Rethinking Architecture and Urban Form in the Context of Power Discourse: Case Study Nicosia, North Cyprus

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (8) ◽  
pp. 1227-1246
Author(s):  
Abdulsalam I. Shema
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Deductive Reasoning ◽  
Continuous Process ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The City

This study investigates the symbolic attributes of power relations within the built environment of the walled city of Nicosia and contributes to the interpretation of generated meaning. The fundamental aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive explanation and description of how power as a socially constructed phenomenon aids in defining the language of the city and architecture. Studies of the built environment in relation to power discourse are a continuous process, and due to the subjectivity of interpretations, this study adopted the epistemological stance of constructivism. Based on deductive reasoning, this study hypothesises that power aids in defining the language and imageability of the city, and the results have verified the propositions. The case study of this research was diachronically analysed and focused on the socially-constructed symbolic meaning generation, within the framework of interpretivism. In order to analyse the city, a conceptual approach was developed. Two main approaches that support the research hypothesis were established: the language of the city; and imageability of the city. The imageability of the city was based on the five elements of the city, published in 1960. However, due to the context of this research, three of the elements that fully supported the research aim and objectives were selected, namely, landmark, district and path. The two main conceptual approaches were tied to power relations within the built environment based on the theoretical frameworks of: Markus; Dovey; and Njoh. In conclusion, the walled city of Nicosia exhibits symbols of ‘power over’ such as segregation, seduction, manipulation, and authority. The results have verified the proposition that power aids in defining the language and imageability of a city, thereby transforming the city and its inhabitants.

scholarly journals Informing the design of courtyard street blocks using solar energy models: a case study of a university campus in Singapore

2021 ◽  
Vol 2042 (1) ◽  
pp. 012050
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Vititneva ◽  
Zhongming Shi ◽  
Pieter Herthogs ◽  
Reinhard König ◽  
Aurel von Richthofen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Solar Energy ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
University Campus ◽  
Quasi Monte Carlo ◽  
Energy Models ◽  
Simulation Based ◽  
Input Variables ◽  
The City

Abstract This study discusses the interplays between urban form and energy performance using a case study in Singapore. We investigate educational urban quarters in the tropical climate of Singapore using simulation-based parametric geometric modelling. Three input variables of urban form were examined: street network orientation, street canyon width, and building depth. In total, 280 scenarios were generated using a quasi-Monte Carlo Saltelli sampler and Grasshopper. For each scenario, the City Energy Analyst, an open-source urban building energy simulation program, calculated solar energy penetration. To assess the variables’ importance, we applied Sobol’ sensitivity analysis. Results suggest that the street width and building depth were the most influential parameters.

scholarly journals HOW ARE PUBLIC SPACES SUSTAINING CULTURAL IDENTITIES IN THE CONTEXT OF CHINA’S INCREASINGLY GLOBALLY FOCUSED URBAN DEVELOPMENTS: USING A CASE STUDY OF PUTUO IN SHANGHAI

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-205
Author(s):  
Hee Sun (Sunny) Choi
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Urban Change ◽  
Global Presence ◽  
The City

This paper explores what it means for a public space to embody the city within rapid urban change in contemporary urban development and how a space can accomplish this by embracing the culture of the city, its people and its places, using the particular case of Putuo, Shanghai in China. The paper employs mapping and empirical surveys to learn how the local community use the act of communal dance in everyday public spaces of this neighborhood, and seeks not to find generalizable rules for how humans comprehend a city, but instead to better understand how local inhabitants and their chosen activities can influence their built environment. The findings from this emphasize the importance to identify how public spaces can help to define cities with China’s emerging global presence, whilst addressing the ways in which local needs and perspectives can be preserved.

scholarly journals Women Empowerment and Micro Finance Programs: A Case Study of District Khairpur

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-116
Author(s):  
Misbah Rahman ◽  
Muhammad Saleem Rahpoto ◽  
Ghulam Muhammad Mangnejo
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Minimum Wages ◽  
Women Empowerment ◽  
Micro Data ◽  
Small Country ◽  
Pay Gap ◽  
Earned Income ◽  
The City

The model of double monetary improvement contains the lowest wages (between difference foundations) responsible for the continuous dualism. We use 2 years of micro data from a large number of workers in Pakistan to test whether legally lowest wages have different effects on formal compensation, as opposed to the occasionally different segment. We find that the evidence from Pakistan rejects the assumptions of these models: raising the minimum wage not only extends the compensation in the city format part (big urban effort), which are enclosed through the least wages rule, nonetheless also increases the salaries of altogether other specialists, z Lowest legal allowance, which is generally considered to be an occasional split and is not regularly enforced (eg, small municipal companies, large provincial companies and small country companies). Our finding also suggest that the lowest statutory minimum wages increase wages for specialists in these “random” departments more than in the urban form, and therefore may lose the normal pay gap amid these segments and city additional part, which is considered non- binding nonetheless not governed b the Least Wage Act: the freelance (in together city and provincial regions). Least salaried may therefore lead to a symmetry amid official & casual workers, who referred to as self-employed and paid labors. In any case, we discovery no indication that self-earned income falls by the lowest pay.

scholarly journals Tales of the Olympic city: memory, narrative and the built environment

ZARCH ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 12-33
Author(s):  
John R. Gold ◽  
Margaret M. Gold
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Event Space ◽  
Urban Fabric ◽  
Discussion Section ◽  
London 2012 ◽  
City Memory ◽  
The City ◽  
With Memory ◽  
Insight Into

The Olympics have a greater, more profound and more pervasive impact on the urban fabric of their host cities than any other sporting or cultural event.  This paper is concerned with issues of memory and remembering in Olympic host cities.  After a contextual introduction, it employs a case study of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (QEOP), the main event space for the London 2012 Summer Games, to supply insight into how to read the urban traces of Olympic memory.  Three key themes are identified when interpreting the memories associated with the Park and its built structures, namely: treatment of the area’s displaced past, memorializing the Games, and with memory legacy.  The ensuing discussion section then adopts a historiographic slant, stressing the importance of narrative and offering wider conclusions about Olympic memory and the city.

scholarly journals Medieval Porticoes of Rome: New Methods and Technologies for Revealing Rome’s Architectural and Urban Heritage

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selena Kathleen Anders
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Digital Tool ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
Digital Documentation ◽  
Traditional Scholarship ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Architectural Detail ◽  
The City

At the moment there are few comprehensive texts or instruments that allow architects, designers, historians, planners or even students the ability to understand the complex layers of a city’s urban fabric. As a result, this paper was prepared in order to be uploaded to a digital tool that allows for such exploration of the built environment.   The transformation of the city of Rome is documented in a number of sources and as a result makes it the ideal city for study of architectural and urban evolution.  As a case study in digital documentation this paper examines the medieval façade porticoes of Rome at three scales: urban, architectural, and detail.  The identification and mapping of these structures, are shown together allowing one to examine them in relation to historic and present day city maps.  In addition, their location is analyzed in relation to ancient Roman streets and historic processional routes, to observe the connection amongst their location and that of major thoroughfares of antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.  At the architectural scale, the detailed documentation in plan and elevation reveal four distinct variations that existed in the use of the residential façade portico.  At the scale of architectural detail, an inventory of reused architectural elements or spolia that make up the residential porticoes reveal the reuse of ancient Roman column shafts, bases and capitals as well as the medieval masons’ preference for the use of the Ionic capital in particular.  This paper prepares a methodology for digital deployment of traditional scholarship focused on architecture and the built environment.

scholarly journals Urban sprawl and citizen participation. A case study in the municipality of La Pobla de Vallbona (Valencia)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Gielen ◽  
Yaiza Pérez Alonso ◽  
José Sergio Palencia Jiménez ◽  
Asenet Sosa Espinosa
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Urban Sprawl ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Mediterranean Coast ◽  
City Council ◽  
Social Characteristics ◽  
High Dispersion ◽  
Good Government ◽  
The City

The accelerated urban growth of the last decades in Europe has caused, especially in the Spanish Mediterranean coast, a paradigm shift in much cities, moving from a mostly compact urban form to a more diffuse one. The concept of city has changed so much that even in a lot of dispersed municipalities, it becomes difficult to define its limits. This change implies not only ecological and economic impacts, but also, social effects. Urban sprawl makes difficult social interaction and reduces the community feeling, and therefore, social cohesion and identity. This produces also changes in the relations of citizens between them and with the city council. The research propounds a discussion about the challenges that the urban sprawl causes for the application of participative models in the decision making, understanding them as basic criterion of good government. We analyze a case study to extract the complexity of articulating processes of citizen participation in territory with high dispersion based on a project carried out in the municipality of La Pobla de Vallbona (Valencia) on participatory budgets. It analyzes the results of the process carried out in relation to the urban model, the morphology of their urban pieces and spatial structure, and the demographic and social characteristics of the municipality. The question is identifying the problematic for the articulation of participative processes in territories with this idiosyncrasy. Finally, the article suggests a series of strategic lines as starting points to achieve participatory processes in the city characterized by urban sprawl.

