scholarly journals El paseo imposible por la ciudad inabarcable. Una relectura de las ecologías urbanas de Reyner Banham

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (44) ◽  
pp. 08-19
Author(s):  
Javier Malo de Molina-Bodelón
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Synthetic Image ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Automobile Use ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Reyner Banham

The city of Los Angeles, CA, is, for sure, the first city to authentically emerge as a result of the widespread popularisation of automobile use, and it should, therefore, come as no surprise that the analytical and synthetic understanding of its profound nature is associated with this means of transportation and the infrastructures that make it possible. This is how the critic and historian Peter Reyner Banham understood it, when he proposed that only from behind the wheel of a vehicle could it be possible to reveal the true idiosyncrasies of this unusual city that the most orthodox European critics rejected, who were unable to extract a synthesis that could explain it. What was happening was that the city appeared as the pioneer of a new urban form which, relying on the widespread use of the car and the single-family dwelling, which is typical of the suburban garden city, proposed an absolute decentralisation as an alternative to the compact industrial city. In 1971, Banham published a now canonical text -Los Angeles, The Architecture of Four Ecologies- which aimed at revealing a clear and synthetic image of the city. This article highlights the main points of Reyner Banham's proposal, looking to expand its theoretical approach -which handles the structural and morphological scales- to a third scale: that of the sensory perception of the physical experience of space, based on some academic works of reference, but also on literary references by writers linked to the city in an attempt to transfer the poetic and sensitive vision to the field of urban studies. This vision makes it possible to show a change of paradigm regarding the relationship that the inhabitant of a contemporary city like Los Angeles -and, by extension, so many others- establishes with the scenario of collective life, represented by public space.

scholarly journals The role of the plot in engendering environmental quality: from unplanned favelas to the planned subdivisions of new blocks

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Cristina Villefort Teixeira ◽  
Marieta Cardoso Maciel ◽  
Staël Alvarenga Pereira Costa
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Minas Gerais ◽  
Confined Space ◽  
Geological Conditions ◽  
Belo Horizonte ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This work discusses the importance of the site in the morphological structuring of urban centres. Studies on the implantation of the city of Belo Horizonte, located in the state of Minas Gerais Brazil, show that the occupation of the city occurred initially in the valleys. This was due to the favourable conditions of the topography, which allowed an orthogonal layout in the central area. In spite of this, since the city’s foundation, the most rugged areas have been occupied by favelas, whose layout differed from the dominant pattern. As flat areas became scarce, the hilly regions, possessing long strips of land, were also subdivided and exploited due to their substantially lower land prices. Although the favelas sprung up spontaneously and the new settlements were planned, both had similarities in the layout of the streets which were adjusted to the steep contours and the geological conditions of the terrain. At the same time, the plot defined another configuration in the subdivisions, in which the building was occupied by only a single family and, in most cases, the building was separated from the street by high                walls. As a consequence, the relationship between public and private space became severely compromised.  In the case of the favelas, the formal inexistence of the plot is demonstrated in the juxtaposition of the dwellings, in which each residence is constructed above another in extremely confined space. The relationship with the street also differs in these places, since the first floor often freely connects to the street, integrating the dwelling with the public space and thus contributing to the social life of the community. This is furthermore in contrast to the previously noted walled environments characterising planned areas. The analysis of these parameters could profitably be utilised in new designs that appropriate some of the popular solutions better suited to the environment, and in turn, integrate them into public policy.References: FERREIRA, M. G.(1997) O sítio e a formação da paisagem urbana: um estudo do município de Belo Horizonte. 1997. Dissertação (Mestrado em Geografia). Instituto de Geociências, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. MASUO, K. (2015). An organic method of village rehabilitation through a reconstruction archetype based on vernacular architecture. International Seminar on Urban Form, ISUF 2015, Rome. McHARG, Ian L. (1992). Design with nature. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Washington. 

scholarly journals The Contribution of Urban Morphology to the Formation of the Microclimate in Compact Urban Cores: A Study in the City Center of Thessaloniki

Urban Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Georgios-Rafail Kouklis ◽  
Athena Yiannakou
Keyword(s):  
Field Study ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Simulation Method ◽  
Urban Morphology ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
City Center ◽  
Outdoor Spaces ◽  
Microclimatic Conditions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contribution of urban morphology to the formation of microclimatic conditions prevailing within urban outdoor spaces. We studied the compact form of a city and examined, at a detailed, street plan level, elements related to air temperature, urban ventilation, and the individual’s thermal comfort. All elements examined are directly affected by both the urban form and the availability of open and green spaces. The field study took place in a typical compact urban fabric of an old city center, the city center of Thessaloniki, where we investigated the relationship between urban morphology and microclimate. Urban morphology was gauged by examining the detailed street plan, along with the local building patterns. We used a simulation method based on the ENVI-met© software. The findings of the field study highlight the fact that the street layout, the urban canyon, and the open and green spaces in a compact urban form contribute decisively both to the creation of the microclimatic conditions and to the influence of the bioclimatic parameters.

Reconceptualizing the Public Spaces of New Urban Areas in Hanoi: The End or the New of Public-Making?

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Minh-Tung Tran ◽  
◽  
Tien-Hau Phan ◽  
Ngoc-Huyen Chu ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Public ◽  
Doi Moi ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Neighborhood Level

Public spaces are designed and managed in many different ways. In Hanoi, after the Doi moi policy in 1986, the transfer of the public spaces creation at the neighborhood-level to the private sector has prospered na-ture of public and added a large amount of public space for the city, directly impacting on citizen's daily life, creating a new trend, new concept of public spaces. This article looks forward to understanding the public spaces-making and operating in KDTMs (Khu Do Thi Moi - new urban areas) in Hanoi to answer the question of whether ‘socialization’/privatization of these public spaces will put an end to the urban public or the new means of public-making trend. Based on the comparison and literature review of studies in the world on public spaces privatization with domestic studies to see the differences in the Vietnamese context leading to differences in definitions and roles and the concept of public spaces in KDTMs of Hanoi. Through adducing and analyzing practical cases, the article also mentions the trends, the issues, the ways and the technologies of public-making and public-spaces-making in KDTMs of Hanoi. Win/loss and the relationship of the three most important influential actors in this process (municipality, KDTM owners, inhabitants/citizens) is also considered to reconceptualize the public spaces of KDTMs in Hanoi.

scholarly journals Interfaces and divisions in the Dublin Docklands 'Smart District'

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liam James Heaphy
Keyword(s):  
Urban Form ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Port Area ◽  
Networking Technologies ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

The study of physical and social divisions in divided societies has long been an area of study, such as the continued usage of 'peace walls' in Belfast, hostile architecture to prevent anti-social behaviour and rough sleeping, and the securitisation of private spaces. In the context of a new drive to create a smart district, this paper looks at the relationship between smart urbanism and planning, and at the spatial and social divisions between a new 'gentrifying' and well-educated community in the Dublin Docklands and established communities in the area. The Dublin Docklands redevelopment marks a significant break from a pattern of suburbanisation and inner-city decline and repurposes part of the former port area as a city centre extension. The paper accounts for the reshaping of the Dublin Docklands as a ‘smart district’ in collaboration with the city authorities, based on over thirty semi-structured interviews and participant-observation at consultation events. It argues that reductive definitions of smart cities as networking technologies be reworked into broader considerations on urban technologies and the future of cities, with greater emphasis on the relationship between technologies branded as ‘smart’ and the material and digital manifestation of boundaries in urban form.

The Relationship between Socioeconomic Factors and Gang Violence in the City of Los Angeles

1999 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Demetrios N. Kyriacou ◽  
H. Range Hutson ◽  
Deirdre Anglin ◽  
Corinne Peek-Asa ◽  
Jess F. Kraus
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Socioeconomic Factors ◽  
Gang Violence ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

scholarly journals New urban trends towards the use of public space in Turin

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Sarah Isabella Chiodi
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Local Unit ◽  
Local Stakeholders ◽  
New Type ◽  
National Research Program ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

<p>What do we mean when we talk about public space? We asked this question, among others about the relationship between urban populations and public spaces, to some people in the context of the National Research Program (PRIN 2009) titled ‘Public Spaces, moving populations and urban renewal programs’. This paper reports part of the outcome of the research done within the local unit of Turin (Italy), which has been developed with a set of interviews to local stakeholders and with a field research in the selected areas of the City Centre and the districts of San Salvario and Barriera di Milano.<br />From the answers of the stakeholders emerged some relevant issues that I analysed through a selected literature about the concept of public space. The result is a sort of catalogue of typical public spaces of the city, as acknowledged by the local stakeholders and by the field research, and analysed through the international literature. The typologies identified are: traditional public spaces, ‘cappuccino’ spaces, weak sociality spaces, new virtual public spaces and the ‘District Houses’, a new type of public space emerging in the city. To identify them, some characteristic pictures of public spaces of Turin and interviews’ pieces are also reported.<br />However, facing this scenario built on the empirical research, we should mind that the conflicting views of public space depend also on the professional and cultural background of the interviewees, which is such fickle data that it cannot be catalogued. So, the catalogue proposed is not exhaustive, but only indicative of the trend about new perspectives on the meaning of public space which emerged through research conducted in the city of Turin.</p>

scholarly journals Alma-Ata: some architectural narratives of the soviet city

2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-21
Author(s):  
Z. B Abylkhozhin ◽  
◽  
I. Krupko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Subject Field ◽  
Visual Narratives ◽  
Post War ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This article explores some visual narratives of the architectural landscape of Alma-Ata city (modern Almaty). Historical narratives produced or studied by historians in the text are no less vividly and distinctly manifested in the visual sphere. In many ways, this can be attributed to the design of urban space and its architecture. Architecture not only directly depends on the socio-political, ideological, and symbolic regime, but often creates it. Being a product of the era, a zone of perception and reflection of its impulses, the architectural landscape of the city creates a socio-cultural space, which in turn forms the mental background for the inhabitants of this city. Knowledge about cities is a special subject field for comparative urban studies, including a culturalanthropological and ethnographic basis. The article attempts to describe the two main architectural narratives of the city of Almaty (Stalinist Empire style and Soviet modernism) and their projections in the space of historical memory, as well as the relationship of these narratives with the corresponding ideologies (imperial geopolitical ambitions of the USSR in the post-war period and the ideology of modernism of the 60-80s biennium). The problem of updating the cultural heritage of Soviet architecture in the historical memory of the Kazakh society is also posed.

scholarly journals Sustainable urban structures to challenge climate change

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emil CREANGA ◽  
Maria DUDA
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Private Investment ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Urban Structure ◽  
Urban Structures ◽  
Modern Development ◽  
The City

Public spaces within the city in all their form of different types - streets, boulevards, squares, plazas, market places, green areas - are the backbone of cities. Over the centuries buildings defined the shape and quality of public spaces, valorising them in various ways. The post-modern development of urban form generated a great number of “urban spaces”, where there is no longer correspondence between architectural forms and social and political messages: shopping malls and theme parks, inner public spaces, strip developments etc. Urban sprawl accompanied by loss of agricultural/rural land and its impact on the environment are serious concerns for most cities over Europe. To strike the right balance between inner city regeneration, under-use of urban land in the old abandoned sites and the ecological benefits that accompany the new private business initiatives in suburban areas, is one of the major challenges confronting cities in Europe. The paper will analyze the complex relations between architecture and public space, in an attempt to understand how traditional urban structures, public and green spaces, squares and streets, could provide orientation for quality-oriented regeneration. Case in point is Bucharest - capital city of Romania - where aggressive intervention in the urban structure during the 1980s disrupted the fabric of the city. The investigation is oriented towards fundamental questions such as: how to secure and preserve sites that serve as initial points in upgrading processes, how to balance private investment criteria and the quality interests of the urban communities.The major aim is to provide a support for decision making in restoring the fundamental role of public urban space in shaping urban form and supporting community life.

scholarly journals Performance and the City: Constructing Urban Identities in Contemporary London

2013 ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Laura Di Michele
Keyword(s):  
Olympic Games ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The Body ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Opening Ceremony ◽  
London 2012 ◽  
Social Encounters ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Reyner Banham

The relationship between spectators, performers and spaces is investigated in a critical perspective which aims at further developing the concept of the city as a performance place where precarious urban identities are dynamically and temporarily shaped and reshaped. Even if this essay takes into due account the seminal studies of Barthes (1971), H. Lefebvre (1974), and urban theorists such as Reyner Banham and Kevin Lynch who conceived of the city as a ‘legible’ text, at the same time it argues that textuality and performativity must be perceived as intertwined cultural practices that work together to shape the body of phenomenal, intellectual, psychic, and social encounters that frame a subject’s experience of the city. London 2012 Olympic Games, and in particular the stunning Opening Ceremony directed by Danny Boyle, for which visitors and overseas spectators were invited to transform themselves into a global theatrical audience, can be used as a privileged viewpoint from which to analyse the different ways of perceiving, but also being looked at and performing oneself, in and through spaces which tend at modifying, or at interrogating or destabilizing one’s traditional identity.

Imperialism in the city: war and the making of the municipal administration in the French Concession of Shanghai in the Taiping period, 1853–1862

Urban History ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-151
Author(s):  
Chong Xu
Keyword(s):  
Urban Form ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Local History ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Municipal Administration ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Western Imperialism ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

AbstractThis article, based on western primary sources, seeks to investigate the relationship between western imperialism in China and the making of modern Chinese statecraft in urban form, focusing on the French perspective and on historical institutionalism. Both internal rebellions and western empires shaped modern Chinese cities. The Chinese response to western intervention is a more complicated story. Pace Paul Cohen, we do need to know about foreign activities in modern China – not as ‘impact-response’ and ‘tradition-modernity’ paradigms – but rather as part of local history, both in terms of local administration and urban landscape. Euro-American expansion and exploitation are not part of a unitary or totalizing enterprise, and warfare and Franco-British conflicts facilitated the making of modern municipal administration in the French Concession of Shanghai; on the other hand, Chinese forces indirectly shaped the structure of the institutions of imperialism, as well as pointing to divergent national approaches to imperialism.

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