City design: housing neighbourhood project methodologies

City design is a subject taught under the subject of Architecture. This paper aims to present the results of a neighbourhood housing project which was done as part of the Urban Planning discipline in the 4th year of a Master Degree in Architecture. This project was prepared using a methodological approach based on the analysis of urban morphological elements and the continuity requirements in between them. The case study area is a peripheral housing neighbourhood, where the majority of buildings are single houses. Among its most problematic aspects is the fact that this is a mono-functional zone, with no diversity of recreational activities, a shortage of green spaces, and lack of commercial places. The urban continuity in between this block and the city is weak based upon a car lane with no sidewalks for pedestrians nor cycling paths. The most favourable conditions are the low density of existing buildings, the topography being flat and the social cohesion of local inhabitants. The urban design solutions propose the end of the existent urban voids, the continuity of the urban fabric with the city centre, the creation of new functional buildings including shops, offices and public spaces for sport activities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Benefits of Greenery in Contemporary City

Greenery has always played an important role in the construction of cities. The need for green spaces has been present at city level since ancient times. However, the description of the evolutionary process of form and function of urban green spaces as it has developed from antiquity depends greatly upon the different roles played by these places throughout history. Nowadays, given that the main part of the world population is living in cities, it can be said that greenery has a strategic importance in the contemporary urban fabric. Therefore, urban design solutions should always consider both buildings and vegetation as being defining city’s elements. However, the city is currently dominated by building structures which are detrimental to green spaces, causing problems of congestion and pollution. The most recent and compulsory Portuguese urban rehabilitation principles emphasize the improvement of sustainability. It is, therefore, critical to draw attention to this area and find innovative solutions in this domain, especially with regards the integration of vegetation in historical areas. In this sense, this research aims to present an approach about the importance of greenery in cities, referring some examples of green spaces as landmarks in the urban historiography. It is also focused on the benefits of green spaces in dense urban areas and their contribution for the sustainability of the cities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Urban Rehabilitation: A Glimpse from the Spatial Planning Law

The urbanized policy of the last years in Portugal has been based on the construction of urban expansion areas, as much for industrial ends as for residential ends. It is estimated that the areas available for construction when added to the consolidated urban areas can house a population of 30 million inhabitants, while the Portuguese population is around 10 million. Many of these new urban areas are much bigger than it is necessary with problems in terms of waste of infrastructures, creating urban voids or discontinuity. Recently, there have arisen new legal diplomas designed to encourage an urbanized praxis that goes against the current trend and incentives the urban rehabilitation actions. These diplomas define one policy of urban rehabilitation in articulation with the municipal plans, namely with the contents of the detailed local plans (the most detailed of the Portuguese planning system). In this context, this article aims to present a reflection about the new challenges to the urban rehabilitation as an agent of urban design, the figure of detailed local plan as the first instrument of urbanized praxis in urban spaces which should be hackneyed in its utilization and, the process of construction of the city based on urban rehabilitation instead of urban expansion.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Functional diversity as a methodology to rethink housing neighbourhoods

There are many housing neighbourhoods with no functional diversity, where dwellings are the only function of the buildings. Their inhabitants are out during the day, going to their working places and are coming back only in the evening. Therefore, these mono-functional neighbourhoods, at the suburban parts of the cities, present several problematic aspects, such as in security terms. Consequently, good quality requirements of urban life, are difficult to keep. This paper aims to present the results of an urban project, on behalf on the urban planning subject, at the Architecture studies. The case study area is a peripheral neighbourhood, on the outskirts of the Portuguese city of Covilhã, in the Interior region of the country, near to the border with Spain. The presented solutions are focused on the urban continuity as the main feature to be development regarding the urban fabric, based on the functional diversity of the place. They are proposing new green spaces, new squares as meeting public spaces, cycling paths and pedestrian sidewalks with greenery. The low density of buildings is an option in order to keep the local identity in architectural and cultural terms, and sustainable urban environments, where people can meet each other, stay together and organize events for all community.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Duality Centre - Suburbs: Origins by the Re-use of Religious Buildings

