From masterplanning to adaptive planning : understanding the contemporary tools and processes for civic urban order

My research is an examination of the scope of contemporary urban design and planning tools and processes which can act as alternative qualitative methodologies for the renewal of urban conditions at multiple scales through adaptive methods embracing change, stresses and shocks affecting societies and the city as a growing epicentre of human inhabitation and complex systems. With growing urbanisation, the question of what constitutes liveable urbanism across urban territories is a critical one. Addressing the lack of unified and culturally aware analysis of the evolution in urban design and planning practice being applied in various contexts across the developed and developing world, I have, through my own international research programme over more than 15 years, traced their potentials for incubating renewal through a collection of published outputs, each with their own approach: a book, essays for the media and for exhibition catalogues and a webzine. Through examination I have learned about the capacities of tools and processes to break with silo thinking and damaging legacies of the past, and to adapt, or to forge new instrumentalities in ways that are context-responsive and situational. My focus has been on studying largely ongoing, phased projects, so this is a work in progress. This self-appointed intellectual mandate for comparative urbanism has required a form of evaluation that includes consideration of the use and mis-use of history and old rules, operational narratives and contestory factors, enquiry into assumptions made, responsibilities claimed, and objectives combining issues of determination (of plans, by their clients) and self-determination (of communities). I have striven to show how the recognition of planning baggage and the emptying out of its tactics, is, in diverse ways, creating space for alternative behaviors in the form of new, potentially more socially equitable and responsive patterns of operation, engaging and reusing resources. I have learned that new hybrid processes of top down and bottom up planning, and interest in engaging with multi-modal approaches with their relative novelty and unprecedented forms of complexity, represent major challenges to long-held beliefs about planning’s role in society and the typical relationships between planner and those planned for. They foster a sense of the symbiotic relationships, interdependencies, alliances and self-determination cities need to generate their futures in socially equitable and resilient ways. My body of research will help inform and contribute methodologies and concepts to future outputs on related themes concerning urban design and planning’s role and identity, including issues of Urbanista.org, my webzine. The wider implications of my research are also that institutions involved in land use of all kinds accordingly need to carry a responsibility to adopt a higher commitment to the value of and need for adaptive instruments of civic urban order

Teacher and youth priorities for education for environmental sustainability: A co-created manifesto

What would it mean to put environmental sustainability at the heart of education? This article describes a process of inclusive, participatory manifesto-making to identify young people's (aged 16–18 years) and teachers' priorities for education for environmental sustainability across the UK. Drawing on analysis of qualitative data from over 200 teachers and young people who participated in futures and visualisation workshops, we identify key educational priorities at the levels of classroom, school, community and policy, based on consensus between teacher and youth perspectives. Whilst consensus-seeking comes with a risk of favouring ‘soft’ actions which reinforce unsustainable practices and systems, the process of identifying more desirable futures and immediate barriers that must be negotiated to reach them has the potential to create spaces for more critical pedagogies and practices. There is a need for policy makers and school leaders to recognise the interests of teachers and young people to enable greater participation in decision making at different scales, and to ensure that those with the greatest capacity bear their burden of responsibility for education for environmental sustainability

‘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’ (Oldenburg 1989). 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. Keywords: ‘Fourth places’, Informal Public Social Settings, Social Interaction, Strangers, Public Space Design

From master planning blueprints to 21st century adaptive frameworks

Syracuse University School of Architecture Fall 2014 Lecture Series: From master planning blueprints to 21st century adaptive frameworks by Lucy Bullivant on October 7, 2014 at Slocum Hal

Teacher and youth priorities for education for environmental sustainability : a co-created manifesto

What would it mean to put environmental sustainability at the heart of education? This article describes a process of inclusive, participatory manifesto-making to identify young people’s (aged 16-18 years) and teachers’ priorities for education for environmental sustainability across the UK. Drawing on analysis of qualitative data from over 200 teachers and young people who participated in futures and visualisation workshops, we identify key educational priorities at the levels of classroom, school, community and policy, based on consensus between teacher and youth perspectives. Whilst consensus-seeking comes with a risk of favouring ‘soft’ actions which reinforce unsustainable practices and systems, the process of identifying more desirable futures and immediate barriers, which must be negotiated to reach them, has the potential to create spaces for more critical pedagogies and practices. There is a need for policy makers and school leaders to recognise the interests of teachers and young people to enable greater participation in decision making at different scales, and to ensure that those with the greatest capacity bear their burden of responsibility for education for environmental sustainability

WABI: Facilitating synchrony between inhabitants of adaptive architecture

We spend most of our lives in buildings where we interact with people that occu-py the same space. A common and intuitive form of interaction with others is to syn-chronise our own behaviour with theirs and such interpersonal synchrony can have various benefits for our wellbeing. We present research that investigates how a new prototype of digitally-driven adaptive architecture called WABI facilitates behavioural synchrony between its inhabitants. We designed three interaction modes, which each feature a unique mapping and processing of physiological data emanating from inhab-itants. Qualitative feedback from a first exploratory study indicates that the different interaction modes affect how inhabitants interact and synchronise their behaviours. We discuss how adaptive architecture might contribute to wellbeing, therapy, and sports by facilitating synchrony

Digital heritage interpretation: a conceptual framework

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. ‘Heritage Interpretation’ has always been considered as an effective learning, communication and management tool that increases visitors’ awareness of and empathy to heritage sites or artefacts. Yet the definition of ‘digital heritage interpretation’ is still wide and so far, no significant method and objective are evident within the domain of ‘digital heritage’ theory and discourse. Considering ‘digital heritage interpretation’ as a process rather than as a tool to present or communicate with end-users, this paper presents a critical application of a theoretical construct ascertained from multiple disciplines and explicates four objectives for a comprehensive interpretive process. A conceptual model is proposed and further developed into a conceptual framework with fifteen considerations. This framework is then implemented and tested on an online platform to assess its impact on end-users’ interpretation level. We believe the presented interpretive framework (PrEDiC) will help heritage professionals and media designers to develop interpretive heritage project