scholarly journals City urban design in a free market economy: The case of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Spatium ◽  
2002 ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
Kaliopa Dimitrovska-Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
Planning System ◽  
Economic Viability ◽  
City Centre ◽  
City Development ◽  
Design Quality ◽  
The City

A recent rapid political and economic changes in many eastern European countries demand corresponding changes in the town planning system, and especially in the development control and urban management process. For instance, at a present many historic city and town cores still remain relatively intact in their original form, but have become the target for development pressure. How should this pressure be channeled to achieve enhancement of the urban qualities of those areas (especially barracks and old factory sites), without jeopardising their competitiveness for attracting business and employment. This paper discusses the outcomes of research carried out at the Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia from 1995 to 1998, on the development of appropriate methods for the appraisal and promotion of design quality in relation to economic viability in city development projects especially for an urban renewal. The elements for the assessment of urban design quality derive from the basic principles of good urban design such as identity, permeability, legibility visual appropriateness, robustness, visual and symbolic richness, amongst others. The simplified computerised model for assessing financial viability is based on building costs and market value of the investment, and shows the profitability of the development. It can be a useful tool in both assessing design viability, and for determining extra profit or ?planning gain? in the planning process negotiations such ?surplus? can be used for satisfying local needs (e.g. additional programs, design of public spaces). This method for appraisal and promotion of design quality in relation to economic viability has been examined through an assessment of the competition projects for the renewal of the Rog factory area in the city centre of Ljubljana. This case study has revealed the need for a clear strategy for future city development, with marketing guidance and policies for positive planning to achieve better vitality and viability for the city as a whole. Subsequently, the research examined successful initiatives for the promotion of urban design on a national and local level of the planning process identifying the most important issues affecting city design in the market economy, such as partnership arrangements, joint ventures and city-entrepreneurs. The paper briefly discusses: salient features of the current planning system in Slovenia and the on-going changes relating to the new approaches to town planning; the proposed method for appraisal and promotion of design quality and economic viability of urban environment; the results of the examination of this method applied to a case study - the renewal of an industrial site in the city centre of Ljubljana.

Historic city, tourism performance and development: The balance of social behaviours in the city of Santiago de Compostela (Spain)

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Belén Mª Castro Fernández ◽  
Rubén Camilo Lois González ◽  
Lucrezia Lopez
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Data ◽  
City Centre ◽  
City Development ◽  
Santiago De Compostela ◽  
Final Destination ◽  
City Tourism ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Historic City ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

Santiago de Compostela is an iconic place. From the 9th century through to the present day the city has acted as the final destination of a major pilgrimage route named after it. In the article we ask ourselves how the contemporary reinvention of the pilgrimage and pilgrimages on the Way of St. James has boosted tourism development in the city. Development has been concentrated in the historic city centre and in the area around the cathedral. The importance of tourism has transformed the significance of the city itself, which acquires a magical component as a place of arrival and encounter for all kinds of visitors. The historic city has been set up in the 20th century as a destination for the Way and for cultural tourism. The buildings, particularly those connected with the pilgrimage route, become highly attractive and symbolic places and tourists carry out a number of rituals in them. They travel and enjoy Santiago as a unique experience. The study of tourism and of the tourist transformation of Santiago de Compostela is undertaken using a qualitative and quantitative method. The article analyses the heritage and symbolic value of the historic centre, together with the growth of its tourism activities. Numerical data are also provided on the perceptions and behaviour of visitors using surveys carried out by the city's Tourism Observatory.

scholarly journals Nodes and Networks: The Generative Role of Cultural Heritage for Urban Revival in Kikinda

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 2509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uroš Radosavljević ◽  
Aleksandra Đorđević ◽  
Kseniјa Lalović ◽  
Jelena Živković ◽  
Zoran Đukanović
Keyword(s):  
Social Sustainability ◽  
City Development ◽  
Case Study Method ◽  
Cultural Artifact ◽  
Urban Heritage ◽  
Heritage Buildings ◽  
The City

Using heritage as a cultural artifact in city development is not new, but little has been explored about how urban heritage can be utilized as new generative value and a new planning instrument for the revival of cities. The purpose of this paper is to show the creative and the generative use of urban heritage, both for the extension of cultural and tourist offer of the city and for the improvement of the quality of life in physical, social and economic terms for the community. The case study method was used for the adaptive reuse of projects for heritage buildings and urban revival in Kikinda. We argue that urban heritage has to be used, bearing in mind its spatial, economic and social sustainability aspects, and become a generator of urban revival. We go beyond recognition of the value of heritage as a cultural artifact that should solely be preserved and used as a static element in urban development, and view it more as a dynamic asset for city revival processes. We found that for the heritage nodes to be utilized as the new generative value for the revival of cities, they have to be perceived from the network perspective, thus influencing the urban environment in a sustainable way.

scholarly journals The New Urbanism Principle of Quality Architecture and Urban Design Versus Place Identity. A Case Study of Val D’Europe and the Manufaktura Complex

