International Conference. 20th Century New Towns. Archetypes and Uncertainties

Producción CientíficaThe paper aims to revalue and to compare two urban phenomena of growth and change during the second half of the 20th century: the Mat Building and the Gated City. On the one hand, Mat Building is analysed as a modern strategy of spatial and formal organization in architecture, which is related to the concept of Mat Urbanism. This idea is rooted in the interest of TEAM X in the traditional cities of North Africa, Japan and China, among others, during the late 1950s and 1960s. In 1974 Alison Smithson defined this urban structure using the model of Arab fortresses called Kasbah: “where the functions come to enrich the fabric, and the individual gains new freedoms of action through a new shuffled order, based on interconnection, close knit patterns of association and possibilities for growth, diminution and change.” Alison Smithson formulated an alternative to the functional city described in the CIAM´s Athens Charter. But she also proposed a new urban form, closed and opened at the same time, a kind of urban structure based on the necessity of identity and mobility. On the other hand, the phenomenon of the Gated City is also closely related to the idea of urban identity. The CIDs (Common-Interest-Developments) began to emerge at the end of the 1970s, but actually, that idea was put into practice during the 19th century, as a reaction of utopian socialism to environmental and social consequences of the Industrial Revolution. In the context of the sprawling city, during second half of the 20th century, the New Urbanism also established its criticism to the urban ideology of the Modern Movement, as the TEAM X had done before them. However, unlike the previous one, this current used the paradigm of the walled medieval city, or Gated City, which was indebted to the anti-industrial manifesto of Rob and Leon Krier. They wrote: “function follows form”, and not the opposite, as Louis Sullivan had said. Therefore, a purely picturesque approach to urban form was adopted, against the rationalism of the modern post-war planning. The paper compares both strategies through European and North American urban developments. It analyses their spatial and social structures pointing their own relevance in contemporary urban discourse, and it provides a critical relationship between them, which is full of paradoxes and contradictions for the sustainable urbanism and the landuse planning challenges

Interpretable Housing for Freedom of the Body: The Next Generation of Flexible Homes

If we have gone through the first generation of housing design that pursued functional optimization, ergonomics, and circulation efficiency during the last century, now we are living in the second generation where more advanced goals, such as universal design, ubiquitous design, sustainable design, and environment-friendly design, are emphasized. Al-though this second generation of design focuses upon the wellness of humans in accordance with environment, it still has the attitude that a more precisely designed home can guarantee a better life. What lacks in this approach is the free-dom of the body; it needs to make its own choice as to how to use a space. Thus, it is suggested in this paper that what is important in designing a home is to provide alternatives in daily lives so as to make a full exploration of a given space. These alternatives can be made by offering residents an interpretable space where they can figure out space usages and routs in a constantly changing context. Two spatial devices are discussed in depths as a way to realize this interpretable house: room-to-room enfilade and ring spatial structure. By investigating some existing house plans, it is illustrated how they can guarantee the freedom of the body, and thus alternatives for the flexible domestic life

Reshaping suburbs

A report produced as part of the EPSRC solutions project - the sustainability of land use and transport in outer neighberhoods

Design codes and design language

Self-funde

20th CENTURY NEW TOWNS. ARCHETYPES AND UNCERTAINTIES. Conference proceedings

Full texts of the International Conference held at ESAP May 22-24th 2014Departamento de Arquitetura da Escola Superior Artística do Portoinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

URBAN SPACE AND CULTURAL ARCHETYPES: A VIEW ON THE JAPANESE CITY

This paper analyses cultural and aesthetic phenomena and theirinherent meanings within the Japanese city. In the introduction, Ifirst briefly define the key concepts used in the analysis: culturalarchetype, collective memory, and cultural identity. I will approach the theme from a comparative point of view by examining Japaneseurban features and archetypal principles in contrast to the Europeancity.Early Japanese urbanisation centred around imperial palaces, withthe first cities founded by successive emperors from the 7th centuryonwards in the Nara region, near present-day Kyoto. The orthogonalplan for the imperial capital was copied from the contemporaneousChinese dynasties. Spatial organisation was hierarchical, imperialquarters were located at the northern end of the central south–northaxis of the city, and the most prestigious plots were around theEmperor’s palace. Kyoto, the historical Heian-Kyô, was founded asthe imperial capital in 794.Tokyo, the historical Edo, became a “castle city” in 1457 when amilitary castle was built, and subsequently the capital when theshôgun moved government from Kyoto to Edo in 1603. The shôgun’scastle, the centre of power, intertwined with the hierarchical urbanorder spiralling around it. Edo gradually became a modern capital,Tokyo, while Kyoto remained the traditional centre of high cultureand the seat of the powerless Emperor until 1868.The Japanese city is a cultural metaphor. Psychological uncertainty,due to the country’s location in a precarious earthquake and volcaniczone, and an awareness of the perishability of life based on Buddhistphilosophy, have all deeply influenced both Japanese culture andthe Japanese mind. Emptiness, the Taoist ideal linked to Buddhistthinking, is also reflected in the urban space. For instance, a Japanesecity has no designated urban centre whereas in the European citythis is a culturally and economically accentuated place.In this paper, I also analyse the Japanese spatial concepts ma andoku, along with their archetypal manifestations in urban tissue andstreet scape. While ma means experiencing space in time, oku refers tothe hidden dimension of the urban experience, or the psychologicalstate of processing a path whereby the urban core remains hiddenand only partially discovered.Regardless of Japan’s recent historical and economic development,the cultural characteristics of urban spaces have not changed a greatdeal. Tokyo is still a mosaic city of small village-type communitieswith an inherent feeling of togetherness. Hidenoby Jinnai has calledthis phenomenon an “ethnic continuity” whereby the new and theold are mixed in an ethnic order

Typology and built environment

This thesis examines and seeks to validate typology - the study and/or listing of types - in the comprehension and design of the built environment, particularly public urban space. It addresses typological thinking as a way of indexing knowledge in post -Enlightenment and post- Renaissance thought and presents a critical analysis of the application of type and typology in architecture, including rule -driven approaches to building design. The thesis demonstrates that urban space in western cities is primarily generated by systems of movement and access, and (through examination of the spatial structure of Edinburgh, Scotland and Winnipeg, Canada) that, once created, it has greater permanence than the buildings that front onto it. The thesis argues that typology, including the identification of archetypes and ideal types, remains a common approach to human comprehension of complex phenomena. The thesis notes, however, that typology has gone in- and -out of fashion in architecture - particularly as a basis for the design of buildings - but has been applied more consistently in urban design, both as a vehicle for comprehension and to inform design decisions. The study culminates with a series of quasi -experimental exercises, undertaken with design students, in categorizing space types in Edinburgh and Winnipeg on the basis of their suffix names (odonyms). This includes an examination of the denotations of the 27 space / name types common to both cities and identification of nine distinctive space / name types - gardens, square, park, bridge, promenade, avenue, path / pathway / walk, boulevard, street - that are proposed as constituents of a common vocabulary for urban designers

Developing an Adaptive Building Evacuation Simulation and Decision Support Framework using Cognitive Agent-Based Modelling

Preparing for an unprecedented event involving the movement of populations could take up large amounts of resources if done conventionally. The main motivation of this study is the behavioural modification approach which is an underexplored potential in evacuation dynamics, offering new possibilities in terms of practicality and ease of implementation. This paper tackles an adaptive building evacuation simulation and decision support framework that will serve as a guide to evaluate and propose evacuation strategies for disaster management researchers and decision-making authorities. The framework mainly involves the formulation of the cognitive agent model, the evacuation simulation, and the decision support. The timeliness in the Philippine context of the long-overdue “Big One” earthquake, the vulnerability of the case study, and the capability of the framework to be a standard guide where components can be customized by users based on the disaster type and site-specific requirements make this research a significant undertaking

Local Electricity Supply: Opportunities, archetypes and outcomes

This report investigates how new, system-wide value opportunities have arisen in the energy system and how local electricity1 business models can capture them. The research team was composed of Dr Stephen Hall and Dr Katy Roelich of the Schools of Environment and Civil Engineering at the University of Leeds. This report develops a detailed evidence base to explore the business models and value opportunities offered by the emerging field of local electricity supply. The purpose of this report is to offer evidence-based options for enabling the local electricity supply sector in the UK