Cities after landscape: post – landscapes, other practices, and all things

The concept of the valley section, developed by the botanist and urban planner Patrick Geddes, was conceived as an ideal city type. Following the course of a river from the hills to the sea, the drawings of the valley section reveal relations between land or settlement types, the occupations associated with these places, and the tools employed in their work. Although representing historic relations with the land the valley section has been appropriated by designers and urban planners as a device to consider future architectural forms and potential processes of urbanization. This development of the valley section as a basis for speculation is the point of departure of this essay. Based on analysis of Geddes’ drawings and writing and explored further through models and drawings, I situate the valley section geographically and temporally as a method of questioning the relational constructedness of landscapes. Through analysing, editing, adapting, and redrawing the valley section for future landscapes I argue that Geddes’ conception is a landscape model that can reveal the complexity of relations of urbanization. I demonstrate the potential of interrogating landscapes, from past to future and from the everyday to the planetary, through the framework of the valley section. Through applying this relational frame to specific times and places we can recognise material, ecological, and social relations of landscapes and we can endeavour to reveal less visible, often unbalanced, relations of land – such as ownership, policy, governance, and commerce – from which these landscapes are constructed

Youthhood

TESTING-GROUND issue 03, Youthhood, examines worlds through youthful eyes, makes evident young ambitions, and questions how we can better empower young people to design cities, landscapes, and a planet that works for them. The issue includes contributions from: Carmel Keren, Jude Daniel Smith, Claire Edwards, Kazeem Kuteyi, Emmanuel Adarkwah, Reza Nik, Dan Cui, Kristofer Cullum-Fernandez, Fida Sassi, Simeon Shtebunaev, Daze Aghaji, Averill Dimabuyu, Sarri Elfaitouri, Rebecca McDonald-Balfour, and Ed Wall. Rebecca McDonald-Balfour (Author), Jude Daniel Smith (Author), Daze Aghaji (Author), Carmel Keran (Author), Alexis Liu (Author), Dan Cui (Author), Kristofer Cullum-Fernandez (Author), Fida Sassi (Author), Averill Dimabuyu (Author), Ed

Constellation versus hero: a conversation with Mary Miss

By developing frameworks of carefully structured art, science, and urban community collaborations, City as Living Laboratory (CALL) forms constellations of projects that aim to make tangible and address environmental concerns, including the climate crisis, urban equity, and health. Founded by the artist Mary Miss, CALL denies the singularity and monumentality of many public art works to instead focus on ‘constellations’ of situated walks, conversations, and initiatives that lead to specific projects. This article, structured around an interview with Mary Miss, discusses the potential of art practices that organise to create change, empowering people and transforming marginalised landscapes. It reveals how such practices can make visible local environmental conditions while also addressing challenges of the climate crisis

Contesting public spaces: social lives of urban redevelopment in London

This book explores concerns for spatial justice as streets, squares, and neighbourhoods are continuously made and remade through planning processes, political ambitions and everyday activities. By investigating three sites in London that have been the focus of masterplanning, Ed Wall exposes conflicts between planning offices and private developers who direct large urban change and community groups, market traders and residents whose public lives are inseparable from their neighbourhoods being reconfigured. The book uniquely brings sociological approaches to what are often considered architectural concerns, revealing challenges as London's public spaces are designed, regulated and lived. Through in-depth research, Ed Wall identifies how uncertainty caused by large-scale urban strategies, the realisation of visual priorities, and uneven relations between private interests, public organisations and daily lives determine the public realm of global cities. This work is intended for readers interested in how the urban spaces of their cities are continually produced in competing ways—from architecture and urban studies scholars to planners and politicians

Collective Landscape Futures symposium

Landscapes have always been defined throughtheir collective relationships – between people and other living things, material objects and ephemeral entities, and situated actions and grounded processes. These are worlds produced through socio-material entanglements that can be read as common practices, shared experiences, and public concerns. Landscapes are only possible through the combined contribution of humans and non-humans, interacting, sharing between, providing for, and making with. However, in recognising prevailing contradictions in many landscape practices; across contemporary art, architecture, and film; we see the potential of landscapes being undermined through the perpetual claiming and reframing by and of individuals. Whether in god-like views from above[1] or the mirror and mirage[2] that landscapes can create, landscape practices too often foreground hegemony and embolden individuals with power, while simultaneously concealing the actions from which they are produced. This symposium critically reflects on dominant landscape techniques, discusses landscapes that are marginalised through globalising market forces, and focusses on the collective nature of landscapes – from planetary climates to intimate private spaces. It investigates the common, shared, and public endeavours that produce the world of which we are part

