“Make No Little Plans”

2021 ◽  
pp. 177-194
Author(s):  
Jennifer Forestal
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Proper Role ◽  
Digital Environments ◽  
Democratic Faith ◽  
Digital Spaces

The concluding chapter turns back to wider questions of democracy, taking up some of the challenges associated with the book’s project of democratizing digital environments. In particular, it addresses the authoritarian impulses of architecture—and the corresponding lack of faith in citizens that leads us to cede the work of building to others in the first place—as well as the “proper” role of experts in any project of democratization. It responds to these challenges by reaffirming a democratic faith in citizens’ capacities and highlighting the role of the built environment in nurturing them; by redesigning our digital environments, it argues, we can create conditions for these currently under-realized capacities to flourish. The chapter concludes by outlining strategies through which experts and citizens might collaborate to rebuild digital spaces democratically.

Illustrated Media, the Built Environment and Identity Politics in Fin-de-siècle Catalonia: Printing Images, Making the Nation

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-135
Author(s):  
Lucila Mallart
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Constitutive Relationship ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This article explores the role of visuality in the identity politics of fin-de-siècle Catalonia. It engages with the recent reevaluation of the visual, both as a source for the history of modern nation-building, and as a constitutive element in the emergence of civic identities in the liberal urban environment. In doing so, it offers a reading of the mutually constitutive relationship of the built environment and the print media in late-nineteenth century Catalonia, and explores the role of this relation as the mechanism by which the so-called ‘imagined communities’ come to exist. Engaging with debates on urban planning and educational policies, it challenges established views on the interplay between tradition and modernity in modern nation-building, and reveals long-term connections between late-nineteenth-century imaginaries and early-twentieth-century beliefs and practices.

Intellectual Property Rights and Access to Energy Services in Africa

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Professor Adebambo Adewopo ◽  
Dr Tobias Schonwetter ◽  
Helen Chuma-Okoro
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
Energy Access ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Energy Services ◽  
Proper Role ◽  
The Law

This chapter examines the proper role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in achieving access to modern energy services in Africa as part of a broader objective of a pro-development intellectual property agenda for African countries. It discusses the role of intellectual property rights, particularly patents, in consonance with pertinent development questions in Africa connected with the implementation of intellectual property standards, which do not wholly assume that innovation in Africa is dependent on strong intellectual property systems. The chapter examines how existing intellectual property legal landscapes in Africa enhance or impede access to modern energy, and how the law can be directed towards improved energy access in African countries. While suggesting that IPRs could serve an important role in achieving modern energy access, the chapter calls for circumspection in applying IP laws in order not to inhibit access to useful technologies for achieving access to modern energy services.

scholarly journals A Critical Review of Computational Creativity in Built Environment Design

Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Ning Gu ◽  
Peiman Amini Behbahani
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Research Interest ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Computational Creativity ◽  
Environment Design ◽  
Supporting Tool ◽  
Definition Of

Computational creativity in built environment (BE) design has been a subject of research interest in the discipline. This paper presents a critical review of various ways computational creativity has been and can be defined and approached in BE design. The paper examines a comprehensive body of contemporary literature on the topics of creativity, computational creativity, and their assessment to identify levels of computational creativity. The paper then proceeds to a further review of the implications of these levels specifically in BE design. The paper identifies four areas in BE design where computational creativity is relevant. In two areas—synthesis (generation) and analysis—there is considerable literature on lower levels of computational creativity. However, in two other areas—interfacing and communication—even the definition of computational creativity is not as defined and clear for the discipline, and most works only consider the role of computers as a supporting tool or medium. These open up future research opportunities for the discipline.

scholarly journals A militant defence of democracy: A few replies to my critics

2020 ◽  
pp. 019145372097472
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Core ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Proper Role

In this essay, I address some questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to this special issue on my book ‘ Democracy without Shortcuts’. First, I clarify different aspects of my critique of deep pluralist conceptions of democracy to highlight the core incompatibilities with the participatory conception of deliberative democracy that I defend in the book. Second, I distinguish different senses of the concept of ‘blind deference’ that I use in the book to clarify several aspects and consequences of my critique of epistocratic conceptions of democracy and their search for ‘expertocratic shortcuts’. This in turn helps me briefly address the difficult question of the proper role of experts in a democracy. Third, I address potential uses of empowered minipublics that I did not discuss in the book and highlight some reasons to worry about their lack of accountability. This discussion in turn leads me to address the difficult question of which institutions are best suited to represent the transgenerational collective people who are supposed to own a constitutional project. Finally, I address some interesting suggestions for how to move the book’s project forward.

Our Faith in Creation, God’s Faith in Humanity: Edward Schillebeeckx and Pope Francis on Human Transcendence and an Anthropocentric Cosmos

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-863
Author(s):  
Daniel Minch
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Proper Role ◽  
Edward Schillebeeckx ◽  
Theological Foundation

Edward Schillebeeckx’s theology of creation can serve as a foundation for authentic Christian self-understanding in relation to the ecological crisis. Schillebeeckx provides a Thomistic view of humanity and creation as both autonomous and “given” from God. Schillebeeckx’s anthropocentric “creation faith” and nuanced view of secularization provide a way of preserving the uniqueness of humanity without devaluing nature. Structural parallels with Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ are developed in order to provide a fundamental-theological foundation for determining the proper role of human beings in relation to creation.

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