Classicisms of Color: Transatlantic Exchanges in African and American Traditional Architecture

The beautiful city of Charleston, South Carolina, was built by enslaved Africans, and the painful historical connections between classical architecture and slavery have encouraged some critics to see classicism as racist. Contemporary black artist Jonathan Green, however, proposed a new way of viewing Charleston’s buildings: as a testament to black creativity and resilience that fused African architectural traditions, such as colonnaded porches and metalwork, with European ones. Following Green, this essay traces a number of trans-Atlantic architectural connections forged during the age of empires. Many different African nations, from Ethiopia to Ghana, developed great classical architectures that traveled to Europe and America through the migration of people or the publication of books. African-American designs also returned to Africa, sometimes with European accents, and found compatibility with indigenous traditions. As Green asserted, a beautiful truth emerges from this study: traditional architecture is bigger than racism. It is African, American, and human.

Innovative Affordable Housing Strategies for Vancouver

Vancouver, British Columbia is a very attractive place to live for many reasons, but the high cost of housing in this beautiful city has become a threat to the future prosperity of the region. As housing prices continue to rise and become less attainable to low and medium income earners, innovative strategies to provide new supply of affordable housing will need to be implemented. The paper outlines a variety of housing solutions that have already had success in the Vancouver area and elsewhere. Case studies are brought together in this document to highlight the potential that combining and replicating successful housing models can have for Vancouver. Through creative solutions and strong partnerships, Vancouver can become a world leader in innovative housing provision in the face of extreme market conditions and land constraints.

Innovative Affordable Housing Strategies for Vancouver

Vancouver, British Columbia is a very attractive place to live for many reasons, but the high cost of housing in this beautiful city has become a threat to the future prosperity of the region. As housing prices continue to rise and become less attainable to low and medium income earners, innovative strategies to provide new supply of affordable housing will need to be implemented. The paper outlines a variety of housing solutions that have already had success in the Vancouver area and elsewhere. Case studies are brought together in this document to highlight the potential that combining and replicating successful housing models can have for Vancouver. Through creative solutions and strong partnerships, Vancouver can become a world leader in innovative housing provision in the face of extreme market conditions and land constraints.

ITiCSE 2021 preview

This year, ITiCSE will come to you from a virtual Paderborn, Germany. Not being bound by normal constraints, the conference will run from June 26th to the 1st of July. Paderborn is a University and Cathedral city, dating back more than 1,200 years. It is home to over 150,000 people and is the second largest, but most beautiful city, in the East Westphalia-Lippe region in Germany. Walking through Paderborn is like walking through the centuries. The cityscape unmistakably mirrors the city's eventful history. The centre alone contains more than twenty historical buildings of all architectural epochs.

Research on Material Language in the Renovation of Existing Industrial Buildings

Since the 1990s, China has implemented the policy of “suppress the second industry and develop the third industry” in order to promote the adjustment of social and economic structure, and thus the industry has begun to face industrial transformation. As time goes by, the material language of the existing industrial buildings gradually conveys a broken, desolate expressiveness, which makes people have a certain “sense of fright caused by the fracture of time”, and it has also brought negative impacts to the shaping of the image of a beautiful city. Therefore, we need to re-understand the expression methods of materials in existing industrial buildings according to the needs of the new era. Louis Kahn once said, “It is easier for materials to reveal the existence of meaning than space, and materials are easier to decode and illustrate. The rich texture and color of materials make it easier to perceive and grasp by human senses and has a more direct meaning than space.” Therefore, this paper explains the material types (material vocabulary) in the renovation of existing industrial buildings in China, and then through the analysis of related cases, derives the strategy and methods for the renovation of existing industrial buildings in China (materials pragmatics).

The impacts of transportation vehicles on environment: The case of Ho Chi Minh City

Currently, all people are joining hands to contribute to environmental protection, together heading towards a green and beautiful city. However, environmental pollution in Vietnam is getting more and more serious, especially air pollution. Most of the cause of air pollution is from factory and transport emissions, especially in large cities with densely populated populations such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city, a large amount of emissions big waste released into the environment every day. The polluted air affects the health of the people living in these cities, which is also the main cause of the hot greenhouse effect globally. Despite the calls to protect the environment, such environmental pollution is getting more serious. Therefore, it is very practical to study the air pollution in our country. The paper uses and analyses recent research papers as well as survey results carried out in Ho Chi Minh City to further clarify people's perception of an increasingly serious environmental problem.

Research on Urban Waterfront Landscape Design Based on Ecological Urbanism

In the overall urban environment the urban waterfront landscape area plays a dual function of landscape and culture, and is an important incubator for the natural ecology of the city. Therefore, the shaping of the locality of the urban waterfront space is not only to create a beautiful city card, but also to improve the ecology of the city and the inevitable requirements of waterfront landscape construction. This paper first analyses the basic theory of urban waterfront landscape, and then conducts an in-depth study on the principles of urban waterfront landscape design under the ecological design concept. Solutions are proposed for the current problems of urban waterfront landscape design, and feasible landscape design methods are proposed in conjunction with the concept of ecological urbanism. The urban landscape is seen as a resource, guided by the theories of ecology and landscape ecology, and the principles of the ecological design concept, with a view to establishing a harmonious and symbiotic relationship between the environment, the landscape and people, and meeting people's needs and spiritual aspirations.

Beautiful City, Lawful Empire, Rational State

Hegel’s exposition of the ‘rational’ state in The Philosophy of Right draws on ancient ethics, politics, and history, and cannot be fully understood without reference to his Lectures on the Philosophy of History. This chapter seeks to explore the many ‘moments of antiquity’ in the Philosophy of Right, when ancient practices or ideas infiltrate Hegel’s more abstract analysis of ethico-political phenomena. It does so by following the tripartite division of the Philosophy of Right: for example, the analysis of property in ‘Abstract Right’ is incomplete without appreciating Hegel’s response to ancient forms of slavery and the Roman ‘law of things’; the second section on ‘Morality’ is primarily Kantian, yet is also implicitly in dialogue with Socratic thinkers for its evaluation of virtue, the Good, and conscience; finally, Hegel’s innovative concept of ‘Ethical Life’ is significantly indebted to his understanding of the Greek and Roman families, ancient constitutional arrangements, and Justinian’s Code. Turning from these and other ‘moments of antiquity’, the chapter then offers a more continuous presentation and evaluation of Hegel’s understanding of Greek and Roman histories, explaining how his concept of the ‘beautiful’ Greek polis and ‘lawful’ Roman empire were for him the two historically necessary stages in the development of the modern ‘rational state’.