Distant friends and intimate strangers: On the perils of friendship in a Malaysian apartment building

Urban Studies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 554-569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Killias
Keyword(s):  
Urban Landscape ◽  
The Political ◽  
Apartment Building ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Local Material ◽  
State Surveillance ◽  
Making Friends ◽  
Iranian Students ◽  
In Transit

Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork in and around a Malaysian apartment building, this paper explores discourses on and practices of friendship among young Iranian residents. The paper argues that for Iranians in Malaysia, most of them students, forming close social ties always holds the risk not only of personal betrayal but also of political infiltration, and thus making friends is informed by suspicion, anxiety and ambivalence. In the context of both formal state surveillance and informal moral policing in the high-rise, Iranian students often choose to ‘keep their distance’ from other Iranians. By analysing quotidian mutual observation and questioning, mistrust, but also forms of sociality that develop in the dense, cosmopolitan urban contact zone of an apartment building, this paper teases out conflicted narratives about intimacy and distance, and argues that these must be understood in the context of the local, material urban landscape of the high-rise, the uncertainty of life in transit as well as the political context of Post-Revolution Iran.

scholarly journals The visual-landscape analysis during the integration of high-rise buildings within the historic urban environment

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 01044
Author(s):  
Vera A. Akristiniy ◽  
Elena A. Dikova
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Landscape Analysis ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Visual Landscape ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Typological Structure ◽  
The City ◽  
Information Database

The article is devoted to one of the types of urban planning studies - the visual-landscape analysis during the integration of high-rise buildings within the historic urban environment for the purposes of providing pre-design and design studies in terms of preserving the historical urban environment and the implementation of the reconstructional resource of the area. In the article formed and systematized the stages and methods of conducting the visual-landscape analysis taking into account the influence of high-rise buildings on objects of cultural heritage and valuable historical buildings of the city. Practical application of the visual-landscape analysis provides an opportunity to assess the influence of hypothetical location of high-rise buildings on the perception of a historically developed environment and optimal building parameters. The contents of the main stages in the conduct of the visual - landscape analysis and their key aspects, concerning the construction of predicted zones of visibility of the significant historically valuable urban development objects and hypothetically planned of the high-rise buildings are revealed. The obtained data are oriented to the successive development of the planning and typological structure of the city territory and preservation of the compositional influence of valuable fragments of the historical environment in the structure of the urban landscape. On their basis, an information database is formed to determine the permissible urban development parameters of the high-rise buildings for the preservation of the compositional integrity of the urban area.

scholarly journals Aesthetic Preferences for Visual Quality of Urban Landscape in Derak High-Rise Buildings (Shiraz)

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reza Keshtkaran ◽  
Amin Habibi ◽  
Hamidreza Sharif
Keyword(s):  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Grid Method ◽  
Visual Quality ◽  
Landscape Design ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Q Sort ◽  
Aesthetic Preferences ◽  
Psychophysical Approach

The purpose of this study is to extract the indices of Aesthetic preferences for visual quality of urban landscape in high-rise buildings which contribute designers to make better decisions for designing urban landscape. As the research focuses on the high-rise buildings, this study goal address the question as follows: ‘What are aesthetic preferences in high-rise buildings? How can these preferences be developed and categorized?’ To achieve this objective, the Derak district of Shiraz city was selected as a case study area using Photo grid method and then all high-rise buildings in this area were identified and analyzed. Aesthetic preferences data were evaluated by Q-SORT method with the psychophysical approach. Eventually, aesthetic factors have been presented in two main categories: 'primary and distinctive'. Findings lead to the development of APPD model which suggests that when the landscape design of a building moves toward distinctive factors, the degree of its aesthetic preferences increases.

scholarly journals PAKISTAN’S STRATEGIC INSUFFICIENCY AS A DILEMMA FOR THE REGIONAL INTEGRATION

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hikmat Shah Afridi ◽  
Shabana Khan ◽  
Sobia Jamil
Keyword(s):  
Regional Integration ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Interests ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Grand Design ◽  
Making Friends ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Former Ussr

Chahbahar, being part of an Indian grand design is playing its role for counter weighing to Gwadar Port whereas it also provides India with easy access to Afghanistan and CARs. On the other hand, Pakistans geo-political positioning has been revolving around its anomalous and eccentric relations with various states. The prime rationale for state relations and relevant alliances with states was to maintain harmony with neighboring countries but during world wars, entente meant fighting your brothers war. In this context, Pakistans acceptance by the world was relatively slower and its take-ups in making friends, in the political playland were much tricky. Pakistan was wary with the former USSR whereas the compliance to the US backfired on many occasions gradually made Pakistan withdraw from its upclose position with the US, therefore now it is time to make independent and rational decisions but yet in the best national interests.

Structural design of an over-track building with mid-story isolation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daiki Nakamizo ◽  
Seiya Kimura ◽  
Yuichi Koitabashi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Structural Design ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Transit Oriented Development ◽  
Structural Element ◽  
Basement Structure ◽  
Design Point ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Railway Operations ◽  
In Transit

<p>In order to use urban space effectively in Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), over-track buildings (built over railways), are becoming increasingly popular in Japan. From a construction and structural design point of view, the basement structure just beneath railways generally cannot be built while railway operations continue (interruption to operations is not permitted, In general).</p><p>This paper presents the structural design of a mid-story isolated high-rise building constructed over railways in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. The paper shows, not only the philosophy of the system, but also the structural design, full-scale experiments, and evaluation of the performance in each structural element. The authors believe that such a structural design will be one of the effective solutions to the over-track building.</p>

The Impossible Task of Designating Execution Sites

2020 ◽  
pp. 85-114
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Taïeb
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Location Problem ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
The Political ◽  
Impossible Task

This chapter talks about execution sites. The political desire to alter executionary rituals can be seen in the choices made regarding execution sites, which were increasingly subject to a process of rationalization that moved executions ever closer to the prison walls in order to stop their public spread. The chapter discusses the executionary transformation of the urban landscape by means of a portable guillotine and a single, traveling executioner; the statutory regime for choosing execution sites, and setting the stage for executions once it was confirmed that no presidential pardon would be granted. It further talks about the symbolism found in execution sites, and the logical displacement off the death penalty thanks to the siren call of the prison. Execution sites moved from temporary places to uncertain places with legislation moving execution sites closer to prisons, which saw the naturalization of penitentiary dominance mostly because of the prison presenting a solution to the unsolved location problem of execution sites.

scholarly journals Melbourne’s vertical expansion and the political economies of high-rise residential development

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (16) ◽  
pp. 3394-3414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Nethercote
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Housing Stock ◽  
The Political ◽  
Critical Geography ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Stakeholder Perspectives ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
Traditional Patterns

This article advances understandings of Melbourne’s dramatic vertical expansion over the last decade by attending to the political economies of its high-rise housing development. Melbourne’s major high-rise development in the wake of the financial crisis represents a radical yet poorly understood departure from the city’s traditional patterns of suburban development. This article applies an existing conceptual framework for residential vertical urbanisation informed by heterodox political economy and critical geography. Drawing on secondary sources supplemented by supply-side stakeholder perspectives, the analysis shows how Melbourne’s high-rise development assisted in syphoning significant investor capital into the city. This not only expanded the local housing stock but, in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis and later, amid ongoing economic uncertainty, Melbourne’s high-rise construction served both economic and geopolitical/symbolic functions in the city’s ongoing inter-urban competition for hyper mobile flows of capital and highly-skilled workers. Large apartment projects fuelled the Victorian economy and filled state coffers through property-related revenue. Meanwhile, the city’s dramatic vertical expansion helped project a powerful image of Melbourne around the world. Its crane-filled skyline heralded a thriving economy, and its new thicket of towers rendered a striking impression of urbane high-density living. Together these representations helped promote Melbourne as a vibrant, desirable place to live, work, and invest. Looking beyond the planning failures and planning politics identified in planners’ critiques of Melbourne’s vertical expansion, this article showcases the state’s considerable stakes in this development, and its role in smoothing the way for this expansion to occur.

scholarly journals Graz Lagrangian Model (GRAL) for Pollutants Tracking and Estimating Sources Partial Contributions to Atmospheric Pollution in Highly Urbanized Areas

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1375
Author(s):  
Aleksey A. Romanov ◽  
Boris A. Gusev ◽  
Egor V. Leonenko ◽  
Anastasia N. Tamarovskaya ◽  
Alexander S. Vasiliev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Lagrangian Model ◽  
Emission Sources ◽  
Computational Domain ◽  
Surface Atmospheric Layer ◽  
Wind Speeds ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Heterogeneous Landscape

Computational modeling allows studying the air quality problems in depth and provides the best solution reducing the population risks. This research demonstrates the Graz Lagrangian model effectiveness for assessing emission sources contributions to the air pollution: particles tracking and accumulation estimate. The article describes model setting up parameters and datasets preparation for the analysis. The experiment simulated the dispersion from the main groups of emission sources for real weather conditions during 96 h of December 2018, when significant excess of NO2, CO, SO2, PM10, and benzo(a)pyrene concentrations were observed in the Krasnoyarsk surface atmospheric layer. The computational domain was a parallelepiped of 40 × 30 × 2.5 km, which was located deep inside the Eurasian continent on a heterogeneous landscape exaggerated by high-rise buildings, with various pollutions sources and the ice-free Yenisei River. The results demonstrated an excellent applicability of the Lagrange model for hourly tracking of particle trajectories, taking into account the urban landscape. For values <1 MPC (maximum permissible concentration) of peak pollutants concentrations, the coincidences were 93 cases, and for values < 0.1 shares of MPC, there were 36 cases out of the total number of 97. The same was found for the average daily concentration for values <1 MPC—31, and for values <0.1 MPC—5 matches out of 44. Wind speeds COR—65.3%, wind directions COR—68.6%. The Graz Lagrangian model showed the ability to simulate air quality problems in the Krasnoyarsk greater area conditions.

scholarly journals ‘Cheap Merchandise’: Atrocity and Undocumented Migrants in Transit in Mexico’s War on Drugs

2020 ◽  
pp. 089692052096181
Author(s):  
Javier Trevino-Rangel
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Central America ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Security Policies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Undocumented Migration ◽  
The Subject ◽  
In Transit

Undocumented migrants in transit in Mexico are victims of atrocity. The subject has been largely ignored by scholars, however, until recently when a number of migration experts became interested in the matter. Most observers argue that abuses suffered by migrants are the consequence of the ‘securitization’ of Mexican immigration policy. For them, Mexican authorities perceive migrants from Central America as a threat to national security and have hardened laws and migratory practices as a result, but there is insufficient evidence to support these claims. This article looks at the political economy of undocumented migration in transit in Mexico and the violence associated with it. It investigates the abuses suffered by migrants not as the result of supposed security policies but rather as the consequence of the interplay between local and global economies that generate profits from undocumented migration. The article explores the role played by state officials, cartels and ordinary Mexicans in the migration industry.

scholarly journals Toponymy, Pioneership, and the Politics of Ethnic Hierarchies in the Spatial Organization of British Colonial Nairobi

Urban Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Wanjiru-Mwita ◽  
Frédéric Giraut
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Urban Citizenship ◽  
Ethnic Affiliation ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
British Asians ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
The City

Toponyms, along with other urban symbols, were used as a tool of control over space in many African countries during the colonial period. This strategy was epitomized by the British, who applied it in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya from the late 1800s. This paper shows that toponymy in colonial Nairobi was an imposition of British political references, urban nomenclature, as well as the replication of a British spatial idyll on the urban landscape of Nairobi. In early colonial Nairobi, the population was mainly composed of three main groups: British, Asians, and Africans. Although the Africans formed the bulk of the population, they were the least represented, socially, economically and politically. Ironically, he British, who were the least in population held the political and economic power, and they applied it vigorously in shaping the identity of the city. The Asians were neither as powerful as the British, nor were they considered to be at the low level of the native Africans. This was the deliberate hierarchical structure that was instituted by the colonial government, where the level of urban citizenship depended on ethnic affiliation. Consequently, this structure was reflected in the toponymy and spatial organization of the newly founded city with little consideration to its pre-colonial status. Streets, buildings and other spaces such as parks were predominantly named after the British monarchy, colonial administrators, settler farmers, and businessmen, as well as prominent Asian personalities. In this paper, historical references such as maps, letter correspondences, monographs, and newspaper archives have been used as evidence to prove that toponyms in colonial Nairobi were the spatial signifiers that reflected the political, ideological and ethnic hierarchies and inequalities of the time.

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