Against a de-politicized DIY urbanism: Food Not Bombs and the struggle over public space

Cultivated by non-professionals, do-it-yourself (DIY) interventions in urban space are gaining serious credibility in the professional design fields. But as these professionals take up the flag of small-scale and social justice-inspired action in design handbooks and art exhibits, what happens to the struggles that informed the tactics? This article presents the DIY urban tactics of Food Not Bombs as a counter case study that problematizes the recent professional attention given to DIY, tactical or spontaneous urbanism. Forged in a struggle against the structural violence of capitalism, and based in the use of public space for community meals, Food Not Bombs challenges de-politicized notions of tactical or DIY urbanism.     

From modernist to market urbanism: the transformation of New Belgrade

This paper introduces two starkly contrasting faces of recent European urbanism, and shows how they have shaped the same urban territory, New Belgrade. In the first place, it outlines the central dilemmas and difficulties around the construction of a large modernist city in Europe, and secondly, it explores the modifications undertaken in order to accommodate a radically different, consumption‐oriented society. The location for this enquiry is the largest municipal district within Belgrade. New Belgrade, with its immense size and expanse (over 40 sq km and a population of about 250,000), grand boulevards and massive apartment buildings lined up in numbered blocks, is a mixture of modernist vision and socialist planning, far larger than any comparable urban district in Central and Eastern European cities. Designed as a federal capital for Tito’s Yugoslavia, it rapidly became a predominantly residential suburb. New Belgrade is now being re‐positioned and partly re‐built as a business centre in a process of change driven largely by international capital, with international companies investing in the construction of large retail, leisure and business facilities. At the same time, open spaces are being filled in, often with up‐market housing. The paper provides an overview of some of the plans and controversies that surrounded the city’s construction and an outline of the modifications that have transformed New Belgrade since.     

新城市主义对我国城市社区发展的启示

分析了新城市主义兴起的背景，介绍了新城市主义的设计理念，论述了新城市主义对我国社区发展的启示，指出应结合我国国情，吸取新城市主义中干我有利的内容，促进我国城市社区的健康发展。     

The formalities of informal improvement: technical and scholarly knowledge at work in do-it-yourself urban design

Unauthorized yet functional and civic-minded “do-it-yourself urban design” contributions have seen growing interest in recent years. Authorities and community members alike rightfully wonder about the meanings of these actions and the questions they raise about rights, responsibilities, contexts, and consequences. Building from a multi-year study of DIY urban design across 17 cities, this paper focuses on the backgrounds and methods of these would-be local improvers. In particular, it demonstrates that many are informed by sophisticated knowledge of scholarly urban theory and official planning and design standards. Referencing debates on informality and formality in urbanism, I show that highly technical, academic, and formalized elements pervade these informal efforts, suggesting a gray area in our normative assumptions about official versus unauthorized placemaking. I argue that this knowledge enables and inspires many do-it-yourselfers’ actions and produces a complex and potentially problematic reflexivity around their place in the city and their potential impacts.     

Sustainable urban qualities in the emerging city of Doha

Various urban qualities are required for sustainable urban development, which is a particular challenge in the case of emerging cities such as Qatar’s capital, Doha. Therefore, this paper seeks to introduce a framework concerning how to investigate urban qualities and their production in space in order to clarify the challenges and limitations of planning for sustainability. The paper is based on analyses and evaluations of GIS data as well as a series of interviews with 10 planning experts at the Ministry of Municipalities and Urban Planning and a series of questionnaires received from 350 inhabitants. After introducing the basic framework as a model, the three dimensions of sustainability – ecological efficiency, economic growth and social equity – are analysed in relation to the urban qualities needed for producing them. In conclusion the general challenges in establishing sustainable urban development mechanisms in Doha are discussed.     

Assessing the social and environmental achievements of New Urbanism: evidence from Portland,Oregon

This study examines the extent to which specific social and environmental objectives have been achieved in the New Urbanist community of Orenco Station (Portland, Oregon). House-level surveys were conducted in Orenco Station, as well as a traditional suburb and two long-established urban neighborhoods. Survey data reveal higher levels of social interaction in the New Urbanist community than the comparison neighborhoods. The analysis also reveals a higher level of walking, and an increase in the occasional use of mass transit, in the New Urbanist community. However, the majority of residents in all four neighborhoods (including the New Urbanist neighborhood) rely on single occupancy vehicles for their regular commute. In summary, this study shows that Orenco Station is very effective in achieving its social objectives, successful in encouraging walking and the occasional use of mass transit – but less effective in increasing primary reliance on mass transit for commuting.     