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Maria Cysek-Pawlak ◽  
Sylwia Krzysztofik
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
New Urbanism ◽  
Place Identity ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Operational Analysis ◽  
Community Needs ◽  
Private Investors ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This article contributes to the New Urbanism debate by considering the relationship between the identity of a place and quality in architecture and urban design. It combines a general theoretical discussion and an operational analysis with a comparative study of two commercial centres: Manufaktura in Łódź (Poland) and Val d’Europe in Marne-la-Vallée (France). It concludes that while the guidelines of New Urbanism can help both private investors and public stakeholders make better strategic decisions, according to the concept of quality architecture and urban design, its framework should be applied with care for community needs and the historical character of the city.

scholarly journals After Planning, the Production of Radical Social Space in Barcelona: Real-Estate Financial Circuit and (De Facto) Right to the City

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 83-104
Author(s):  
Pedro Jiménez-Pacheco
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Planning System ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Previous Knowledge ◽  
The Real Estate ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The City ◽  
Theoretical Apparatus

This article is based on the premise that it is possible to apply Henri Lefebvre’s critical-theoretical apparatus to complex urban processes as a pedagogical case study. From previous knowledge of Lefebvrian thought, the article provides an overview of what Lefebvre called “the science of the use of social space”, supported by a transdisciplinary methodological plurality. The starting point is that neoliberal social space is produced, prepared, and led to the imminent urban post-neoliberalism, in the midst of this movement, a sophisticated planning system appears, with the old promise of service tradition, egalitarian ethics and pragmatic orientation. But in practice, it only reproduces the impotence of being inside a wave of localized surplus-benefits that expels human residues, avoiding any reaction. The Lefebvrian apparatus and a part of its theoretical tradition guide the research on Barcelona as a paradigm of global real-estate violence. This urban phenomenon is examined in central Barcelona, in order to rescue it from the pessimism of its own inhabitants, from the harsh perception that urban centrality no longer reproduces life. In this way, the article puts into operation an analytical tool designed to sabotage the real-estate circuit through a renewed right to the production of radical social space.

scholarly journals Investigating and boosting walkability in Sulaimani’s mixed-use streets: Jamal Irfan street as a case study

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariwan Jamal ◽  
Wanawsha Khasraw ◽  
Shaey Khabat ◽  
Rozhen K. Mohammed-Amin
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Good Health ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Design Standards ◽  
Mixed Use ◽  
Transit Use ◽  
Mental Well Being ◽  
The City

Walkable cities, neighborhoods, and streets promote good health. A growing number of research show compelling evidence about the positive impacts of walkable neighborhoods and streets on everything from real-estate values to health, mental well-being, crime rate, safety feeling, creativity, and even making cities more democratic. Walkability has health, environmental, and economic benefits. For example, several studies found that people in walkable neighborhoods have a higher amount of physical activity and were substantially less likely to be overweight or obese than those living in low-walkable neighborhoods. Walkable neighborhoods and streets incorporate features that promote regular walking, cycling and public transit use. While the city of Sulaimani in general suffers from lack of walkable neighborhoods and streets, due to many factors including incomplete streets, some of the city’s neighborhoods and streets have potential for becoming effective walkable neighborhoods and streets. The recent mixed use developments and re-developments in some of the areas and streets in the city have attracted a large number of people and increased the necessity of making those areas and streets more pedestrian-friendly and walkable. This research aims at investigating walkability characters in Sulaimani city’s recently developed mixed-use streets through closely examining a representing case study, Jamal Irfan street. The research then proposes strategies, guidelines, and urban design interventions that make those streets more pedestrian friendly according to urban design standards.

scholarly journals Parameters lnfluencing Planning of District Level Towns in Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
pp. 77-86
Author(s):  
K. Nizamuddin
Keyword(s):  
Present State ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
District Level ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
Water Bodies ◽  
Actual State ◽  
The Future ◽  
The City

Town planning is a comprehensive task involving several stages that takes the city from actual state it is in to a desired state in the future through various measures taken by the concerned planning authorities. A city may be viewed as a system or a complex whole consisting of different component parts related or interacting with one another so as to form a unity. The component parts of the systenl consists of persistent human activities that have a tendency to occur or recur at specific locations that is, the activities occur within adopted spaces which include buildings, parks, water, bodies etc. The co~l~leclionasm ong these parts are communications which enable various activities to inter;ict so that necessary patterns of huinan behaviour can occur. These communications are recurrent and spatially clustered such as roads, railn~aysp, ipelines, cables etc. Implemelltation of the plan involves control of the various components of thissystenl so that the intended state as set out by the goals of the plan would depend on the existing state of the city. Therefore a thorough knowledge of the present state of the city is the first and an ilnportant step in any planning process.

scholarly journals Dialectical Design Dialogues: Negotiating Ethics in Participatory Planning by Building a Critical Design Atlas

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 238-251
Author(s):  
Barbara Roosen ◽  
Liesbeth Huybrechts ◽  
Oswald Devisch ◽  
Pieter Van den Broeck
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Participatory Planning ◽  
Dialectical Approach ◽  
Urban Transformations ◽  
Planning Processes ◽  
Everyday Reality ◽  
The City

This article explores ‘dialectical design dialogues’ as an approach to engage with ethics in everyday urban planning contexts. It starts from Paulo Freire’s pedagogical view (1970/2017), in which dialogues imply the establishment of a horizontal relation between professionals and amateurs, in order to understand, question and imagine things in everyday reality, in this case, urban transformations, applied to participatory planning and enriched through David Harvey’s (2000, 2009) dialectical approach. A dialectical approach to design dialogues acknowledges and renegotiates contrasts and convergences of ethical concerns specific to the reality of concrete daily life, rather than artificially presenting daily life as made of consensus or homogeneity. The article analyses an atlas as a tool to facilitate dialectical design dialogues in a case study of a low-density residential neighbourhood in the city of Genk, Belgium. It sees the production of the atlas as a collective endeavour during which planners, authorities and citizens reflect on possible futures starting from a confrontation of competing uses and perspectives of neighbourhood spaces. The article contributes to the state-of-the-art in participatory urban planning in two ways: (1) by reframing the theoretical discussion on ethics by arguing that not only the verbal discourses around designerly atlas techniques but also the techniques themselves can support urban planners in dealing more consciously with ethics (accountability, morality and authorship) throughout urban planning processes, (2) by offering a concrete practice-based example of producing an atlas that supports the participatory articulation and negotiation of dialectical inquiry of ethics through dialogues in a ‘real-time’ urban planning process.

scholarly journals Textualities of the city – from the legibility of urban space towards social and natural others in planning

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 34-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiit Remm
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Semiotic System ◽  
Equal Degree ◽  
Moscow School ◽  
The City

‘Text’ has been a frequent notion in analytical conceptualizations of landscape and the city. It is mostly found in analyses of textual representations or suggestions concerning a metaphor of “reading” an (urban) landscape. In the Tartu- Moscow School of Semiotics the idea of the text of St. Petersburg has also been applied in analysing particular cities as organizing topics in literature and in culture more widely, but it has not happened to an equal degree in studies of actual urban spaces. The understanding of text as a semiotic system and mechanism is, however, more promising than revealed by these conceptions. Some potential can be made apparent by relating this textual paradigm to a more pragmatic understanding of the city and its planning. My project in this paper is to uncover an analytical framework focusing on the concepts of ‘text’, ‘textualization’ and ‘texting’ in studying the planning of urban environment. The paper observes the case of the urban planning process of the Tartu city centre in Estonia during 2010–2016, and is particularly concerned with the roles that urban nature has acquired in the process of this “textualization” of the local environment, societal ideals, practices and possible others.

scholarly journals Supporting Children’s Independent Activities in Smart and Playable Public Places

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8352
Author(s):  
Chiara Garau ◽  
Alfonso Annunziata
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Historic Center ◽  
Physical Attributes ◽  
Process Of Urbanization ◽  
The City

The global process of urbanization, and the modification of social interaction determined by the pandemic crisis, poses the issue of the place of vulnerable users and, in particular, children, within the contemporary city. This research aimed to elaborate a theoretical and methodological framework, based on the concepts of affordance and capability, for analyzing the potential of public spaces to enable and support children’s independent activities. This potential, or meaningful usefulness, is expressed by the Index of Meaningful Usefulness of public Urban Spaces (IUIS). The latter is calculated via the tool ‘Opportunities for Children in Urban Spaces’ (OCUS). This methodology is applied to the analysis of significant public spaces within the historic center of the city of Iglesias in Sardinia, Italy. The results reveal adequate usefulness of the selected spaces, while underlining criticalities related to intrinsic spatial and physical attributes. The application to the case study confirms the validity of the theoretical and methodological framework embodied in the OCUS tool for supporting urban design and planning by orienting place-shaping processes towards the acknowledgement of children’s needs.

scholarly journals Social and Spatial Experiences in the Cities of Tomorrow

Societies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Emanuele Giorgi ◽  
Angelo Bugatti ◽  
Andrea Bosio
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Research Front ◽  
Projected Image ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Creative City ◽  
The City ◽  
Rapid Shift ◽  
The Way

As described by the strong academic literature, (Vattimo, Bauman, Mumford, Simon, Haraway, Meschiari, Florida) the contemporary society is going through new challenges, such as the friction between youth, technology, and productivity. These challenges affect the way people live and experience the cities, but also the way cities need to evolve. An anthological analysis and a study of secondary sources is used to analyze the new spatial and social experiences, while the analysis of Milan (Italy) as a case study of a creative city is used to understand the rapid shift towards the virtualization of cities, in which consumption is progressively induced by a projected image of the city rather than its actual physical fabric. This manuscript opens a research front, with the goal to understand how architecture and urban design should leave the traditional typologies to propose a new way of creating and living architecture, caught in the middle between the real and the virtual.

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