touring Club (now known as Cycling UK) archive. We make three contributions. First, and primarily, we highlight how cycling advocacy contested automobile modernism’s claim that cycling was ‘outmoded’. In so doing we note significant continuity in policy debates and political advocacy regarding cycling’s place in the road environment around issues such as segregation from motor vehicles. Contemporary attempts to promote cycling, as well as a wider urban sustainability agenda, are heavily influenced by this history. Second, we highlight a commonality between cycling and other resistance to automobile modernism in terms of rural and urban landscape impacts. Third, we highlight how the CTC ‘professionalized’ its advocacy to resist automobile modernism.     

Planning in the Ethno-culturally Diverse City: A Comment

This article examines how major retailers, in their attempts to secure sites for very large stores (over 7000 m2 sales area), have had to adopt new strategies in order to overcome resistance from local authority and central government retail planning policy. These strategies include recycling of old retail developments with ‘open A1 consent’, participation in urban regeneration projects and development or redevelopment of ‘district shopping centres’ in urban areas. Discussion of these strategies reveals weaknesses and inconsistencies in retail planning policy in the UK.     

Obstacles facing the diffusion of drip irrigation technology in the Middle Atlas region of Morocco

We examined how the background (urban/rural) of 282 tertiary students influenced their attitudes and actions including their use of natural areas. Most considered that protection of natural spaces was ‘important’. Childhood residence influenced time spent in natural areas as young adults. When time spent in natural spaces was compared with residence status, non‐urban dwellers more frequently visited natural areas than urban dwellers. Rural residents who visited natural spaces were likely to visit more frequently than urban dwellers. The different types of passive recreation carried out in natural spaces and whether the student was involved in environmental restoration activities were not matters influenced by residence status, although there was a difference as between passive or active recreation in natural spaces. Over 80% of participants considered that ‘protection of the natural environment’ was more important than the cost of fresh produce, reduced taxes, fuel prices or ‘better use of recycled material’.     

The real estate ‘tsunami’ in Spain: the administration of urban growth in the case of Arroyo de la Encomienda and Valladolid,Spain

The ‘Bilbao effect’ was a key argument in the debate over Oslo's new opera house, set to open this spring. Geographer Marius Hofseth presents Norway's largest urban development project in light of political debates on the role of culture in urban development.     

The urban nature of agriculture: Bidirectional trends between city and countryside

The paper presents a wide range of images, contexts and issues related to contemporary forms of urban–rural interface. The urban and rural environments come in contact in various ways, generating patterns with hybrid identities which can be read both on a regional scale (in those cases where cities merge to form megapolitan conurbations), on an urban scale (suburbs of the cities), on a settlement scale (city quarters, farmyards and farmsteads), and even with regards to single buildings. This creates manifold diversified configurations of interface spaces, showing seemingly opposite trends. This work focuses on these bidirectional trends, which are discussed by means of a selection of different concepts, images, projects and experiences, within the international context. On the one hand, an increasing number of projects insert what is commonly associated with the idea of countryside into the cities: urban agriculture, mainly located in periurban open spaces, but in some cases even within the built system through various forms of integration with the building envelope, in line with a growing sensitivity about the need to conceive ways of virtuous relationship between food production, consumption and environment. On the other hand, town planning in many cases “ejects” the spaces for business and leisure, locating shopping malls, entertainment and (agri)tourism centres within the countryside. Moreover, typical rural spaces and activities (farms, farm holidays, wine farms, etc.) often refer to urban styles, due to poor design attention, or rather to marketing strategies aimed at enhancing the farm image. Thus, settlements located in rural areas show markedly increasing urban characteristics, with regards to their built environment, open spaces, and outdoor furniture. Whilst many scholars and designers have focused on reinterpreting the agricultural functions when these are inserted in urban architecture and built areas, further interdisciplinary work is needed to analyse how urban functions can be brought into the countryside and improve the quality of rural settlements.     

Conference Bibliography

This paper looks at Jacques Tati's 1967 film ‘Playtime’ and its constructed city set on the periphery of Paris as an example of the negotiation of urban space and its prescribed ‘instructions for use‘. It explores this city of façades and choreographed subversions in relation to Rem Koolhaas’s ‘Junkspace’. Linked through their interaction with and comment on the changing Parisian landscape of the 1960s the paper then goes on to look at the development of the Centre Pompidou, and the American artist, Gordon Matta-Clark’s intervention on the site of its construction. Tati's film ‘Playtime’ was originally entitled ‘Re-creation’ and the notion of recreation permeates the case studies used, this paper and further research—finding and creating alternative spaces of play, a world apart from the allocated ‘Leisure spaces’ and ‘recreational facilities’ of an expanding Junkspace.     

Towards garden city wonderlands: new town planning in 1950s Taiwan

This article explores the historical context, process and result of introducing and implementing ‘new’ town planning in early post‐war Taiwan. The two so‐called ‘garden cities’ are examined: Jhong‐Sing New Village and Yonghe City, both of which were formulated in the mid‐1950s by the same group of local planners. It reveals that the assumed necessity of importing Western planning paradigms arose from the abrupt escalation of urban concentration caused by the late 1940s mass migrations from China. To cope with this unprecedented population growth, planning profession was swiftly established. The novice planners, in search of a reference for developing ‘new’ towns to decentralise excessive urbanisation, modelled their ‘new’ town planning on English suburban morphology. In the absence of an input of external expertise, the planners appeared to mistake aesthetic order and pastoral imagery of low‐density residential development in England as practically viable solutions to the pressing urban problems in Taiwan. In a false hope that adopting Western ideas and practices would quickly lead the island to a better world, Taiwan initiated the importation of planning paradigms. This planning transfer not only evidently manifests a mode of ‘borrowing’ in post‐colonial countries in international diffusion but also re‐articulates the disseminating nature of modern planning and the existence of one‐direction flows characterising the global dynamics of diffusion in the twentieth century.     

国内外城市绿地游憩制约研究进展与启示

虽然城市绿地是广受欢迎的城市游憩空间,但是现实中不愿参与、不能参与绿地游憩活动的现象仍客观存在,这反映出城市绿地游憩存在制约因素。目前有关城市绿地游憩制约的分析多分散于各类城市绿地研究中,尚未进行系统性综述。在梳理国内外城市绿地游憩制约文献的基础上,介绍绿地游憩制约的国内外研究现状以及发展经历,对绿地游憩制约影响因素、游憩制约强度序列、游憩制约机制、不同人群面临的绿地游憩制约和游憩制约改善途径5个方面进行分类归纳。随着休闲时间深夜化、加班常态化、长距离通勤以及新冠肺炎疫情期间居家办公等新的生活方式的兴起,城市居民开展绿地游憩活动将面临"时间不巧,供需错配"等多维制约,仅用绿地可达性已经不能解释"邻绿无暇、有暇无伴"等新的绿地游憩制约现象,今后应当尝试将绿地游憩制约多维性嵌入到城市绿地游憩规划实践当中,构建城市绿地游憩研究的综合范式。     

Kieran Timberlake Associates

Nothing about the beautifully detailed buildings that Steven Kieran, James Timberlake and their colleagues are creating, mostly for schools and colleges, suggests that they have a radical agenda. There are no crazy shapes, dayglo colours or other attention-grabbing devices in them. But what these architects are doing in their built work, research and teaching attempts no less than to change the way that buildings are made. Jayne Merkel explains how they are expanding the architect's sphere beyond mere ‘design’ to become ‘master builders’ of a uniquely 21st-century kind - developing new materials and ways to save energy, and introducing methods of collaboration and fabrication drawn from the automobile, aeroplane and shipbuilding industries. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Historical continuity and post‐1945 urban redevelopment: the example of Lee Bank,Birmingham, UK