Neoliberal urbanism restructuring the city of Ankara: Gated communities as a new life style in a suburban settlement

Development of gated communities in Turkey is associated with the neo-liberal restructuring of the economy towards urban-focused economic strategy-making, the rise of new urban consumer groups, and the diversion of capital to assist markets and property development with state taking an active role in securing markets and defining the elements of place-marketing via a socio-spatial and -economic reorganization of metropolitan space. The case study held in Beysukent, Ankara reveals this structure where the combination of the interests and actions of the state, local governments, real estate developers, the media, and consumers suggest that prevailing structural conditions assure the future proliferation of gated communities. Gated communities in Turkey provide one example in clubbing together for increased individual benefits with the aim of protecting an élite local lifestyle as a consumer practice with the main objective of revaluing prime urban land. This can be achieved through a planning environment in which planning follows demand and plan conditions are determined according to the area to be invested in, increased demand expectation being decisive. Thus this study demonstrates how patterns of neo-liberal urbanism have collaborated to transform a suburban area with elements of élite consumption patterns, gated communities being the primary factor in the transformation of the area.     

The garden city idea in the CIAM discourse on urbanism: a path to comprehensive planning

Over a period of three decades, from 1928 to 1959, the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) formed an unconventional working team and a complex laboratory of progressive ideas for designing the city. During the founding years of the organization and the transatlantic emigration of many of its major figures during the second half of the 1930s, a profound engagement with the most important trends in the European and North American debates on planning had become the critical foundation for their common task. The organization's consequent basic convictions and demands summed up the most effective maxims of the discipline since the turn of the century. Officially, CIAM tried to distinguish itself from traditional urban planning and instead advocated modern urban planning as the antithesis to everything that existed previously. Seen from a historical perspective, however, numerous points of connection – in particular to the garden city movement – become very clear. The various members of CIAM were deeply influenced ideologically by Ebenezer Howard's visions for urbanism. Personal contact to representatives of the garden city movement, active involvement in its institutions, and broad implementation of Howard's ideas in the context of European and North American planning led CIAM from the analysis of the functions of the existing city to a comprehensive design of the modern city.     

浅谈传统建筑材料在当代环境艺术设计中的运用

建筑作为一种艺术形式,有着极其深远的历史。本文主要通过传统建筑材料的装饰艺术形式来探讨其在当代环境艺术设计中的运用。     

以人为本是绿色建筑艺术的灵魂

探讨了绿色思维与绿色建筑艺术,提出了以人为本是绿色建筑艺术的灵魂,分析阐述了以人为本的绿色建筑艺术设计中必须注重的三个问题,并提出了具体实现措施,包括政策及资金倾斜、舆论导向、边普及边提高等几个方面。     

urbanHIST: a multidisciplinary research and training programme on the history of European urbanism in the twentieth century

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces the Planning Perspectives readership to urbanHIST, a current Horizon 2020 European Joint Doctorate programme that focuses on the history of European urbanism in the twentieth century. Its concept is based on the inherent multidisciplinary approach of the research field and the ambition to gain a pan-European perspective on planning history. The paper delineates the underlying general research trends and the current responses of urbanHIST. Finally, it connects the programme's thematic orientation with both, its external contributions and its internal key activities that might bridge the gap between the protected environment of a PhD programme with the reality of academic life.     

The transnational building of urban design: interplay between genres of discourse in the Anglophone world

In the first half of the twentieth century, the field of urbanism was mainly structured around the constitution of the professional and academic discipline of planning. But in the second half of the twentieth century, it became organized in the English-speaking world around several complementary and competing poles as the emerging field of urban design. This field was a part of a profound renewal of architectural discourses and practices concerning the city that appeared around the world as a reaction to the growing autonomy of the planning sphere. However, it took a particular turn in the English-speaking world. Recently, readers establishing a common literature in the field have been published in three countries: USA, UK and Australia. A fragmented historiography of urban design has also emerged showing a field combining three different registers of discourse: the development of a criticism in the professional press, the building of a specific academic field, and the establishment of public policies. This article will attempt to analyse the birth and development of urban design as a network by crossing the three registers of discourse from three different countries.     

Bicycle urbanism as a competitive advantage in the neoliberal age: the case of bicycle promotion in Portland

In the light of the emergent ‘bicycle renaissance’ in the US, this paper analyses the rationale basis of bicycle role model, Portland's promotion of bicycling. By conceptualizing bicycle promotion as a ‘travelling idea’, the paper discusses the key rationales and discourses structuring how bicycle policies are translated into the City of Portland. The study finds that strong neoliberal rationales such as competitiveness, cost-effectiveness, and value for money are pivotal in Portland's legitimization of spending on bicycle promotion, with sustainability and equity concerns being comparatively neglected. It is argued that this approach raises serious questions about the bicycle's potential as an egalitarian and sustainable practice, and urges potential ‘bicycle cities’ and advocates to be aware of the incommensurability of the creative class strategy and environmental justice goals.     

