scholarly journals Common notions and composite collaborations: Thinking with Spinoza to design urban infrastructures for human and wild cohabitants

2021 ◽  
pp. 20-31
Author(s):  
Sue Ruddick
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Wildlife ◽  
Wildlife Habitat ◽  
Composite Body ◽  
Common Notion ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

This paper explores the ways in which we might construct urban environments that are responsible to the needs of more than just human cohabitants. Drawing on Spinoza’s common notion and attentive to the possibilities of socio-natures that both construct and respond to the habitat needs of urban wildlife, I look at how urban design and wildlife habitat might be thought and planned together as a human/non-human composite, invoking a complex spatial and temporal choreography which serves divergent needs. Drawing on examples of urban design in Toronto, Canada, this paper offers a way to think of the city as a composite body in Spinoza’s terms, to become open to an awareness of the city as a composition of forces—a choreography of bodies that are constantly interweaving and overflowing imagined boundaries, struggles that are fought as much over time as space, the accommodation of the temporalities and spatialities of other life processes, other rhythms and cycles that would, without a recalibration, sync uneasily with the pacing and spacing of human requirements.

scholarly journals Degree of urbanization and predation pressure on artificial lepidopteran caterpillars in Cali, Colombia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jefferson Cupitra-Rodríguez ◽  
Lorena Cruz-Bernate ◽  
James Montoya-Lerma
Keyword(s):  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Predation Pressure ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Successional Stage ◽  
Trophic Networks ◽  
Lepidopteran Larvae ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Predator Community

Growing urban expansion results in the alteration of ecological processes (i.e. predation) within trophic networks. Predation on herbivores is known to vary with the size of the area covered in vegetation, successional stage, altitude, and the structure of the predator community, but there are gaps in information regarding how this occurs in urban and suburban environments. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the predation pressure on artificial models of lepidopteran larvae varied with degree of urbanization, type of substrate, and group of predators (birds or arthropods) in Cali, Colombia. Five hundred and eighteen artificial larvae were placed in two areas of the city (urban vs. suburban) and in two types of substrate (leaf vs. stem) for 30 continuous days and with two replications over time. Total predation was measured as the number of models with evidence of attack by predators. The overall incidence of predation was 24.13%, and was significantly higher in the urban area (63.20%) when compared to the suburban area (36.80%). The leaf substrate was attacked significantly more than the stem (60% vs. 40%). The proportion of attacks carried out by birds was significantly higher (74.40%) than that carried out by arthropods (24.80%). Together, these results suggest that the incidence of predation varies with the disturbance caused by urbanization and by the type of substrate in which prey organisms are found. In addition, the study confirms that birds are the main controllers of herbivorous insects in urban environments.

scholarly journals MYTHS OF THE NORTH AND ORIGINS OF CITY-FORM: SOME REFLECTIONS ACROSS HISTORY AND PREHISTORY

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 165-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham Akkerman
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
The Body ◽  
Design Element ◽  
The North ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
The City ◽  
Important Design ◽  
City Form

Early environmental myths of the body and the sky have been instrumental in the emergence of prehistoric urban environments, and have continued to play an important role in urban design through history to this time. The notions of the body, as the absolutely immediate, and the sky, as the unreachably distant are shown here as precursors to the core proposition of mind-environment transactions, introduced by Walter Benjamin a century ago. Late prehistory and early antiquity manifest the idea of epochal and ongoing progression in mind-city interaction, specifically, as a gender-based configuration of edifice versus space, or volume versus void, in the built environment. The North Star, as a celestial feature representing permanency and solidity, was critical in the formation of masculine myths of the environment upon which the very notion of a designed edifice had been founded, and from which the early city had emerged. The feminine counterpart of the edifice is urban void, often the garden, the street or the city square. Whereas in Neolithic communities the open ritual space seems to have been the most important design element, city-form since antiquity has habitually accentuated the masculinity of edifices over designed voids. More feminine attituted drawing on prehistoric acumen can help refocusing the emphasis on urban volume, onto dynamic urban design of open public spaces for human movement in the city.

scholarly journals Bodies and everyday practices in designed urban environments

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-76
Author(s):  
Monica Degen ◽  
Gillian Rose ◽  
Begum Basdas
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
New Town ◽  
Shopping Centre ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Specific Material ◽  
The City

In recent years, the centres of many towns and cities have been reshaped by urban design projects, but little attention has been paid to how these transformations are experienced everyday by users of the city. In other words: how do the users of urban centers, such as shoppers, cleaners, or workers, perceive these changes, as embodied subjects in specific material environments? This paper analyses how bodies in two intensely designed urban spaces–the shopping centre of Milton Keynes, a 1960s new town, and Bedford’s recently redeveloped historic town centre–are affected by elements of the built environment. ’Affected’ is a term borrowed from Latour (2004),and the paper works with, and elaborates, some of his and others’ work on how bodies are effectuated by other entities. Such Latourian work pays a great deal of attention to how bodies are affected by both human and non-human entities of many kinds, and we examine how certain aspects of the built environment in these two towns affect bodies in specific ways. However, we also emphasise the variability in this process, in particular that bodies seem unaware–or ambivalently aware–of many entities’ affordances.

scholarly journals Elderly-Friendly Inclusive Urban Environments: Learning From Ankara

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasemin Afacan
Keyword(s):  
Elderly People ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Aging Population ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Community Life ◽  
The City

The aging population and their expectations have become a growing concern in Turkey as in other countries. This study aims to investigate interactions/relationships between the needs, demands and expectations of Turkish elderly and inclusive urban design principles. It tries to answer the research question: how the inclusive urban life could improve elderly life and contribute to achieve an active aging process. An exploratory study was conducted with a total of 100 randomly selected elderly between the ages 65-95 (45 female and 55 male) from the City Centre of Ankara. A survey instrument based on the ‘streets for life’ concept (Burton & Mitchell 2006) was developed to gather data. The participants were asked to identify how important inclusive urban design features were in understanding, using and navigating within an urban environment. The findings of the study suggest that an inclusive open environment allows elderly people to feel safer, and thus encourage more regular use of urban space. Overall the results highlight two important insights, first that accessibility is inevitable for increasing the chance of the aging population to participate in the mainstream of community life and second, plain and simple signage is necessary to achieve more liveable urban environments. The study concludes the most important physical requirements and social requirements for elderly people.

scholarly journals Using Sensory Wearable Devices to Navigate the City: Effectiveness and User Experience in Older Pedestrians

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angélique Montuwy ◽  
Béatrice Cahour ◽  
Aurélie Dommes
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
User Experience ◽  
Bone Conduction ◽  
Wearable Devices ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Navigation Experience ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

Preserving older pedestrians’ navigation skills in urban environments is a challenge for maintaining their quality of life. However, the maps that are usually used by older pedestrians might be unsuitable to their specificities and the existing digital aids do not consider older people’s perceptual and cognitive declines or user experience. This study presents a rich description of the navigation experience of older pedestrians either with a visual (augmented reality glasses), auditory (bone conduction headphones), or a visual and haptic (smartwatch) wearable device adapted to age-related declines. These wearable devices are compared to the navigation aid older people usually use when navigating the city (their own digital or paper map). The study, with 18 participants, measured the navigation performance and captured detailed descriptions of the users’ experience using interviews. We highlight three main phenomena which impact the quality of the user experience with the four aids: (1) the shifts in attention over time, (2) the understanding of the situation over time, and (3) the emergence of affective and aesthetic feelings over time. These findings add a new understanding of the specificities of navigation experience by older people and are discussed in terms of design recommendations for navigation devices.