The reconstruction of British cities following World War II is characterized by a marked gap between the rhetoric and the reality. Visions for ideal cities, in particular those growing out of the modern movement in architecture, were diluted and warped by the ‘messy’ business of reconstructing actual cities, filled with real people whilst operating within democratic structures. This paper examines elements of this confrontation of the ideal and the real, by looking at the context for changes to the urban fabric within a single housing estate in Birmingham, self‐nominated ‘second city’ of Britain. The overarching theme is of historical continuity and change – the extent to which the urban fabric has been destroyed and remade. As such, the paper examines not only the nominally ‘modern’ post‐war reconstruction, but also how a contemporary, ‘post‐modern’ phase of redevelopment is dealing with the city form created in the 1950s and 1960s.     

西安五十年代的地标建筑

首先对西安五十年代的情况作了简单介绍,然后通过对西安五十年代地标建筑进行调查研究,以西安人民大厦、西安报话大楼等标志性建筑为例,从建筑布局、建筑风格以及建筑艺术处理等方面对其进行分析介绍,并以此总结西安五十年代地标建筑的特点,为后续的保护和利用做铺垫。     

从就学需求预测小学校舍空间更新——以西安市曲江新区为例#br#

随着城镇化进程的推进以及新生育政策的实施，城市新区居住人口快速增长，出现了就学需求激增现象，造成既有中小学校空间超载和品质下降，如何指导既有学校空间更新成为亟待解决的问题。以就学需求预测为视角，分析城市新区就学需求激增的成因和学校空间环境特点，通过相关性分析，明确影响就学需求的四大因素，构建就学需求预测模型。通过模型计算就学需求预测指标，精准施策，指导既有学校空间潜力挖掘和更新，促进城市新区小学校舍空间科学发展。     

Repurposing a historic school building as a teacher’s village: exploring the connection between school closures,housing affordability,and community goals in a gentrifying neighborhood

ABSTRACT

The redevelopment of urban school buildings of historical value has the potential to contribute to the needs of current residents. Using a case study from Chicago, IL—where more than 50 schools in primarily minority and low- and moderate-income neighborhoods were closed in 2013—this article shows how a community group “Community As A Campus” (CAAC) sought to repurpose a former school site for community purposes in an already mixed-used, amenity-rich, and walkable area. CAAC advocated for housing for educators in the gentrifying neighborhood of West Town. The project, however, created tensions within residents from density related to market-rate units. This paper argues that the future of historic buildings to be preserved sustainably would depend on the ability of local leaders to find a balance between economic and community goals.     

The ‘desiccator difficulty’: surprise,indignation and the local politics of planning for sanitary technology in nineteenth century Melbourne

ABSTRACT

‘Desiccators’, large machines that used steam and beaters to reduce waste into powder that could be sold as fertilizer, were one solution put forward in response to late nineteenth century Melbourne’s sanitation problems. Despite some initial enthusiasm for them, challenges with finding locations for desiccators were soon dubbed the ‘Desiccator Difficulty’. The ‘Desiccator Difficulty’ is one, all but forgotten, story of the fragmented governance contributing to Melbourne’s delays in coordinating a metropolitan sewerage system. This paper examines desiccators as a story with parallels in and legacies for planning today. It focuses on the role of local property-based conflicts – arguing these constituted emergent forms of planning, underscoring an increasing urban separation and control later embodied in metropolitan planning and infrastructure. Fragmented standoffs and bylaws also rationalized spatial disparities – with suburban municipalities refusing to house desiccators, nightsoil was sent to outer shires for decades. The paper argues Melbourne’s socio-technical transition to metropolitan sewerage and governance occurred not because water-borne technology was necessarily superior, but because legal assumptions and property interests made alternatives difficult to maintain. Desiccators are examples of ‘muddling’ details that belie simple narratives of technological change, and which have implications for how wider urban environmental change occurs and is understood.     

