Memories and reflections on the “socialist” urban center

Based on empirical research in Asenovgrad, this paper discusses socially constructed spaces during socialism and how they were used to impose and legitimize power. It proposes alternate perspectives towards socialism and its material culture expressed in the creation of modern architectural ensembles in the town center. Socialist architecture was a power statement which imposed new values and ideas. These buildings were markers of state authority which sent a powerful message for the renewal of society by breaking away from older, pre-socialist traditions. Among the issues examined here is the significance of the urban square and its surrounding buildings for residents of Asenovgrad today; how is the town’s center perceived in the collective memory? The analysis concludes by exploring the relationship between architecture and ideology in the way social reality was constructed, instrumentalised and offering insight into how the socialist regime was legitimized through material culture, artifacts, and buildings.

Mitigation measures for urban heat island and their impact on pedestrian thermal comfort

A multiscale coupled model is presented that allows for the detailed analysis of the local impact of urban heat island mitigation measures. The model uses coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations with unsteady heat and moisture transport (HAM) in porous urban materials in order to take into account the dynamic heat and moisture storage in the built environment. A realistic case study is performed for a public urban square in the City of Zurich during heat wave conditions. The impacts of two different mitigation strategies, i.e. adding artificial wetting of pavements and adding vegetation, on pedestrian thermal comfort are evaluated and compared with the existing situation. The results show an improvement in thermal comfort in both conditions. The improvement resulting from the addition of trees is larger and lasts longer due to shadowing effects, even though a reduced ventilation and an increased relative humidity by trees have an adverse effect on the thermal comfort.

Analysis of Plant Composition and Diversity on Urban Square in Mudanjiang City, China

In order to provide scientific basis for landscaping of square in Mudanjiang city, the rationality of plant application in 14 urban squares was analyzed by 10/20/30 “rule of thumb” states. The results showed that there were 38 common species which belonged to 15 families and 28 genera. The relative abundances of the most common species, genera and families were 39.8, 43.2 and 49.1%, respectively, which were all higher than the standard of 10/20/30 “rule of thumb” states, indicating that there was still some unreasonable phenomena in the square greening. The plant diversity index was quite different, and the Marglef index and Shannon-Wiener index were positively correlated with the square area and green area. The Pielou index had a positive correlation with the distance and a negative correlation relationship with the green rate. Bangladesh J. Bot. 50(2): 277-287, 2021 (June)

Stimulating urban walking environments – Can we measure the effect?

Walking is an outdoor mobility. Understanding how urban environments influence the experience of walking enables walking to be supported through urban planning and design. This research demonstrates that the effect of a stimulating walking environment is a measurable factor. Psychological knowledge provides a background for quantifying the amount of visual stimulus that pedestrians receive unconsciously from the surrounding environment. While walking, people capture the visual environment through frequent head movements. By looking downwards to the walking surface, pedestrians turn away from what surrounds them. Socially active urban squares and pedestrian streets are highly stimulating. Head movements increase by 71% and looking down decreases by 54%, compared to environments designed for cars. Underpasses are the least stimulating. Head movements drop by 64% and time looked down increases by 164% in an underpass, compared to the busiest urban square in the study. A second analysis introduces a method to quantitatively represent the visual walking environment. Two multiple linear regression statistics uncover the environmental features that attract pedestrians’ visual attention. If not crossing streets, pedestrians do not look at cars; they look at other people, non-monotonous facades and green features. Shop windows receive prolonged viewings, to inspect what is going on behind transparent facades. Narrower streets are more stimulating, as more details are closer to the eyes. The distance at which human sense organs can collect sensory information from the environment is limited. Walking environments that do not fit with this human scale are less stimulating.

On the Innovative Design of Urban Squares Based on the Background of Digital Technology

Urban square is an important place for modern people’s lives, but there exists a common phenomenon of pursuing formal beauty and wide land occupation while ignoring the participation and experience of the users, and lack of innovation. Based on the concept of humanized design, this paper explores the two-way interactive relationship between urban square and the user “people” under the background of digital technology, and fully perceive the mental needs and behavioral pattern of users, by analyzing different groups and types of their activities so as to contribute to a better innovative design of urban squares.