Seasonal Variation of Suicide in the City of São Paulo, Brazil, 1996–2010

Crisis ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hideki Bando ◽  
Fernando Madalena Volpe
Keyword(s):  
Seasonal Pattern ◽  
Total Sample ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
Seasonal Patterns ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Health Statistics ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
June July ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

Background: In light of the few reports from intertropical latitudes and their conflicting results, we aimed to replicate and update the investigation of seasonal patterns of suicide occurrences in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Methods: Data relating to male and female suicides were extracted from the Mortality Information Enhancement Program (PRO-AIM), the official health statistics of the municipality of São Paulo. Seasonality was assessed by studying distribution of suicides over time using cosinor analyses. Results: There were 6,916 registered suicides (76.7% men), with an average of 39.0 ± 7.0 observed suicides per month. For the total sample and for both sexes, cosinor analysis estimated a significant seasonal pattern. For the total sample and for males suicide peaked in November (late spring) with a trough in May–June (late autumn). For females, the estimated peak occurred in January, and the trough in June–July. Conclusions: A seasonal pattern of suicides was found for both males and females, peaking in spring/summer and dipping in fall/winter. The scarcity of reports from intertropical latitudes warrants promoting more studies in this area.

Minimetrò in Perugia as leverage for urban regeneration

TERRITORIO ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 148-163
Author(s):  
Luca Fondacci
Keyword(s):  
Urban Regeneration ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Sustainable Mobility ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Peripheral Area ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
Considerable Impact ◽  
The City ◽  
Historical Centre

In the 1970s, the fragile historical centre of the city of Perugia was a key area where the binomial of sustainable mobility and urban regeneration was developed and applied. At the turn of the xxi century, the low carbon automatic people-mover Minimetrò broadened that application from the city's historical centre to the outskirts, promoting the enhancement of several urban environments. This paper is the outcome of an investigation of original sources, field surveys and direct interviews, which addresses the Minimetrò as the backbone of a wide regeneration process which has had a considerable impact on the economic development of a peripheral area of the city which was previously devoid of any clear urban sense. The conclusion proposes some solutions to improve the nature of the Minimetrò as an experimental alternative means of transport.

Book Review

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 386-389
Author(s):  
Eduardo Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
City Image ◽  
European Capital Of Culture ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
The City ◽  
The Olympic Games

Evinç Doğan (2016). Image of Istanbul, Impact of ECoC 2010 on The City Image. London: Transnational Press London. [222 pp, RRP: £18.75, ISBN: 978-1-910781-22-7]The idea of discovering or creating a form of uniqueness to differentiate a place from others is clearly attractive. In this regard, and in line with Ashworth (2009), three urban planning instruments are widely used throughout the world as a means of boosting a city’s image: (i) personality association - where places associate themselves with a named individual from history, literature, the arts, politics, entertainment, sport or even mythology; (ii) the visual qualities of buildings and urban design, which include flagship building, signature urban design and even signature districts and (iii) event hallmarking - where places organize events, usually cultural (e.g., European Capital of Culture, henceforth referred to as ECoC) or sporting (e.g., the Olympic Games), in order to obtain worldwide recognition. 

Urban Greening and Human-Wildlife Relations in Philadelphia: From Animal Control to Multispecies Coexistence?

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Hunold
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Runoff ◽  
Urban Wildlife ◽  
Wildlife Habitat ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Urban Greening ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Animal Control

City-scale urban greening is expanding wildlife habitat in previously less hospitable urban areas. Does this transformation also prompt a reckoning with the longstanding idea that cities are places intended to satisfy primarily human needs? I pose this question in the context of one of North America's most ambitious green infrastructure programmes to manage urban runoff: Philadelphia's Green City, Clean Waters. Given that the city's green infrastructure plans have little to say about wildlife, I investigate how wild animals fit into urban greening professionals' conceptions of the urban. I argue that practitioners relate to urban wildlife via three distinctive frames: 1) animal control, 2) public health and 3) biodiversity, and explore the implications of each for peaceful human-wildlife coexistence in 'greened' cities.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document