地震作用下钢筋混凝土柱纵筋屈曲研究进展

阐明钢筋受压屈曲的概念,从单根钢筋和钢筋混凝土柱纵筋两个方面对地震作用下钢筋混凝土柱纵筋屈曲的研究进展进行论述。分析影响钢筋屈曲 的主要因素,介绍具有代表性的几个考虑屈曲的钢筋本构模型;讨论纵筋屈曲试验研究中存在的问题及解决方法,论述考虑纵筋屈曲的钢筋混凝土柱设计及 抗震性能数值分析方法。最后,总结出纵筋屈曲需要进一步研究的问题。     

Negotiation and social transactions in urban policies: the case of the tramway projects in France

Dealing with the example of the tramway projects developed in two French metropolitan areas, this paper aims to investigate from a relational point of view the debates concerning the place of the concepts of negotiation and social transactions in the implementation of local policies. We take the formal vs. informal dimension of the issue into account, as well as the multiple rationalities linked to the recognition of the ‘otherness’ in the relations between the different social actors and institutions. Finally, we make a distinction between first and second ranking transactions in order to reinforce this operating paradigm in the ‘green city’ age.     

Urban social sustainability: a study of the Emirati local communities in Al Ain

The present research examines the design of the public neighborhoods in the United Arab Emirates in terms of social sustainability, especially in the city of Al Ain. Based on the relevant principles and indicators of social sustainability in neighborhoods both globally and locally, the research began with an evaluation of the dimensions of social sustainability by adopting a qualitative research method. The research tools included conducting face-to-face interviews with representatives of Emirati families living in public neighborhoods, analyses of the design patterns of some selected neighborhoods, field observations and spatial syntactic analyses. Through this multi-phase analysis, a clearer understanding of the level of social sustainability achieved in the design of public neighborhoods in Al Ain has been realized, and some neighborhood design guidelines have been proposed.     

Social discourse,housing search and residential segregation: the social determinants of recent economic migrants’ residential mobility in Seville

Abstract

Immigrants’ neighbourhood choices are key to understanding today’s dominant socio-territorial dynamics, especially in urban areas. We analysed the factors involved in the housing search at the early stages of the economic migrant influx in Seville, Spain (Andalusia region, Europe’s southern border) and their impact on the development of residential segregation in this city. Using a qualitative methodology approach based on focus groups, unstructured interviews and discourse analysis, the implicit and explicit social determinants that influence economic migrants’ residential behaviours were examined. In line with previous studies, the results highlight the importance of socio-economic determinants and a trend towards self-segregation. Social discourse analysis reveals how the host society’s ethnoracial preferences and prejudices – from the outset of the economic migrant influx – translate into barriers to accessing the housing market, which plays a crucial role in understanding economic migrant residential mobility and its impact on and consequences for the residential segregation process.     

Mary's rain and god's umbrella: religion,identity, and modernity in the visionary art of a chicana painter

ABSTRACT

Heritage formation involves some kind of sacralization, through which cultural forms are lifted up and set apart. But success is not guaranteed in the making of heritage, and the cultural forms that are singled out may well fail to persuade. Heritage formation is a complicated, contested political—aesthetic process that requires detailed scholarly explorations and comparative analysis. Which aesthetic practices are involved in profiling cultural forms as heritage? What are the politics of authentication that underpin the selection and framing of particular cultural forms? To which contestations does the sacralization of particular cultural forms—in particular, those derived from the sphere of religion—give rise? Which aesthetics of persuasion are invoked to render heritage sacred for its beholders? Calling attention to various facets of the relation between heritage and the sacred, this special issue offers detailed explorations of how form, style, and appearance seek to vest selected objects and performative practices with sacrality.     

法国城市旧工业区更新的公共政策研究——以里昂维斯地区为例

传统城市工业区随着新技术的发展而产生的衰退现象是城市复兴过程中的焦点问题之一。首先概述法国城市复兴与旧工业区更新的理论背景,再以里昂的维斯地区复兴项目为例介绍城市旧工业区更新的公共政策,最后通过总结法国经验,以期对其他城市的旧工业区更新提供借鉴。     

重塑山地城市滨江地段的文化生态特色——以重庆市井双片区城市设计为例

近年来塑造城市特色、注重城市文化底蕴、提升城市形象已成为城市建设中一个热门课题。本文引借文化生态学的相关理论,探寻山地城市滨江地段(重庆)的城市空间保护和特色塑造问题,进而指导其城市空间建设,塑造具有活力的城市滨江空间。