The nationalization of religious properties; churches, convents and monasteries, signifying the decline and the end of the religious orders and a selling-off (by auction) of their properties was a universal phenomenon that took place in several countries in different times. In Portugal, this process occurred in 1834 and has contributed greatly to urban transformations. The changing of European cities in the transition to the twenty century has some aspects in common, such as is the resultant transformation of the compact urban fabric to a city with the duality between centre and suburbs, but there are others which are unique and Santarém is one such case. This uniqueness lies not in the result but in the cause of the change: this process means the re-using, transforming and rebuilding of religious spaces and their functions in order to meet new demands for the city. If on the one hand a bullfighting arena, some military buildings or even a prison were the new facilities of the suburbs, a theatre, an archaeological museum, a bank agency, a high school or a housing area for the bourgeoisie on the other hand were to become the new architecture of the city centre in the religious spaces. All the examples mentioned above were to lead to the adjustment of city limits. The city limits ceased to be identified in relation to the city-walls and the concept of a new city was formed by an internal dualism between city centre and suburbs. This process made the example of this city unique and caused a series of unique urban changes. During this peculiar socio-political process in Santarém, the new commercial bourgeoisie arose and its strong desire for land-ownership and buying-up the religious spaces. There were a large number of convents and their location was both inside and outside the city-walls. The city geography was this: it lay on a platform on top of the hill above the Tagus River and this brought in turn some unexpected beauty and quality to the urban design. The transformation of religious spaces was a key factor in urban design. This change occurred within the context of a bourgeoisie in full social ascent, who had their own ambitions for the city. Consequently, the city was fragmented into different spatial areas having different social characters: the city centre was beautiful, regular, healthy and desirable; the suburbs were irregular, unhealthy and a bidonville for citizens with little means.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

ICT for smart evaluation of vernacular architecture in a stilt-house village

Vernacular architecture typologies, such as wooden stilt-houses, have been threatened by the vulnerability to conservation status degradation. This problem is not an exception in Portugal, where the few remaining examples have been neglected, with the disappearance or abandonment of almost all buildings, damaging architectural and urban spatial features. This legacy is rapidly disappearing, weakening the European cultural map. This research presents the results from a smart evaluation method using an ICT (information and communication technology) platform designed for the smart evaluation of wooden stilt-houses, considering their conservation status. This platform was used in the five remaining stilthouse villages still existing in Portugal including about 90 buildings and 300 inhabitants, located along Tagus river banks. This article refers to one of these case studies, the village of Escaroupim, which was chosen because it is the most urban space in between all of them. On one hand, the results are an exhaustive survey of vernacular buildings, useful as guideline for spatial strategies and instruments to protect this legacy. On the other hand, it can be used in other similar wooden buildings, to check their conservation status and therefore to define best rehabilitation actions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Teaching Methodologies in Spatial Planning for Integration of International Students

Nowadays, the spread of international exchanges is growing among university students, across European countries. In general, during their academic degrees, the high education students are looking for international experiences abroad. This goal has its justification not only in the reason of pursuing their studies, but also in the desire of knowing another city, a different culture, a diverse way of teaching, and at the same time having the opportunity of improving their skills speaking another language. Therefore, the scholars at the high level of educational systems have to rethink their traditional approaches in terms of teaching methodologies in order to be able to integrate these students, that every academic year are coming from abroad. Portugal is not an exception on this matter, neither the scientific domain of spatial planning. Actually, during the last years, the number of foreign students choosing to study in this country is rapidly increasing. Even though some years ago, most of the international students were originated from Portuguese speaking countries, comprising its former colonies such as Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde or Mozambique, recently the number of students from other countries is increasing, including from Syria. Characterized by a mild climate, a beautiful seashore and cities packed with historical and cultural interests, this country is a very attractive destination for international students. In this sense, this study explores the beliefs about teaching methodologies that scholars in spatial planning domain can use to guide their practice within Architecture degree, in order to promote de integration of international students. These methodologies are based on the notion that effective teaching is student-centred rather than teacher-centred, in order to achieve a knowledge-centred learning environment framework in terms of spatial planning skills. Thus, this article arises out of a spatial planning unit experience in the Master Degree in Architecture (MIA) course, at the University of Beira Interior (UBI) in Portugal, to understand more about teaching methodologies, in order to promote the integration of international students. The study explores the teamwork tasks and the hetero-evaluation as new approaches in the teaching methodologies focused on the student-centred teaching. This research main conclusion is the need of promoting a shift from lecture-based and teacher-centred practices to student-centred approach.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Bicycle Solutions in Mountain Cities: CycloCable® in Trondheim-Norway