地下蒙特利尔:混凝土下的神话

生活在蒙特利尔,你最终会面对这样一个问题:"地下城在那个方向?"你可能徜徉在这座城市的主要购物大街凯瑟琳大街上,这里H&M和Zara与脱衣舞俱乐部和热狗店并肩而立。或者,你可能在吃午饭的时候在最繁忙的麦吉尔地铁站穿梭于人群之中。无论走在哪里,你都会遇到一些迷茫的游客,手里拿着免费的旅游地图,问你这个很难回答的问题。那么你最好让他们走进最近的商场或地铁站入口,然后跟他们解释,"就在那里,不过可能跟你想象的不一样。"蒙特利尔的任何一个导游都会首先告诉你,这座城市有一个32公里长的巨型建筑,     

A city made of rooms. Revisiting the interactions between urban planning and building typology in Mario Ridolfi’s projects for Terni

ABSTRACT

Mario Ridolfi’s lifelong work in the area around the Corso del Popolo in the city of Terni has merited special attention among researchers because of its sensitiveness towards the historical surroundings, its ability to integrate town-planning and architecture and its capacity to transform the city’s skin and structure. The aim of the paper is to shed light on the origins, design strategies and translation into architecture that informed the approval of the Variante al Piano di Ricostruzione Corso del Popolo, piazza del Popolo e zone adiacenti in 1959. A comparative analysis of mainly unpublished, original sketches dating back to 1932 helps to understand the planning precedents that ultimately led to the decision to open the Corso del Popolo (1984–1932), the variations of the specific layout of this urban project from 1932 to its approval in 1959 and the unique application of planning strategies into Ridolfi’s buildings for central Terni. The study reveals the persistence of previous planning ideas that were not proposed but accepted by Ridolfi, the depiction of the ‘squared street’ as a new paradigm of open space, and the intrinsic paradoxes that informed the difficult embedding of the palazzina typology into the fragile urban fabric of the old city centre.     

‘Fourth places’: the contemporary public settings for informal social interaction among strangers

This paper introduces ‘fourth places’ as an additional category of informal social settings alongside ‘third places’. Through extensive empirical fieldwork on where and how social interaction among strangers occurs in the public and semi-public spaces of a contemporary masterplanned neighbourhood, this paper reveals that ‘fourth places’ are closely related to ‘third places’ in terms of social and behavioural characteristics, involving a radical departure from the routines of home and work, inclusivity and social comfort. However, the activities, users, locations and spatial conditions that support them are very different. They are characterized by ‘in-betweenness’ in terms of spaces, activities, time and management, as well as a great sense of publicness. This paper will demonstrate that the latter conditions are effective in breaking the ‘placelessness’ and ‘fortress’ designs of newly designed urban public spaces and that, by doing so, they make ‘fourth places’ sociologically more open in order to bring strangers together. The recognition of these findings problematizes well-established urban design theories and redefines several spatial concepts for designing public space. Ultimately, the findings also bring optimism to urban design practice, offering new insights into how to design more lively and inclusive public spaces.     

Void Metabolism

Since the Second World War, the urban fabric of Tokyo has been shaped by individual landownership and the proliferation of the detached house. For most Japanese architectural offices, domestic practice provides the mainstay of their work. This focus on the single private house, though, also limits the range of possibilities for urban interventions. Yoshiharu Tsukamoto of Atelier Bow-Wow explains how through its development of ‘Void Metabolism’, the studio has been able to turn its focus on the residential into a positive, breaking down the barriers between private and shared space in the city.     

源于自然，回归自然——RCR建筑作品评析

RCR建筑事务所的作品以独特的方式诠释了自然，实现了自然与建筑的和谐。本文从自然环境、现代建筑传统、艺术影响等方面研究RCR创作理念的来源，并结合安全，分析RCR如何通过形式、材料与细部体现他们源于自然又回归自然的建筑之路。