Urban Contingency and the Problem of Representation in Second Empire Paris

1995 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Mead
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Process ◽  
State Institution ◽  
The State ◽  
Second Empire ◽  
Paris Opera ◽  
Napoleon Iii ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Chain ◽  
The City

Charles Garnier's Paris Opéra (1861-75) and Baron Haussmann's contemporary replanning of Paris (1853-70) supposedly represent the Second Empire of Napoléon III. But this case study of the Opéra within the context of its quarter of Paris contradicts the usual assumptions that the monument and the city were either the inevitable products or the characteristic political expressions of the state. First, a chain of events dating back to the seventeenth century is reconstructed in order to demonstrate that the decision reached in 1860 to site the Opéra on the Grands Boulevards at the end of a projected new avenue was less the consequence of an imperial plan than the pragmatic result of the often contingent urban history of Paris. Second, the parallel and equally pragmatic evolution of the characteristic Parisian façade of a giant order on an arcuated base is traced from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries in order to explain why Garnier's Opéra and Haussmann's surrounding buildings came to have the same form of elevation. Interpreted in light of both the Opéra's own ambiguous status as a state institution and the ambiguous nature of nineteenth-century bourgeois civil society, this evidence suggests that neither urban nor architectural forms are fixed in their meaning, but tend rather to adjust their meaning to the changing circumstances of their use. This article concludes that a city and its monuments find their meaning in the continuous process by which a city's inhabitants shape and experience their surroundings, rather than in the episodic political programs of the state.

scholarly journals Effect of transport infrstructure in changing urban form of a historical city: a case study of Lahore

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayesha Anwar ◽  
◽  
Leng Hong ◽  
Afir Zubair Raja ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Transit Oriented Development ◽  
City Dynamics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Bus Service ◽  
The City ◽  
Rapid Mass

Urban development and transportation are interrelated as transportation networks help in shaping the urban form along with supporting the social, cultural, and economic growth of the city similarly transportation infrastructure is also shaped by the city dynamics. Lahore Metro Bus Service (MBS) is Pakistan’s first rapid mass transit project on Ferozepur road with 27 Kilometers long track and 27 bus stations. It is now an integral part of the Lahore so its implications for the urban fabric need to be studied urgently to fully utilize transit service and to strengthen mobility and emerging economies. According to results, (MBS) has improved the accessibility to basic needs and services but the peculiar character of this historical city is ignored due to poor design. The government needs to bring transport agencies, stakeholders, and people together for joint development policy to enhance revenue, ridership and to move towards Transit Oriented Development (TOD).

scholarly journals Urban form and vacant shops: can one explain the other? – a case study in Portugal

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Saraiva ◽  
Teresa Sá Marques ◽  
Paulo Pinho
Keyword(s):  
Urban Form ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Urban Morphology ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Economic Market ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Morphological Variables ◽  
The City

Shopping is much more than a wealth-generator in post-modern societies; it is intrinsically linked with the way people experience the city and an indivisible part of their day-to-day social experiences. Consequently, the literature has gradually recognized that commercial geographies are not just a consequence of economic market logics. It has been proven that there is a relationship between store-types and urban morphology, and that commerce is an important catalyst for urban regeneration and revitalization. Thus, the urban form can also be a cause for the lack of success of a shop. The amount of vacant shops has been signaled as an important problem in urban areas, affecting the structure and the identity of neighborhoods, and reflects the negative effects of the economic-crisis. Strategies to overcome this problem are usually economically-oriented and fail to capitalize on the new-found relationships between store-success and urban morphology. Thus this research wishes to test whether there are indeed correlations between specific morphological features and the existence of vacant shops, and consequently to propose how changes in the urban environment can contribute to overcome, and even prevent, such cases. The geographical distribution of vacant shops in a sample of Portuguese cities was set against morphological variables such as building age or centrality in the network (Space Syntax). Positive association was found, for example, between new developments and vacant shops, questioning the need for more store space in certain areas; and, particularly outside central neighborhoods, between open shops and high ‘choice’ (rather than high ‘integration’) axes.

scholarly journals Explaining the Relationship between Changes in Iranian Lifestyle and Metamorphosis of Urban Form of Residential Environment in Contemporary Iran Case Study: Mashhad, Iran

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Abedzadeh ◽  
Abdolhadi Daneshpour ◽  
Maryam Ostadi
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Residential Environment ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Short Term ◽  
New Form ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

Humanity settlement are formed as a result of decisions and actions of different people and become as a form of an identity of integrity. So urban form is influenced by desires, values, beliefs, and human activities, so the study of urban form is the study of its constituent human values and expression of physical aspects of their lifestyles. Before contemporary periods, urban form in Iran, continuity based on former patterns of changes, which was gradual, but after the beginning of the influence of west, one of the most important challenges of urban form in Iran is in the form of short-term changes. Changes occur in a cycle of destruction and construction. This paper use the way of content analysis investigate to texts, document to study form and typo-morphology of residential environment in the city of Mashhad. In the periods of one hundred years shows there is a direct and significant relationship between changes of Iranian lifestyle and metamorphosis of urban form, so that by sequential developments of Iranian lifestyle in a short time, the urban form is responded and metamorphosed and again is created in a new form.

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