Change by Activism: Insurgency, Autonomy, and Political Activism in Potosí-Jerusalén, Bogotá, Colombia

Cities today face a context in which traditional politics and policies struggle to cope with increasing urbanisation rates and growing inequalities. Meanwhile, social movements and political activists are rising up and inhabiting urban spaces as sites of contestation. However, through their practices, urban activists do more than just occupy spaces; they are fundamental drivers of urban transformation as they constantly face—and contest—spatial manifestations of power. This article aims to contribute to ongoing discussions on the role of activism in the field of urban design, by engaging with two concepts coming from the Global South: <em>insurgency</em> and <em>autonomy</em>. Through a historical account of the building of the Potosí-Jerusalén neighbourhood in Bogotá in the 1980s, it illustrates how both concepts can provide new insight into urban change by activism. On the one hand, the concept of insurgency helps unpack a mode of bottom-up action that inaugurates political spaces of contestation with the state; autonomy, on the other hand, helps reveal the complex nature of political action and the visions of urban transformation it entails. Although they were developed at the margins of conventional design theory and practice, both concepts are instrumental in advancing our understanding of how cities are shaped by activist practices. Thus, this article is part of a broader effort to (re)locate political activism in discussions about urban transformation, and rethink activism as a form of urban design practice.

What Happens in Your Brain When You Walk Down the Street? Implications of Architectural Proportions, Biophilia, and Fractal Geometry for Urban Science

This article reviews current research in visual urban perception. The temporal sequence of the first few milliseconds of visual stimulus processing sheds light on the historically ambiguous topic of aesthetic experience. Automatic fractal processing triggers initial attraction/avoidance evaluations of an environment’s salubriousness, and its potentially positive or negative impacts upon an individual. As repeated cycles of visual perception occur, the attractiveness of urban form affects the user experience much more than had been previously suspected. These perceptual mechanisms promote walkability and intuitive navigation, and so they support the urban and civic interactions for which we establish communities and cities in the first place. Therefore, the use of multiple fractals needs to reintegrate with biophilic and traditional architecture in urban design for their proven positive effects on health and well-being. Such benefits include striking reductions in observers’ stress and mental fatigue. Due to their costs to individual well-being, urban performance, environmental quality, and climatic adaptation, this paper recommends that nontraditional styles should be hereafter applied judiciously to the built environment.

Explorations of Young People’s Sense of Place Using Urban Design Qualities in Surabaya, Indonesia

This study aims to assess a sense of place in the context of an Indonesian city through real-time walking experience. With rapid urban development, the cityscape may change, leading to a lack of a sense of place. Here, the sense of place was measured by utilizing individual reactions to different urban design qualities and perceptual qualities during walking. Previous methods on visitors’ evaluation of places, walking experience and photographing, were adapted by adding two more stages: in-depth interviews and a workshop, obtaining participants’ opinions and behaviours. The analysis results showed that the participants experienced the sense of place through physical and non-physical features corresponding to walking speed. While the old buildings and ornament details attracted participants’ attention, this study demonstrated that the two-way interaction with residents also strengthened the sense of place. The major finding was that the participants were concerned about improving pedestrian infrastructure and the conservation of old buildings in the area. With the assistance of in-depth interviews and a workshop, participants’ perspectives were visually reflected in a comprehensive way. This study may be helpful for urban planners to manage the sense of place in historic city centres under the pressure of rapid urban development.

Questioning Thresholds Between Natural-Unnatural

This chapter discusses the relationship between natural and unnatural in the framework of urban design strategies for sustainability. A descriptive reading is presented through theoretical perspectives and examples of application approaches. The authors' proposals for different cities in Turkey as urban design projects which deal with different problems and potentials in scope of the relations between natural-unnatural are presented. The thresholds and balances between natural-unnatural and urban design strategies for sustainability are discussed within the content of the projects. The key points are elucidated through mentioned examples which are focusing on design approaches, relations, scenarios, and principles.

Cyber-Gardening and Biophilic Design in Future Cities

Today, in line with nature's integrated habitats and environments, the scope of biophilic architecture emerges as an essential issue for society wellbeing. When evaluating the possibilities of enhancing access to healthy food, the necessity of including every scale of living—from the smallest individual living space to collective living areas—should be discussed. In this study, cyber-gardening practices are evaluated from critical perspectives in terms of dystopia. Cyber-gardening, systems of self-organization, and self-sufficiency concepts are crucial to envisaging a sustainable city, food, and agriculture ecosystem. Biology, architecture, and urban design-oriented approaches have emerged in the works of design groups such as EcoLogic Studio. Emerging as a kind of bio-architectural hybrid, these new physical and digital interactive garden prototypes create augmented biospheres. In these new urban-food-agriculture scenarios composed of designed virtual interfaces, visitors are transformed into urban cyber-gardeners.

Biophilic Design

The concept of biophilic design emerges as a solution in an environment where urbanization drives people away from nature, and the built environment becomes increasingly critical to people's productivity; emotional, physical, and mental health; and leads to the pursuit of nature. Examples in which the understanding of including nature in the built environment is adopted, and the human-nature interaction is emphasized, which can be seen in many scales, within the framework of biophilic design. Designs with the same concern from the dimension of urban design to the scale of the architecture are designed in a way that appeals to the senses by taking shape in the human focus. In this chapter, the biophilia phenomenon is examined from different design scales, and principles of the biophilic design are discussed through theoretical bases and practices.