Unsettled Urban Space: Routines, Temporalities and Contestations

While urban life can be characterized by endeavors to settle stable and safe environments, for many people, urban space is rarely stable or safe; it is uncertain, troubled, imbued with challenges and perpetually under pressure. As the concept of unsettled appears to define the contemporary urban experience, this multidisciplinary book investigates the conflicts and possibilities of settling and unsettling through open and speculative analysis. The analytical prism of unsettled renders urban space an indeterminate ground unfolding through routines, temporalities and contestations in constant tension between settling and unsettling. Such contrasting experiences are contingent on how urban societies confront, undergo and overcome turbulence and difficulties in time and space. Contributions drawing on theoretical reflections and empirical accounts—from Argentina, Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, the UAE, the UK, the USA and Vietnam—give insights into plural occurrences of the unsettled, which might tie down or unleash transformative, liberatory and emancipatory potentials. This book is for students, professionals and researchers interested in the uncertainties, foundations, disturbances, inconsistencies, residuals and blind fields, which constitute the urban both as lived space and as social, cultural and political ideal

Colliding Worlds: Asteroid research and the legitimization of war in space

Accepted versio

Moving in the anthropocene: global reductions in terrestrial mammalian movements

Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human footprint were on average one-half to one-third the extent of their movements in areas with a low human footprint. We attribute this reduction to behavioral changes of individual animals and to the exclusion of species with long-range movements from areas with higher human impact. Global loss of vagility alters a key ecological trait of animals that affects not only population persistence but also ecosystem processes such as predator-prey interactions, nutrient cycling, and disease transmission

Mortality and pulmonary complications in patients undergoing surgery with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection: an international cohort study

Background: The impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on postoperative recovery needs to be understood to inform clinical decision making during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reports 30-day mortality and pulmonary complication rates in patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: This international, multicentre, cohort study at 235 hospitals in 24 countries included all patients undergoing surgery who had SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed within 7 days before or 30 days after surgery. The primary outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality and was assessed in all enrolled patients. The main secondary outcome measure was pulmonary complications, defined as pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or unexpected postoperative ventilation. Findings: This analysis includes 1128 patients who had surgery between Jan 1 and March 31, 2020, of whom 835 (74·0%) had emergency surgery and 280 (24·8%) had elective surgery. SARS-CoV-2 infection was confirmed preoperatively in 294 (26·1%) patients. 30-day mortality was 23·8% (268 of 1128). Pulmonary complications occurred in 577 (51·2%) of 1128 patients; 30-day mortality in these patients was 38·0% (219 of 577), accounting for 81·7% (219 of 268) of all deaths. In adjusted analyses, 30-day mortality was associated with male sex (odds ratio 1·75 [95% CI 1·28–2·40], p\textless0·0001), age 70 years or older versus younger than 70 years (2·30 [1·65–3·22], p\textless0·0001), American Society of Anesthesiologists grades 3–5 versus grades 1–2 (2·35 [1·57–3·53], p\textless0·0001), malignant versus benign or obstetric diagnosis (1·55 [1·01–2·39], p=0·046), emergency versus elective surgery (1·67 [1·06–2·63], p=0·026), and major versus minor surgery (1·52 [1·01–2·31], p=0·047). Interpretation: Postoperative pulmonary complications occur in half of patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 infection and are associated with high mortality. Thresholds for surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic should be higher than during normal practice, particularly in men aged 70 years and older. Consideration should be given for postponing non-urgent procedures and promoting non-operative treatment to delay or avoid the need for surgery. Funding: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland, Bowel and Cancer Research, Bowel Disease Research Foundation, Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons, British Association of Surgical Oncology, British Gynaecological Cancer Society, European Society of Coloproctology, NIHR Academy, Sarcoma UK, Vascular Society for Great Britain and Ireland, and Yorkshire Cancer Research

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead