scholarly journals Reshaping the Urban Space in Portuguese Fortified Cities

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquim Manuel Rodrigues dos Santos

In the early nineteenth century, the (obsolete) Portuguese urban fortifications were frequently ruined and suffering from a gradual desertion around them. With the emergence of patrimonial concerns, those defensive structures began being considered as historical and cultural monuments. As a result, the isolation of these monuments became a common practice that often created public green areas (gardens and parks) framing monuments, giving them a picturesque image. The consequences of these rehabilitation actions on urban fortifications in Portugal are analyzed here, focusing particularly on those that created new public green spaces within and around urban areas. In fact, the shape of several Portuguese cities was conditioned by those interventions: not only were breathing areas conceived in the middle of dense urban masses, allowing their fruition by local populations, but also some ancient urban belts associated with former defensive needs were recovered by those interventions.

Author(s):  
F. Guzzetti ◽  
K. L. N. Anyabolu ◽  
L. D’Ambrosio ◽  
G. Marchetti

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> In urban areas, the “built” is defined by many different elements. Not only buildings but also open spaces containing green areas, viability, urban furniture, underground facilities. While the H-BIM sector focuses, rightly, on buildings of great historical significance, in our case it is been consider a part of the built that it usually not analyse: the urban open space. One of the interesting themes is the possibility of having a single tool that integrates the different objects present in a complex environment such as the urban area. The process with BIM model could allow a huge saving in terms of time and costs considering public tender, maintenance or construction phase of a project. Facility management operating through BIM is another relevant theme considering the whole life of a construction. Finally, another important theme is the connections between elements above the ground (visible elements) and subsoil (not visible elements), not only for the administrations but also if related to the HBIM environment.</p><p>The paper reports the analysis of the experience performed, particularly related to questions about detail and accuracy of the BIM model.</p><p>A methodology for modelling open spaces is been assuming, it is described possible improvements and considerations on the result.</p>


2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Bach ◽  
Bożena Pawłowska ◽  
Małgorzata Pietrzak

Abstract Trees play a crucial role in the urban environment. They fulfil aesthetic, sociocultural, ecological, health-promoting and economic functions. Urban development and related human activity bring many risks to green areas within urban space. Plants are exposed to stress connected with water, soil and air pollution. Living space, harmful light and thermal conditions, drought, high density and changeable soil pH with excessive salinity are further disadvantages. European and Northern American cities have to cope with a serious danger of tree death. A leading cause is the use of de-icing chemicals in winter, particularly sodium chloride, applied due to its cost-effectiveness and availability. The paper describes traditional de-icing chemicals used in urban areas (NaCl, solid aggregates, CaCl2, MgCl sulphates MgSO4, (NH4)2SO4, urea alcohols and glycols isopropyl alcohol, ethylene glycol, methanol) and newly developed sodium chloride substitutes (calcium magnesium acetate CMA), sodium formate and acetate NaFo/NaAc, potassium carbonate K2CO3). Moreover, prophylactic methods aimed at preventing the negative impact of de-icing campaigns, rules of planning and design of urban landscape, and reasonable management measures and pro-ecological modern technologies reducing and reversing the consequences of harmful actions are presented


Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 779
Author(s):  
Vito Emanuele Cambria ◽  
Thomas Campagnaro ◽  
Giovanni Trentanovi ◽  
Riccardo Testolin ◽  
Fabio Attorre ◽  
...  

Understanding and explaining the use of green spaces and forests is challenging for sustainable urban planning. In recent years there has been increasing demand for novel approaches to investigate urban green infrastructure by capitalizing on large databases from existing citizen science tools. In this study, we analyzed iNaturalist data to perform an assessment of the intentional use of these urban spaces for their value and to understand the main drivers. We retrieved the total number of observations obtained across a set of 672 European cities and focused on reporting from mapped green areas and forests. We used two separate multivariate explanatory models to investigate which factors explained variations in the number of observations for green areas and forests. We found a relatively heterogeneous use of these two urban green spaces. Gross domestic product was important in explaining the number of visits. Availability and accessibility also had positive relationships with the use of green areas and forests in cities, respectively. This study paves the way for better integration of citizen science data in assessing cultural services provided by urban green infrastructure and therefore in supporting the evaluation of spatial planning policies for the sustainable development of urban areas.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4600
Author(s):  
Didem Kara ◽  
Gülden Demet Oruç

The impacts of problems related to dense, unplanned, and irregular urbanization on the natural environment, urban areas, and humankind have been discussed in many disciplines for decades. Because of the circular relationship between humans and their environment, human health and psychology have become both agents and patients in interactions with nature. The field of ecopsychology investigates within this reciprocal context the relationship between human psychology and ecological issues and the roles of human psychology and society in environmental problems based on deteriorated nature–human relationships in urbanized areas. This approach has given rise to ecotherapy, which takes a systemic approach to repairing this disturbed nature–human relationship. This study aims to uncover the relationship between the physical attributes of urban green areas and their potential for providing ecotherapy service to users, first by determining the characteristics of ecotherapeutic urban space and urban green areas given in studies in the ecopsychology and ecotherapy literature, and then by conducting a case study in two urban parks from the Beylikdüzü District of the Istanbul Metropolitan Area. The impacts of these parks’ changing physical characteristics on user experiences are determined through a comparison of their physical attributes and the user experiences related to their ecotherapy services.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (Suppl. 4) ◽  
pp. 988-1000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Djekic ◽  
Petar Mitkovic ◽  
Milena Dinic-Brankovic ◽  
Milica Igic ◽  
Petar Djekic ◽  
...  

Urban landscape is largely characterized by high degree of built space, high share of artificial surface material and the reduction of green areas, which leads to changes in the microclimate and the deterioration of thermal comfort in out-door urban space. One of the most important roles of urban greenery is the impact on the reduction of air temperature due to less heating of green space com-pared to paved surfaces and due to tree shading. The paper analyses the influence of urban greenery on temperature reduction. Aim of the study was to measure the difference in warming up of grassy surfaces and paving materials commonly used for public areas and to evaluate the impact of tree shading on the surface cooling during the day. For this purpose, measuring of surface temperatures was performed during the summer months in 2015 in the central city zone of the city of Nis. The measuring included: grass, asphalt as most commonly used paving material, and concrete tiles commonly used for pedestrian areas. Results show the temperature of grass is significantly lower than the temperature of paved surface at any time of day. In the case of paved surfaces, temperature of shaded or partially shaded material is lower than the temperature of surface exposed to sunlight during the whole day, a temperature difference exists even after nocturnal cooling. The results indicate the importance of green areas for cooling of urban spaces, due to their lower warming and surface shading from tree canopy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (8) ◽  
pp. 155014772110340
Author(s):  
Qi Liu ◽  
Li Hou ◽  
Sana Shaukat ◽  
Usman Tariq ◽  
Rabia Riaz ◽  
...  

Urban green spaces are really vital for the well-being of human in urban areas. In urban planning for green space site selection, the study of the bond among the usage of green spaces and their categories that really influence their use can provide useful references. A spatial and temporal research on the allocation of visitors in 157 green areas was carried out in Shanghai to know which green spaces are denser or crowdsourced by utilizing social media big data. We evaluated the association with statistical testing and Kernel Density Estimation among the spatial pattern of the visitor spread in urban green areas. We used check-in data from social media to test this study comparing the number of humans who visit various green parks. We have classified green areas into various categories and our main findings are focused on their characteristics: (1) famous category of green parks according to visitors’ preferences, (2) Differences in the number of visitors by daytime, and (3) crowdsourced area based upon number of check-ins. The main aim of this article is to remind policy makers of the value of providing local people access to green areas and to empower cities with a framework for contacting green parks with the purpose of increasing the comfort of urban people with the architecture of smart city.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamideh Nouri ◽  
Sattar Chavoshi Borujeni ◽  
Arjen Hoekstra

&lt;p&gt;The world&amp;#8217;s population residing in urban areas grew from 30% in 1950 to about 60% in 2020 and is expected to reach 68% by 2050. As urban areas continue to grow, green spaces in cities are getting ever more treasured. Most cities have adopted strategies to be greener to improve their resilience and livability. To make the best of the benefits offered by urban green spaces, healthy greenness is essential and this means additional water consumption. Water limitation usually results in drying out of green areas in summer, when benefits and services by green spaces are highly demanded (e.g. cooling effect). In the 21&lt;sup&gt;st&lt;/sup&gt; century, vulnerability to water shortage is not restricted to dry regions anymore;&amp;#160; water scarcity in the time of need is threatening the livability of cities even in wet regions (i.e. extreme summers in Europe). In this study, we estimate for the first time, to our knowledge, the blue water consumption of urban green spaces. We measure the evapotranspiration of an urban green space using three approaches of in-situ, observational-based and remote sensing, and employ principles of water footprint. We assess the blue and green water footprint of urban greenery to maintain green areas of a city based on their water demand, not the abstracted water or irrigated water. In the case of Adelaide Parklands in Australia, the annual total water footprint is 1114mm, of which 17% consumes in spring, 42% in summer, 27% in autumn, and 14% in winter. The average blue water footprint of the Parklands calculates 0.66&amp;#8239;m&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt; per square meter per annum. The hot and dry summer causes a high total water footprint compared to the cold and wet winter. This study is transferable to other cities for quantification of blue water consumption of urban green spaces and their water footprint. These findings may help to guide urbanisation priorities to move toward greening cities with no extra pressure on scarce water resources.&lt;/p&gt;


2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Alter ◽  
Muriel Neven ◽  
Michel Oris

Eastern Belgium provides a range of examples of early industrialization. In the nineteenth century, well-established proto-industrial textile and iron production was replaced by mechanization in rapidly growing cities. In this article we examine the consequences of this transition on heights of young men in seven communities with contrasting histories. Men in this area were unusually short in the early nineteenth century, but the trend was strongly upward. There is also some evidence that urban areas experienced setbacks when they were growing most rapidly. Comparison of heights among occupations shows dramatic differences between rich and poor. The gap between the poorest and the wealthiest was at least eight centimeters, and heights seem to reflect even small differences in childhood experience. However, gains in height were larger among the poor, reducing differences within the working class by mid-century.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leydy Alejandra Castellanos Diaz ◽  
Olivier Bonin ◽  
Pierre Antoine Versini ◽  
Ioulia Tchiguirinskaia

&lt;p&gt;The need to adapt and increase the resilience of urban areas regarding the issues induced by urbanization and climate change effects (e.g. floods, Urban Heat Island, pandemics, etc.), has led to propose several strategies as the Natural-Based Solutions (NBS), which are focus on restoring natural processes such as infiltration and evapotranspiration (ET) in urban areas. In consequence, the increasing interest on NBS installation (highly supported by the H2020 program of the European Commission) by urban planners, decision-makers, researchers and the residing population has conducted to question the most efficient ways of NBS deployment. In this context, the urban dynamics (e.g. population density, land use patterns, transport network, etc.) and the distribution of green areas at different spatial scales play a key role that characterise the urban development in the territory.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Based on the study of an urban agglomeration named Est-Ensemble, located at the east of Paris (France), this research aims to: i) determinate the fractal dimension of the built-up and green areas by using 2 different box-counting methods; ii) set the potential areas to install NBS, through the development of an iterative downscaling scheme over the built-up structure with the software Fractalopolis, and following a polycentric approach inspired on the urban form of Ile de France Region, and iii) assess the population access to the nearest green spaces and deficit of green spaces.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Further, from local scale measurements of ET made close to Est-Ensemble agglomeration, the authors carried out a multifractal analysis of the ET data to better evaluate the observed scaling behaviour. This will be coupled with spatial approach developed above to evaluate the impact of temperature reduction of different land use scenarios. This research is partly supported by the French ANR EVNATURB project.&lt;/p&gt;


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