With the rising of soft mobility strategies among to the decision-makers regarding the city policies, the urban designers are developing new ways of improving the bicycles using solutions considering the urban spaces. In the particular case of the mountain cities, the bicycle is still seen as a problematic way of transportation, requiring deep transformations of the urban fabric features. This paper presents the case study of the Norwegian city of Trondheim, well-known by its hills, which is an enormous success in terms of bicycle solutions not only among the locals but also among the visitors. The system is called CycloCable® and it is the first cycle lift for collective transportation which aims to help cyclists, who wish to move more easily, to overcome the sleepiest slopes in urban areas. The methodological approach is based on the literature review, in order to identify the characteristics of this system, which could be used in other mountain cities with similar features of the urban fabric.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Towards Rural Land Use: Challenges for Oversizing Urban Perimeters in Shrinking Towns

This article, based on the literature review, aims to study the challenges of the urban dispersion and oversizing of urban perimeters, in the cases where the towns are shrinking or spreading to the rural land-use. It is focused on the case of Portugal where during the last decades there was an escaping to the big cities alongside to the sea (Atlantic and Mediterranean) shore. In the Interior part of the country, which means near to the border with Spain, several towns are shrinking, despite their huge urban perimeters, proposed by the municipal master plans, since the middle of the nineties. Consequently, these urban perimeters are nowadays oversizing, with empty buildings and non-urbanized areas. At the same time, the social patterns of occupation of this territory have changed significantly, moving from a society with signs of rurality to an urban realm, understood not only in territorial terms but also regarding the current lifestyle. This deep changing has occurred not only in urbanistic terms but also in the economic, cultural and social organizations of the country, under a movement that corresponds to a decline of the small urban settlements in rural areas, far away from the cosmopolitan strip of land nearby the sea, in between the capital city, Lisbon and the second one Oporto. These transformations were not driven by any significant public policy for landuse actions. On the contrary, the production of urban areas, supporting the new model of economic and social development was largely left to the initiative of economic and social private agents and land owners. These agents were the leading responsible for the new urban developments and housing. In this sense, this research aims to present some strategies for the short time period regarding the devolution of urban areas to rural land use. In this sense, the next steps of spatial planning policies, under the role of local authorities (the 308 municipalities including Madeira and Azores islands, plus the continental part of the country), which are their main promoters, will be motivated by the need of advocating the swap of many urban areas towards the rural land use, shrinking many existent urban perimeters in depressed territories. How will the non-urbanized spaces, included in the urban perimeters, twenty years ago, by the pivotal instrument of spatial planning in Portugal, the Municipal Master Plans turn back to the rural land-use, losing their market value? This is the base of the challenges ahead, analysed in this article.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Educational research in architecture: ICT tool for historical buildings evaluation

Historical buildings have been threatened by the vulnerability to degradation. This problem is not an exception in Portugal, where the few remaining examples of vernacular architectural wooden stilt-houses of river banks, have been neglected, with the disappearance or abandonment of almost all buildings. This research presents the results of an educational research in architecture, creating a software for evaluation of status of historical buildings conservation. It will present as a case study, the portuguese wooden stilt-house village of Lezirão, where this ICT (information and communication technology) platform was tested. This is one of the remaining five vernacular architectural villages of river banks that still exist in the country, nearby Tagus river. This research was developed in a PhD thesis in Architecture at the University of Beira Interior in Covilhã. This ICT platform is a pioneer approach in educational research in architecture, related on wooden stilt-houses evaluation in Portugal and it can be used in other similar buildings all over the world.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio