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Se trata de exploraciones esenciales en torno al papel, su textura y las relaciones originadas a partir de su recorte y superposición en capas. Son obras minimalistas en su técnica que despliegan paisajes de formas plegadas y laminadas con profundidad y equilibrio que parten también del imaginario personal sobre la arquitectura. Las composiciones tienen un formato de 21x21 cm. Las mismas reglas operan en todas ellas: el orden y el número de capas, colores, etc., pero se recombinan en cada pieza de forma diferente. Las capas de papel se separan entre sí a unas distancias concretas y se unen de forma solidaria sólo por una pestaña en la parte superior, lo que permite una cierta libertad y tolerancia en la separación entre ellas, de forma que la percepción puede variar levemente en función del plegado o la curvatura del papel, incluso de las condiciones de humedad y atmosféricas.

This study aims to review the relation between papercrete and recipanel (wall materials from recycled paper) with indicators of material sustainability in environmental aspects. Recycling paper into wall material is one of the ways to overcome the increasing amount of paper waste in Indonesia. Waste recycling is related to the concept of sustainability, namely the triple bottom line of the concept of sustainability. A literature review of waste management, recycled paper, and recycled paper as wall material were conducted in terms of environmental sustainability. This study was conducted by integrating the theoretical understanding of waste, walls, wall material products from recycled paper and discussion of its impact in terms of the sustainability of recycled paper as alternative wall material. From this study, it was found that the relationship between the characteristics of papercrete and walls on the sustainability of recycled paper brought forward four positive values and two negative values. Meanwhile, the relation between recipanel and wall characteristics on the sustainability of recycled paper carries four positive values and two negative values. Thus, the recycled paper used as wall material with examples of papercrete and recipanel products may still be suitable for use as wall material in Indonesia. Suggestions resulted from this study that might be implemented in the future are to increase the durability of materials derived from recycled paper and to conduct studies that discuss wall materials derived from recycled paper from social and economic aspects in terms of sustainability.

Abstract Municipalities employ pilot projects, tests, living labs and similar initiatives to explore novel sustainable solutions for urban development. Nevertheless, civil servants often encounter challenges when attempting to scale up tested solutions, both within their own city and to other cities. To address this and increase knowledge on how theory can be utilised by practitioners, this research project has created a supportive tool aimed at facilitating the upscaling process. The development took place in co-creation with civil servants from the three largest cities in Sweden. The paper confirms earlier research on the need of institutional capacity as well as appropriate navigation between institutional logics as pre-requisites for upscaling. More specifically, institutional capacity plays a vital role for securing sufficient resources and mandates for upscaling, extending beyond mere dissemination of results. The supportive tool aims at enhancing this institutional capacity and translating between institutional logics. In addition, the paper contributes to the scientific debate on civil servants’ understanding of different forms of upscaling and, consequently, the need to articulate these differences when facilitating upscaling. The paper emphasizes that upscaling should be conceptualised not as a discrete event but rather an ongoing process starting already when planning a pilot project.

The paper is focused on Bastogi, a housing complex which started as temporary housing for university students and travellers but that become a permanent reality for many individuals experiencing severe housing deprivation. It is highlighted the looping effect, in referring to how classifications such as “squatter” and “people in housing emergency” shape individuals’ perceptions of themselves, or how they can also perpetuate the victim-blaming ideology. The temporary housing assistance policies in Rome have chronicled housing precariousness for a significant portion of the urban population, and a place like Bastogi is a product of these urban policies. Like a heterotopia of marginality, Bastogi is a ‘counter-space’, whose existence denounces the segregating logics that created it. The paper also describes the constant struggle of some people in housing crisis to distance themselves from the imposed labels, and how they navigate this social, moral, and political distance from institutions and the rest of the city.

In this digital era, museum as an institution increasingly incorporates virtual technology into their exhibitions and architectural elements. The application of virtual materials in museums allows sensory variations that enrich visitors’ experience. A sense of realness needs to be considered in a museum environment, with virtual materials as its constituent elements that can arouse the emotional involvement of visitors. This paper investigates virtual materials’ applications and a sense of realness qualities in real-virtual museum architecture. It employs a qualitative research strategy with in-depth interviews and precedent studies used as data collection techniques and content analysis as its analyzing method. Study results show that the principle of immersion to arouse a sense of realness in a real-virtual museum environment includes sensory richness, interaction, and coherence. Integrating real-virtual elements can be carried out within architectural formal and spatial elements’ design. Integration with architectural formal elements includes using interactive surfaces and surface projections, while integration with architectural spatial elements includes the application of motion and audio sensors. These integrations can be implemented in architectural design by isolating virtual devices from outdoor distractions like light, sound, humidity, and temperature. Keywords: immersion; materiality; museum; realness; real-virtual Abstrak Di era digital ini, museum sebagai sebuah institusi mulai menggunakan teknologi virtual pada konten pameran dan elemen arsitekturnya. Aplikasi material virtual dalam arsitektur museum memberikan kemungkinan variasi sensoris yang memperkaya pengalaman dari para pengunjung museum. Kualitas rasa nyata atau realness perlu dipertimbangkan dalam lingkungan atau ‘arsitektur’ dengan pemanfaatan material virtual sebagai elemen penyusunnya, sehingga arsitektur ini dapat menggugah keterlibatan pengunjung secara emosional. Paper ini bertujuan untuk merumuskan keterlibatan material virtual dan kualitas rasa nyata yang sebaiknya diaplikasikan pada arsitektur real-virtual museum. Tulisan ini menerapkan strategi penelitian kualitatif, dengan memilih wawancara mendalam sebagai teknik pengumpulan data, dan konten analisis sebagai metode analisisnya. Hasil studi menunjukkan bahwa prinsip immersion untuk menggugah rasa nyata pada lingkungan museum real-virtual meliputi kekayaan sensoris, interaktif, serta koheren. Integrasi material virtual dan elemen arsitektur dapat dilakukan dalam lingkup elemen formal dan ruang. Integrasi dengan elemen ruang meliputi penggunaan permukaan interaktif dan proyeksi permukaan, sedangkan integrasi dengan ruang meliputi aplikasi sensor gerak dan audio. Integrasi ini bisa diimplementasikan dalam desain arsitektur dengan mengisolasi perangkat virtual dari distraksi outdoor termasuk visual cahaya, suara, kelembapan, dan suhu dari ruang luar. Kata kunci: immersion; materialitas; museum; realness; real-virtual

Abstract Under-resourced and marginalised communities often have limited government support, and therefore, must decide by themselves if and how they adapt to the uncertainties of climate change. Community-based climate change adaptation (CbA) forms a plausible approach here. In practice, however, CbA projects often fail to address the underlying causes of vulnerability like power relations and sociocultural structures that influence adaptation measures adopted and outcomes. In response, this perspective paper explores the concept of transformative community-based climate change adaption (TCbA), a reflexive approach that focuses on empowering communities by reframing the decision-making context. It discusses pathways of mobilising this shift to transformative CbA in three steps: (1) specifying the characteristics of a TCbA; (2) exploring the leverage points to mobilise it, and (3) recommending a set of actions and processes that facilitate co-decided interventions at the identified leverage points. These leverage points include "the structure of information flow", "rules of the system" and “power to change system structure or self-organise". The paper concludes by emphasising that the shift to transformative CbA begins when facilitators and members of the community undertaking a CbA project are reflexive about how the societal context of decision processes, like power relations, influence community adaptation decision-making, planning and implementation.

China has undergone an unprecedented period of rapid urbanization in recent decades, resulting in a host of urban challenges. In response to these issues, urban renewal has emerged as a proactive policy approach to address urban problems. Urban regeneration is a multifaceted and multi-level endeavor that involves numerous stakeholders. Investigating the formulation of urban regeneration strategies in light of these stakeholders is pivotal for resolving societal issues and enhancing the comprehensiveness and feasibility of urban regeneration strategies.This paper employs Shuozhou City as a case study, using a combination of stakeholder theory and social network analysis to identify stakeholders in the context of urban renewal. It conducts a comprehensive stakeholder analysis, explores the social network structure among these stakeholders, and constructs an “impact-interest” matrix to capture their roles and interests. Based on this matrix, it proceeds to propose a range of dimension-specific urban renewal strategies for Shuozhou City.In conclusion, leveraging this matrix, the paper outlines specific strategies tailored to the urban renewal context in Shuozhou, exemplifying the potential for a more effective approach to addressing urban challenges.

This paper discusses the territorial reform in Portuguese parishes in 2013 following the bailout from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission (Troika). The purpose of this paper is (i) to frame the reform of the parishes in Portugal in the trends of reorganization at the local level in European countries in recent decades; (ii) to situate the aggregation at the national scale, integrating it in the Reform of Local Administration of the XIX Government (2011-2015); (iii) to analyze, from the Algarve, the changes in the exercise of its powers, in the provision of services to the population and in the relationship with the municipality; (iv) to discuss the results achieved.The methodology is based on the literature review on local territorial reforms in European countries, on the critical reading of the national process, and the empirical approach is based on the perspective of the elected representatives, based on semi-structured interviews with all the mayors of the aggregated parish councils in the Algarve.The top-down aggregation process applied in the country triggered in the region a reaction of sharing and collaboration between parishes, reducing tensions and fractures between communities (but, in other situations, exposing old divisions or fractures). The new map is assimilated, but criticism remains and two reversals have already occurred.

In several big cities in Indonesia, there are numerous cases of abandoned buildings due to delays in the construction process. Some of these buildings even remain abandoned and underused for an extended period. In line with this condition, cities experience a high level of urbanization that cause places tremendous pressure on urban spaces, especially green open spaces. This paper discusses Parasitic Architecture as an alternative design approach to address this issue. It proposes to use abandoned buildings as public facilities and is presented in sections. First, it reviews the concepts and principles of Parasitic Architecture, followed by observational studies using a contextual analysis to explore the context and function of abandoned buildings. The exploration results indicate a potential to apply Parasitic Architecture's concepts and principles in redesigning abandoned buildings and turning them into public facilities, particularly into green open spaces. In this context, the paper views Parasitic Architecture plays a vital role in providing innovative spatial and structural configurations to reorient the use of unused buildings for public functions. Keywords: abandoned building; contextual analysis; parasitic architecture; green open space Abstrak Di beberapa kota besar di Indonesia, banyak kasus bangunan terbengkalai akibat adanya kemunduran dalam proses konstruksi. Beberapa dari bangunan tersebut malahan terlalaikan dan tidak dimanfaatkan dalam jangka waktu yang lama. Seiring dengan permasalahan ini, kota-kota besar mengalami peningkatan jumlah urbanisasi yang menyebabkan ruang perkotaan semakin berkurang termasuk untuk ruang terbuka hijau kota. Paper ini membahas bagaimana parasitic architecture digunakan sebagai pendekatan perancangan untuk merespon permasalahan dengan memanfaatkan bangunan terbengkalai agar dapat berfungsi kembali dan dijadikan sebagai fasilitas atau ruang publik. Pertama, dilakukan kajian teori tentang konsep dan prinsip parasitic architecture, dilanjutkan dengan mengeksplorasi konteks dan fungsi bangunan terbengkalai melalui studi observasi dengan analisis kontekstual. Hasil eksplorasi menjelaskan terdapat potensi untuk menerapkan konsep dan prinsip parasitic architecture dalam perancangan kembali bangunan terbengkalai menjadi fasilitas publik, khususnya ruang terbuka hijau. Dalam konteks ini, parasitic architecture dipandang sebagai pendekatan perancangan berperan penting dalam pengadaan konfigurasi ruang dan struktur inovatif yang mampu mengalihkan bangunan terbengkalai menjadi ruang berfungsi publik. Kata kunci: bangunan terbengkalai; analisis kontesktual; parasitic architecture; ruang terbuka hijau

Abstract South Africa’s major cities are periodically wracked by large-scale xenophobic violence directed at migrants and refugees from other countries. Informal sector businesses and their migrant owners and employees are particularly vulnerable targets during these attacks. Migrant-owned businesses are also targeted on a regular basis in smaller-scale looting and destruction of property. There is now a large literature on the characteristics and causes of xenophobic violence and attitudes in South Africa, most of it based on quantitative and qualitative research in the country’s major metropolitan areas. One of the consequences of big-city xenophobia has been a search for alternative markets and safer spaces by migrants, including relocating to the country’s many smaller urban centres. The question addressed in this paper is whether they are welcomed in these cities and towns or subject to the same kinds of victimization as in large cities. This paper is the first to systematically examine this question by focusing on a group of towns in Limpopo Province and the experiences of migrants in the informal sector there. Through survey evidence and in-depth interviews and focus groups with migrant and South African vendors, the paper demonstrates that xenophobia is also pervasive in these smaller centres, in ways that both echo and differ from that in the large cities. The findings in this paper have broader significance for other countries attempting to deal with the rise of xenophobia.

This paper examines the spiritual works and practices of the German artist Anselm Kiefer and the lessons they provide to architectural thinking and doing in educational settings more and more driven by reductive material control. Considering Kiefer’s emotionally charged works, and their ability to speak about a larger totality, the text examines the relationships between material and space, material and history, material and language, that emerge in the artist’s working methods as a model for architects concerned with achieving spiritual awareness in a secular world. Through works and spaces experienced during the author’s visit to Kiefer’s former home and studio, La Ribaute, the paper examines how his work is a part of greater paradigmatic, spiritual works of theoretical architecture. By virtue of questioning the more banal practices of modernity, the author discusses how Kiefer’s acts of creation enrich our understanding of the processes used to conceive architectural atmospheres that involve linguistic, expressive, and indeed spiritual possibilities that have not been previously considered in relation to representational making.

When discussing the role of the sacred in design education, the conversation focuses on a transcendent divinity, the dominant paradigm of divinity in the West. This orientation towards a divine other underscores the separateness of rare, specific acts of design-for-the-divine from the majority of the projects students engage in studio and, later, in practice. Of greater value in contemporary classrooms may be student explorations of immanent forms of divinity; of spaces and objects that are not infused with spiritual meaning by their orientation towards some other, higher divinity but by the divinity present within themselves. An immanent orientation in student design studios can add layers of significance to finished projects and overlay the processes of design and production themselves, transforming them from simple acts of production into spiritual acts of communion with the divine. Seeking as a model an extant design culture whose processes and products are intimately interlaced with the immanent-divine, this paper proposes a study of Japanese craft practices and the Japanese native religion of Shinto. Because it emphasizes practice over dogma, vernacular Shinto permeates modern Japanese culture, especially its art and design traditions. From this fusion of Shinto and contemporary Japanese craft, this paper derives three core lessons for Western designers and explores ways of incorporating these lessons into the western design education.

Reconciling the seemingly incompatible concepts of the Anthropocene and the everyday, this paper argues and demonstrates that (1) despite the disconcerting effects of its truly planetary scale, the Anthropocene is not absent or invisible in the realm of everyday life; (2) the everyday is not simply a neutral background solely meant for times of stability, but it is in fact a dynamic system that responds to various scales of change and absorbs the new and the unfamiliar into the familiar. Moreover, the paper also shows that the ways in which change is lived and navigated on an everyday scale, in times of the covid-19 pandemic and climate change, are a unique field for aesthetic enquiry. Everyday material objects such as tote bags, water bottles, masks, and habits like working from home and second-hand wearing are discussed as examples of the everyday experience of relating to the Anthropocene and its crises.

Abstract A central feature of the transformation of urban food systems in cities of the Global South is the growing presence of supermarkets and their supply chains, often termed supermarketization or a supermarket revolution. A key issue in the African context is whether supermarkets are a threat to other sources of food including informal sector vendors. Most research on the supermarket revolution and competition with other food retailers focuses on large urban conurbations with little attention paid to the role of supermarkets in smaller urban centres. This paper aims to rectify this situation through a case study of the role of supermarkets in three small urban centres in northern Namibia. The paper uses data from a representative household food security survey in 2018 which collected detailed information on household food consumption and food purchasing patterns. We show that supermarkets have established a dominant role in the local food system and are patronized by almost all households. However, the informal food sector displays considerable resilience and is patronized on a regular basis by low-income households. Future research on the impact of the secondary supermarket revolution should examine the experience and strategies of informal food vendors and whether the relationship with supermarkets is truly symbiotic or not.

En The concept of co-working has gradually grown in importance and new types of workplaces have increased in Istanbul in step with global trends. As the most populated city in Turkey, Istanbul hosts the largest number of co-working spaces (CWSs) in the country. This paper describes the types of CWSs in Istanbul. In this context, the paper is organized around two main topics: the physical structure and the non-physical structure of CWSs. The physical structure of CWSs refers to the type of building, layout, and architectural features, as well as the facility management services and ancillary spaces that CWSs provide. The non-physical structure of CWSs covers the financial structure, community structure, organization and management structure, decision-making structure, partnership structure, and communication structure of CWSs. In this framework, 20 CWSs in Istanbul (87 locations in total, including multiple branches in the city) were empirically studied through face-to-face interviews, observations, websites, and advertisements analysis. The main result of the analysis reveals that CWSs have different characteristics and cannot be encompassed in one type for the case of Istanbul. In this context, four different co-working types were identified in Istanbul. These are chain CWSs, lifestyle CWSs, community-oriented CWSs, and service-oriented CWSs. The results of the study contribute to the literature for a better understanding of CWSs in an urban context. They also help to understand the changing working environment in Istanbul and Turkey, which has been largely overlooked by the literature to date.

Based on the ethnographic study of a local and hybrid institution managing beaches (and surrounding coastal public spaces) in l’Estaque (Marseille), the paper contributes to an under-researched and highly polarised literature on urban governance: the governance, management and regulation of urban public space. Solving the “issues” that emerge on the beaches of Marseille – very small and scarce spaces in a largely industrialised coastal area, with limited public access, and yet densely used, especially in summer, by a socially diverse population seeking leisure activities and cooler environments – requires important public resources. In their everyday management, local stakeholders (public, private and civic) demonstrate both ingeniosity and paralysis, in the context of extreme institutional fragmentation, where respective institutional responsibilities are unmapped, unknown, and unstable. The paper opens analytical directions to study public space management in contemporary cities and offers conceptual frameworks that have been developed in cities of the South to reflect on the informality of public practices, beyond the culturalist lens often used to understand Marseille politics.

Recent studies have analysed the crucial role played by urban expertise in the construction of real estate strategies and the increased use of information and communication technologies in this sector. By analysing the use of consultancies by property developers, this paper questions the effect of this practice on housing production. It relies on participant observation in a French consultancy office combined with semi-structured interviews with experts. This article sheds light on the interrelations between the structures of the field of consultancy, as it is understood in Bourdieusian economic sociology, and the concrete practices of valuation by experts of development programmes. This paper concludes that consultancies adjust the digital scope of their activity to different degrees, which can be understood as a strategy aimed at maintaining or advancing their position in the field.

Public space is an essential element of human wellbeing and the overall development of the city and society. This paper presents a brief outlook of the past and present situations related to the planning and use of public spaces in urban environments. In doing so, this paper addresses the finding that public spaces gradually lose the focus of quality in them, and as time goes by, these spaces are reshaping even in human-unfriendly places. The purpose of this presented research is to find out what are the key elements that create a quality public space. To achieve it, it is used a comparative–descriptive method comparing two relevant pieces of literature or authorial approaches, Henaff and Strong's “Public Space and Democracy” and Pérez-Gómez's “Attunement”. These two examples fulfill the criteria of having different interdisciplinary approaches toward public space, explained through different periods and backgrounds. It is found that the crucial elements these authors suggest for building qualitative space are well-grounded. As such, they can be implemented in an integrated physical form because they base on the human factor or the physical presence and experience in space. In the conclusion part, a suggestion was made to include these elements in the process of planning and designing public spaces in the context of the challenges of modern living culture.

Abstract The contribution of the first generation of urban living labs (ULLs) to system-wide sustainability transformations is thus far less than expected. A possible explanation for this can be found in the focus of most ULLs on local, highly contextualized knowledge, and a missing link to system-wide transformations through diffusion and upscaling beyond the geographic boundaries of the lab. Meta-learning, i.e., learning across multiple, distributed experiments, through networked ULLs seems to offer a way forward. However, the literature on city networks shows that meta-learning cannot be effectively facilitated in horizontal networks without a learning infrastructure. To address this shortcoming and inspire a second generation of ULLs, this Perspective paper outlines a meta-lab approach actively facilitating the contribution of local living labs to wider sustainability transformations. We see a meta-lab as a transurban multi-actor network to connect and, where possible, align the learning processes across thematically related ULLs in different urban contexts through a central learning agenda. The meta-lab approach respects and supports local learning agendas and their focus on local solutions for local problems, while acknowledging and utilizing the potential of local experiments to contribute to a central learning agenda. Our paper argues that a meta-lab approach can act as a catalyst of learning in two important ways: (1) by accelerating local experimentation and learning processes by feeding them with lessons from other locations; and (2) by facilitating a more focused – local and transurban – learning process through a shared learning agenda. The meta-lab approach thus stimulates urban sustainability transformations by supporting faster, more focused and wider learning about effective innovations. We conclude this paper by outlining how common pitfalls in transurban learning can be avoided by a careful design of the meta-lab, or by meeting certain conditions when implementing this design.

Abstract A debate about emerging models of urban living labs (ULLs) 2.0 is taking place in the literature, highlighting the importance of social aspects. The aim of this paper is to examine feminist ULLs as a potential source of social sustainability. This is conducted through a case study of a feminist ULL in Sweden, where girls and young women, together with multiple professional stakeholders, used Minecraft to redesign a public square in their neighbourhood - a marginalised suburban area of Stockholm. Data was collected through participant observations of six experimental labs during 1 year, surveys of the ULL participants, and an analysis of the final Minecraft designs. The empirical findings reveal a process of mutual learning between girls and professional stakeholders, where the girls were viewed as place experts. The findings also reveal that the girls’ visions include a socially sustainable transition of the urban square: from patriarchal to inclusive, from grey to green, and from a transit area to a meeting-place. There were some differences between girls and professional stakeholders. Whereas the professionals tended to emphasise security in their visions, the girls emphasised liveability. Although more research is needed, this paper concludes that feminist ULLs can be a possible source of social sustainability. However, the ULL process must both be inclusive, and at the same time unlock long-term transformation in the physical environment.

Abstract This paper develops the notion of “platform placemaking”, describing how platforms mobilize user data to remake urban spatial imaginaries in their interests. Using Airbnb as a case, the paper studies the digital urban culture of “Airbnbification” – examining how Airbnb’s reviews and descriptions become part of reshaping urban place, while contributing to the place alienation of long-term residents. Airbnb feeds a surge in urban tourists on the hunt for “real urban experiences”: off-the-beaten-track, everyday and mundane urban life, seen as representing something “real” and “authentic”. This paper situates Airbnb in the literature on postmodern consumption, and examines the way hosts and guests on Airbnb stage, perform and construct cosmopolitanism and “authentic” urban place to cater to the values of new urban tourism. The paper introduces an approach to studying digital urban culture through platform data, using computational discourse analysis to examine Airbnb in New York City. By linking narratives in reviews and neighborhood descriptions to census data, we examine how authenticity and cosmopolitanism is staged and marketed. The paper argues that Airbnb serves to promote a value system that devalues the cultural and spatial capital of long-term residents, implying that the new tourists’ cosmopolitan longing to belong may thus come at the cost of the locals’ own sense of belonging. The platform placemaking of Airbnb thus emphasizes urban place as a consumption experience, while depressing other ways of experiencing the city.

Abstract Critical smart city research has presented wide-ranging risks of technocentric urban development. One critique lies in the kinds of citizenship directed under smart urban paradigms, which do little to account for residents’ practices of care. This paper is an ethico-onto-epistemological re-examination of smart cities through the lens of care practices specifically focusing on creative communities of practice. We use an enactivist empirical approach to help uncover experiences of sensemaking in the smart city held by three creative communities of practice in Helsinki. Through in-depth interviews with n = 22 urban planners, artists, and community space organizers, we assessed these groups’ differing and overlapping sensemaking processes. Utilizing 5E sensemaking processes (embodied, extended, enacted, emotive, and embedded) as a flexible analytical framework, we identify and interpret their practices of care as ways of sensemaking in a developing smart urban environment. Our results depict terrains of care in which participation and citizenship in the smart city is not neutral, but embedded in affective engagement, navigating rules and institutions, and cultivation of joy and inspiration. We use our findings to discuss what these interweaving terrains of care mean for citizenship and transformational change in the smart city.

Maritime India has been exposed to transformations both in terms of political and social processes due to the exchange of commodities, men and material. The main focus of the current essay is on the port- city of Kochi, and the consequent encounters in the Indian Ocean for black gold (pepper) in the past, which have helped in shaping a cosmopolitanism that we see today. The paper probes into the formation of a community-based ‘world view’ and reclamations of a historic past in the imagination of indigenous people through fictional narratives as against the popular Eurocentric viewpoint. Drawing on the regional fictional narratives of writers like N.S Madhavan and historic research available in the area, it is argued that these encounters have resulted in the creation of a unique maritime consciousness, glocalization and incorporation of a fabric of inclusivity in the social realm, which has bestowed upon the locals of the littoral an ability to perforate seamlessly into alien cultures and accommodate to the changes the trans-ocean encounters brought forth. The paper also brings forth various modes of indigenous re-constructions, which have contributed in interrogating and tracing the historic past as embedded in memory and public opinion.

The aim if this paper is to analyse the level of ease at which people navigate within the University Clinical Centre of Kosovo in Prishtina (UCCK). In a hospital setting, the objective for the user is to navigate easily and independently to the destination in order to reduce negative impacts on human wellbeing and operational costs. Navigation is important for employees, familiar with the environment and for visitors, unfamiliar with it. However, the paper is focused only on those familiar with the hospital setting – employees. Research has shown that navigation depends on the clarity of the built form’s component arrangements; that there is a high correlation between navigation and spatial configuration. Most of the studies on navigation in hospitals are focused on building scale. This paper is focused on the hospital campus of (UCCK) which belongs to the pavilion typology. As such, it shares many similarities with cities and has far more complex structure than other hospital typologies. So, the questions this paper is trying to answer are: how easy is to navigate within UCCK; what is the relation between spatial cognition and spatial configuration in the hospital setting? To answer, the research is leaning on the cognitive approach designed by K. Lynch based on mental maps and on the configurational approach based on space syntax theory and methodology. The paper reveals that UCCK lacks a clear image and has a low level of intelligibility. The outcome of this research should impact the future master plan of the hospital campus.

Abstract Urbanites increasingly turn to digital mobility platforms to make use of means of transportation and to plan and book journeys. While these platforms can contribute to making urban travel more sustainable and efficient, they can also lead to governance challenges and have negative external effects, raising questions about how public values can best be safeguarded. In this article, public values are defined as normative concepts that describe both the impact on and democratic control of an affected public. This article aims to initiate a more structured discussion about platform urbanism, specifically how and to what extent public values are incorporated in platform design and operation in the realm of mobility. It introduces an assessment framework for mobility platforms that was developed as part of a transdisciplinary research project in the Netherlands. This framework is grounded in two academic debates regarding 1) the rise of platform urbanism and 2) new forms of mobility that accompany the densification of cities. The paper refers to the mobility pilots Kutsuplus, UbiGo and Whim to illustrate how the safeguarding of public values can be evaluated. In the concluding section, the paper discusses some ways in which the assessment framework can be used for future research, for instance through scenarios.

In 2003, new building regulations were introduced in the city of Dubai. In 2012, the municipality requested a survey of every building that existed prior to that year. This paper documents the method used for this significant undertaking, not performed by any other large city. The survey was conducted using a combination of Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled photography and field visits. Multiple images were taken of every street, resembling progressive film imagery, with every building recorded multiple times in the image sequence. The location-tagged images were superimposed on a city map and compared to historical satellite maps of the city from Google Earth history timelines. Whenever the photographic data was not enough to adequately classify a building, field visits were conducted. That was necessary for around 10% of the city structures. The fieldwork was conducted by two teams, each comprising two engineers, and took four weeks to complete. The results showed that, in 2003, there were around 37,000 buildings in the city. Of those, almost 89%, were low-rise (1–2 floors) and largely single-unit residential houses. Nearly all buildings were found to be built after the mid-1980s, and in very good structural condition. The system described in this paper may be applied to any other large-scale city building survey.

This paper focuses on the impacts of major urban projects developed in traditionally working-class and immigrant inner suburbs of Montreal. Through the example of the MIL campus project, which is part of a revitalisation and international marketing plan, the objective is to show how the development of new green and creative spaces on former industrial brownfields accelerates gentrification. Our argument is that gentrification is seen as a “project” driven by public funding and policies. The paper begins by contextualising pericentral spaces, showing how they have shifted from ‘“in-between” and disinvested spaces in the 1970s and 80s to new metropolitan centralities in Montreal. The paper then examines the role of different public actors in the implementation of this urban revitalisation project and demonstrates how the MIL project accelerates the gentrification of pericentral immigrant neighborhoods such as Parc-Extension. Then, the role of the university as a public actor is questioned in this specific case study around the implementation of the new campus. Finally, the paper demonstrates how the principles of sustainable urbanism and the creative city, widely promoted by public actors, contribute to the legitimisation of gentrification by public policies.

The goal of architecture is changing in response to the expanding role of cities, rapid urbanization, and transformation under changing economic, environmental, social, and demographic factors. As cities increased in the early modern era, overcrowding, urbanization, and pollution conditions led reformers to consider the future shape of the cities. One of the most critical topics in contemporary architecture is the subject of the future concepts of living. In most cases, domed cities, as a future concept of living, are rarely considered, and they are used chiefly as “utopian” visions in the discourse of future ways of living. This paper highlights the reviews of domed cities to deepen the understanding of the idea in practice, like its approach in terms of architecture. The main aim of this paper is to provide a broad overview of the need for domed cities in the face of pollution as one of the main concerns in many European cities. As a result, the significance of the reviews of the existing projects is focused on their conceptual quality. This review will pave the way for further studies in terms of future developments in the realm of domed cities. In this paper, the city of Celje, one of the most polluted cities in Slovenia, is taken as a case study for considering the concept of Dome incorporated due to the lack of accessible literature on the topic. This review’s primary contribution is to allow architects to explore a broad spectrum of innovation by comparing today’s achievable statuses against the possibilities generated by domed cities. As a result of this study, the concept of living under the Dome remains to be developed in theory and practice. The current challenging climatic situation will accelerate the evolution of these concepts, resulting in the formation of new typologies, which are a requirement for humanity.

The purpose of this paper is to problematize traditional views on Eastern Mediterranean port cities and their so-called liberal cosmopolitan nature during the long nineteenth century by focusing on the production and effects of an East-West dichotomy in the three port cities of Constantinople, Smyrna and Salonica under the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The main aim of this contribution is to elicit debate for further research about the systems within which port cities operated by emphasizing the obstacles this dichotomy brings in the field of the port city research, especially in the Mediterranean region. In doing so, this paper will try to respond to the growing need for new perspectives on the cosmopolitanism of the present and the future by examining the nature of co-existence in the past.

Abstract Much scholarship has revealed the interrelationships of urbanization and financialization of cities in the past half century. However, these twin processes are modulating with the advent and application of digital platforms towards the production and experience of urban life. This paper demonstrates how the datafication process of platform urbanism and smart city projects is deeply intertwined with processes of financialization and urbanization. Though materially distinct, these processes converge over a shared purpose to instigate and accelerate the circulation of value in capitalist urban production. This paper examines the urban character of digital economic circulation and the increasingly financialized datafication of urban infrastructures. In foregrounding the circulation of value, datafication both conditions and is conditioned by financialization and urbanization.

This paper develops a decision-making methodology for urban regeneration projects based on the use of data-driven procedures and technologies for the conversion of former industrial areas to residential use. The proposed approach is aimed at the elaboration of an information management protocol for the generation of design scenarios, starting from the assessment of the regulatory and technical compatibility of the possible transformations with the existing constraints. This paper describes the application of the methodology to several buildings in the ex-Corradini complex in Naples to be used for different types of residential functions, in a framework of high uncertainty and complexity, also due to the inaccessibility and abandonment of the site.

In this paper, I discuss the urban rescaling theory by questioning the forms of public action of Yaoundé and Douala’s urban governments, the political and the economic capital of Cameroon. Indeed, to respond to the challenges related to the housing crisis, the Cameroonian State has carried out reforms giving a larger place to private actors in the real estate development sector and transferred part of its competences to the urban scale. These dynamics seem to be part of qualitative transformation and scalar reorganization of public intervention known as neoliberalization. The legislative process of decentralization of competences related to housing production can be understood as a rescaling of public action. Thus, analysis of the real estate programs conducted by the two urban government attest that Yaoundé and Douala are indeed scales of diffusion of neoliberal practices forged in the local governance arenas. We thus underline the variegated form of neoliberalization of real estate in Cameroon. In this paper, I discuss the urban rescaling theory by questioning the forms of public action of the urban governments of Yaoundé and Douala, respectively the political and economic capitals of Cameroon. Indeed, to respond to the challenges related to the housing crisis, the Cameroonian State has carried out reforms giving a larger place to private actors in the real estate development sector and has transferred part of its competences to the urban scale. These dynamics seem to be part of the qualitative transformation and scalar reorganization of public intervention known as neoliberalization. The legislative process of the decentralization of competences related to housing production can be understood as a rescaling of public action. Thus, analysis of the real estate programmes conducted by the two urban governments attest that Yaoundé and Douala are indeed scales of diffusion of neoliberal practices forged in the local governance arenas. However, because Cameroonian cities and housing remain key issues both for the construction of the Cameroonian State and for the legitimacy of Paul Biya's regime, the rescaling of public action appears unfulfilled. We thus underline the variegated form of the neoliberalization of real estate in Cameroon.

Published alongside the special issue Contester la métropole, the collective interview “Hey hey, ho ho, metropolis has got to go?” focuses on urban social movements fighting metropolises and the process of metropolization. This paper discusses this collective interview from a peri-urban perspective – with a particular focus on the section about protests outside metropolises. In that section, the authors relay the dominant images of peri-urban areas and imply there is no political engagement in these spaces. They also express a vision unattuned to existing forms of peri-urban political engagement. This paper aims to contribute to a better knowledge of peri-urban spaces; in order to do so, it attempts to deconstruct the generic representations of peri-urban areas which appear in the interview. It thus provides details on the socio-spatial categorisation of peri-urban areas in France, which is often oversimplified. It also shows that alongside cities, peri-urban spaces are sites of middle-class political engagement, and reveals the diversity of forms this engagement takes.

Through a case study of the city of Winnipeg, this paper examines perspectives on Indigeneity and ethnocultural diversity in the context of planning for reconciliation at the scale of a city as inhabited by both Indigenous and racialized communities. The authors reveal a separation between Indigeneity and immigration discourses in academic literature and in planning practice and problematize the processes by which cities plan for diversity. This paper draws from 42 semi-structured interviews conducted with Indigenous and racialized inhabitants, organizational officials, and planners in Winnipeg to reveal that amid the absence of strong municipal planning and programming, intercultural understanding between Indigenous and immigrant inhabitants has developed in the city, and that planners can do more to help to sustain and enhance it. The authors conclude that by increasing the level of literacy and competency in ethnocultural diversity and in Indigeneity, and by focusing on processes of planning, planners and municipal officials can play a more constructive role in enhancing intercultural relations and advancing reconciliation in Winnipeg and other Canadian cities.

This paper aims to analyse the ambiguous relationship with modernity of the holiday spaces in the Third Reich. The Kraft durch Freude (KdF) and the Hitlerjugend, the two major Nazi organisations dedicated to normalising the leisure time of the Reich's subjects, were protagonists of architectural experiences characterised by opposing conceptions of modernity. Two radically opposed architectural models seem to emerge from the KdF Seebad Prora seaside resort and from the ideal layout of the camp recommended by the Hitlerjugend manuals: the machine and the camp. The analysis and comparison of these two models define an opportunity to investigate the complexity of the totalitarian spatial ecosystem by analysing its two-faced approach to modernity, its structural link with the regime and the contemporary perception of its difficult heritage, attempting to dispel certain prejudices and oversimplifications regarding Nazi Germany's planning.

Holiday camps represent a significant example of the architecture for mass tourism in Sardinia after the Second world war, and a concrete example of the health and recreational function of local welfare state policies and religious pedagogical activities. Although marked by simple and sometimes questionable formal solutions – often far from relevant architectural experimentation – holiday camps are now characteristic elements of many Sardinian coastal landscapes, as well as examples of architectural and building articulations which were functional to the pedagogical conceptions of the time. Prominent among these cases are a seaside colony and an accommodation facility for social tourism in the picturesque bay of Solanas (hamlet of Sinnai) in southern Sardinia, both run by religious organizations and located just two hundred meters apart from each other. The first is the “Colonia Salesiana Don Bosco,” built between 1956–58, the second is the “Casa La Scogliera,” completed in 1971. The reconstruction of the design and construction history of the “Casa La Scogliera,” through unpublished original plans, documents, and memories, allows this article to assess the relationship that this building had both with the specific pedagogy developed in the context of religious organizations and with the tumultuous tourist development of Sardinia during the 1960s. This paper aims at revealing the history, values and critical issues of this architecture and the cultural context in which it is embedded, thus contributing to the current debate on the conservation and transformation of holiday camps.

Although the history of vacation camps is well documented, their future is yet to be explored. Looking back on the results of a research project that mobilized a multidisciplinary research team from the Nantes School of Architecture, this paper focuses on the future of a former vacation camp called in French “Palais des enfants” (“Children’s Palace”). The camp is located in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez, a seaside town in Vendée, on the French Atlantic coastline. The specific case of the “Palais des enfants” in Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez offers an ideal case study for the many issues that affect the future of these heritages: who are the stakeholders playing extended roles in managing the future of this camp? What are the legal, social and environmental constraints affecting these heritages? Which economic strategies should be implemented to develop new attractions in a coastal town marked by social tourism? This site, as well as its future, have led us to ground our analysis in a set of spatial, political and social perspectives. They have above all opened up new horizons for joint research initiatives informed by design and by art.

Educated at the crossroads of various influences – Japanese architecture, vernacular European architecture, and the Modern Movement – Roland Schweitzer (1925–2018) traced a distinctive path in the French architectural scene. He is considered today as a precursor for a form of sensitive contemporary architecture that remains connected with the environment. Schweitzer sought to achieve a certain syncretism between contemporary and traditional form. Throughout his professional life, the humanist dimension of his approach founded its full expression in buildings with a social vocation. From the beginning of his career in 1954, the architect established fruitful relationships with popular education organizations. This proximity led to numerous projects and achievements – youth hostels, summer camps, family holiday centers – as well as long-term architectural research on these specific types of social tourism infrastructures. This paper focuses on the summer camps built in France by Schweitzer between 1958 and 1974. The analysis of the emblematic projects – especially the Cieux and Ballan-Miré holiday camps – allows us to understand how, thanks to a dialogue with the project sponsors and potential users of the site, the architect developed typologies and, more generally, an architectural language that was as close as possible to the uses and the users, educators and children, and enables to evaluate how architecture participated in the popular education projects linked to the New Education movement.

This paper discusses the role of ONMI in the management, coordination and construction of buildings for the protection of childhood, particularly the colonie (holiday camps) and the “Case della madre e del bambino,” built in Italy during the fascist regime. This article is based on research that is partly still in progress and partly already published. The considerations that arose around the role of commissioning also make it possible to highlight certain aspects related to the concept of rationalist architecture as a representation of the racist health instances of fascist ideologies. These aspects can be made explicit through the search for a correlation between original designs, buildings and functional and symbolic programmes. After the Second World War, most ONMI buildings survived (unlike the Case del Fascio and Case del Balilla), continuing to exercise to some extent the functions for which they were born, albeit with new meanings. These buildings were, in fact, the object of an absolutely necessary re-signification since they had in their genesis an ideological component, in the specific case racist, which was no longer acceptable in the changed historical-political context.

The paper scrutinizes the evolution of the uses and functions entrusted to the Gustavo Fara holiday camp in the Italian municipality of Chiavari (Genoa) from the 1930s until today. The work analyzes the historical evolution of the building from its construction to the recent revitalization, including the tourism-oriented urban transformation of the western sector of the city’s waterfront, i.e. Preli. In particular, the essay questions the re-signification of the building in relation to its complex history (Fascism, refugee center, and elementary school) and interprets the more recent events that led to the recovery and conversion into apartments and a luxury hotel. The inquiry leads to answering the following research questions: How does the building dialogue with its surroundings? Is the former holiday camp seen as a difficult heritage of the Fascist regime or only as a representative building of twentieth-century rationalist architecture? How did the recovery process take (or fail to take) into consideration the needs of the community?

This paper uses research conducted in Swiss post-war high-rise estates to focus on policies and practices of community building in neighbourhoods with an increasingly diverse population. Initially, the estates were mainly populated by Swiss and Southern European lower to middle income families, but latterly the household structures have become very heterogeneous with residents coming from all over the world. The planning and development policies of the estates are based on specific ideas about creating a community, which are still evident in the building and management of community centres but also in various facilities for common use (playgrounds, football and sport fields, community rooms and kitchens, libraries, petting zoos, cafés, crafts rooms, etc.). The community centres, along with community work, are key to encouraging encounters, connecting people and activating cultural life in the neighbourhoods and have played a pioneering role far beyond the boundaries of their respective estates. However, individualisation and pluralisation processes, the aging of the facilities and built structures, and economic pressures pose challenges for the community centres. The current Covid-19 crisis reinforces these challenges by limiting and impeding cultural activities and direct (physical) social encounters. The paper analyses the potential and the challenges of community building in the context of growing diversity among residents, and acknowledges what we can learn from these experiences when thinking about creating and strengthening communities in a multi-faceted world today.

Abstract There has been a call for more participatory processes to feed into urban planning for more resilient food systems. This paper describes a process of knowledge co-production for transforming towards an alternative food system in Cape Town, South Africa. A ‘transformative space’ was created though a T-Lab process involving change-agents advocating for an alternative food system, and was designed to discuss challenges in the local food system from a range of perspectives, in order to co-develop potentially transformative innovations that could feed into government planning. In this paper, we describe and reflect on the T-lab in order to consider whether its design was able to meet its objective: to initiate an experimental phase of coalition-building by diverse actors that could feed into the provincial government’s strategic focus on food and nutrition security. Our findings indicate that T-labs have the potential to be important mechanisms for initiating and sustaining transformative change. They can be complementary to urban planning processes seeking to transform complex social-ecological systems onto more sustainable development pathways. However, as with all experimental co-production processes, there is significant learning and refinement that is necessary to ensure the process can reach its full potential. A key challenge we encountered was how to foster diversity and difference in opinions in the context of significant historical legacies of inequality, whilst simultaneously acting for ‘the common good’ and seeking ways to scale impact across different contexts. The paper concludes with deliberations on the nature of planning and navigating towards systemic transformative change.

Movies represent women differently from men. Some try to raise women’s dignity, and some still impose traditional values on them. This paper studies the representation of the characters of female superhero in The Incredibles 1 and 2 which seem to support women’s emancipation. However, there are some ideas conveyed through the mise- en-scéne which still indicate that the movie series do not fully emancipate women. The Incredibles 1 and 2 movie series have been chosen as the object of the study for their typical characteristics when female superhero plays the role. The purpose of this paper is to examine how women are represented through visuals and character roles in The Incredibles 1 and 2. The movies were analyzed through a critical discourse approach. The analysis focused on the language beyond sentences and aspects outside the language, such as power relation, social context, and ideology. The result of the analysis shows that the female character in the movies still upholds traditional values, such as male domination, revealing that these movies are not emancipatory for women. Moreover, women are still degraded and objectified through their body. Therefore, these movies can be seen as a form of pseudo-empowerment, where something is seen as empowering but actually it is not. Emansipasi dan Pemberdayaan Perempuan dalam Film Incredibles 1 dan 2. Film menggambarkan perempuan dan laki-laki dengan cara yang berbeda. Sebagian mencoba untuk menaikkan derajat perempuan, dan sebagian masih menyajikan nilai- nilai tradisional. Artikel ini meneliti representasi karakter perempuan utama pada film The Incredibles 1 dan 2 yang terlihat mendukung emansipasi perempuan melalui karakter superhero. Namun, terdapat gagasan yang menunjukkan bahwa kedua film ini tidak sepenuhnya mengemansipasi perempuan. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk meneliti bagaimana perempuan digambarkan melalui visual dan peran pada setiap karakter di The Incredibles 1 dan 2. Kedua film ini dianalisa menggunakan pendekatan analisis wacana. Analisis dilakukan pada tingkat bahasa yang digunakan yang tidak terbatas pada kalimat dan aspek-aspek di luar bahasa, seperti hubungan kekuasaan, konteks social, dan ideologi. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa karakter perempuan pada kedua film ini masih menjunjung tinggi nilai-nilai tradisional, seperti dominasi oleh laki-laki. Hal ini membuktikan bahwa film-film ini tidak merepresentasikan kebebasan pada perempuan. Lebih lagi, melalui tubuhnya, perempuan masih terlihat direndahkan dan dijadikan sebagai objek. Oleh karena itu, dapat disimpulkan bahwa film-film ini merupakan suatu pseudo-empowerment, yaitu ketika sesuatu terlihat seperti memberikan kebebasan namun dalam kenyataanya tidak sama sekali.

The paper sheds light on a university-led cross-innovation approach where the focus is on so-called “Makers” as a distinctive local group. We introduce the format of a policy clinic—comparable to policy innovation labs—as a method to bring different stakeholders from various local contexts under a given thematic topic temporarily together to learn how to initiate new policies for maker spaces. The key thematic interest is to focus on city challenges and approaching so-called “wicked problems.” This requires wide stakeholder engagement by others not present at the event of the policy clinic. The clinic is a temporary trans-local event but is framed by wider participation involvement that starts earlier and is accompanied by a number of approaches before the Policy Clinic event takes place. The paper sheds light on a university-led cross-innovation approach where the focus is on so-called "Makers" as a distinctive local group. We introduce the format of a policy clinic—comparable to policy innovation labs—as a method to bring different stakeholders from various local contexts under a given thematic topic temporarily together to learn how to initiate new policies for maker spaces. The key thematic interest is to focus on city challenges and approaching so-called “wicked problems.” This requires wide stakeholder engagement by others not present at the event of the policy clinic. The clinic is a temporary trans-local event but is framed by wider participation involvement that starts earlier and is accompanied by a number of approaches before the Policy Clinic event takes place.

The agency of mapping has been an increasingly relevant area of enquiry in architecture, urbanism and landscape at the very least since James Corner published his seminal paper on the agency of mapping in 1999. A few projects aiming to map the commons in cities have since developed, providing critical or counter-cartographies in which information on local groups and communities, activities and other informal evidence is collated.This paper draws on the concept of urban commons as third places in the sense of being beyond market or state control and management, on the notion that commons cannot exist without commoning practices and on the idea of common spaces as distinct from public, private or communal ones. As such, urban commons should be mapped not as static or invariable but rather as dynamic entities that evolve over time. From that perspective, the agency of mapping should take into consideration both current commoning practices and places suitable for these agencies to happen. Spatial features and architectural configurations may also play a role in calling for, or hosting, those agencies.This paper proposes a methodology based on both primary and secondary data collection. The former is based on a variety of methods and tactics including psycho-geographical tours, non-interactive and interactive forms of observations and mapping. The process of mapping aims to showcase both what is already taking place and possibilities for future uses as a "hidden potential." The findings include the identification of specific places where several layers converge. These may become case studies that can be further investigated through methods such as research by design and community engagement.

This paper interrogates the existing spatial realities of Johannesburg as it was shaped by colonialism and the challenges of providing an inclusive urbanism between the centre, the periphery and the in-between. Johannesburg is a major urban centre in South Africa, and Southern Africa, with increasing economic and spatial inequality. The inherited spatial realities are still evident today; these structural realities are restrictive, unsustainable, and disadvantage communities ecologically, economically and socially. The paper is premised on an understanding that economic inequality is related to spatial inequality. The author draws on the personal lived experiences of being born on the periphery and the limitations of escaping the legacies of colonial spatial planning including the challenges of living on fragmented urban morphology. The author looks at the typology of the segregated post-apartheid township and the negative elements of apartheid spatial planning, especially focused at the restrictions it has on housing, employment opportunities, transport and public space on the periphery in comparison to the centre and how the in-between spaces further perpetuate socio-economic disparity. The author attempts through research to understand the resilience adopted by the Soweto community to have a safe and welcoming place despite the persistence of structural restrictions. The intention is to address the fragmentation and segregation caused by the inherited spatial structures. The planning of colonial cities, especially Johannesburg was based on achieving maximum control. The urban morphology was many times based on policies that organised people through race, class, and ethnicity. Its spatial planning was defined by separating citizens into different racial groups and economic classes. The rich white people located in the suburbs in the centre and the poor black people located in townships at the periphery separated by wide natural and man-made buffers in-between. The urban morphology of Johannesburg will be studied with a comparison analysis with other African cities which have similar patterns of spatial fragmentation in urban form due to colonial powers. The aim is to observe, compare and propose a defragmentation process towards the transformation of Johannesburg.

This paper discusses the concepts of conflict and border in relation to place and identity reflecting on narratives and meanings of dividing urban and civil borders. It takes the divided Greek and Turkish society living in Nicosia as a case study. The significance of the wall, as an explicit expression of division, is discussed but also overturned by looking at its closure and its permeability when Nicosia’s sealed borders opened again for everyday crossing. The inquiry speculates an alternative path informed by Glissant’s concept of Opacity, Agamben and Nancy’s non-essentialist approaches non-community to look at entangled deep-rooted ethnic divisions and fragments of shared cultures. To inform urban epistemology, two bottom-up examples are analysed using De Certeau’s concepts of everyday life: Home for Cooperation, which is a neutral space in the buffer zone for unified collectively and Occupy Buffer-zone Movement, which has occupied a non-place and transformed it into a public square through grassroots activism. The paper highlights that in order to draw a feasible future of Cyprus, an anti-essentialist acceptance of the multiple and eclectic origins of the context is needed. In this sense, the tangible and intangible meaning of division requires a shift of meaning, from delimitation, classification, separation to a porous element of balance and calibration. The top-down urban models and concept of inclusiveness have been shaken by the temporal civic grassroots communities, and this demonstrates that collective participation fosters the reappropriation of public space, overturning the perception and the experience of the border of differences. This contributes to theorizing a critical and reflective, rather than idealistic, practice of participation in urban design.

Countless waterways defined both the rural and urban landscape and related daily life activities in China’s Yangtze River Delta for many centuries. However, much of these bodies of water disappeared due to extremely rapid urbanization in the last three decades and this process is ongoing. This paper critically assesses how the appreciation and usability of the remaining urban watersides is currently changing drastically by examining recent waterfront projects in the Direct Controlled Municipality of Shanghai. This research mobilizes insights from the academic field of Sustainability Transitions – specifically on expectations, experimentation and innovation journeys – to explain how, in the context of extreme urban pressure, well-manicured new urban watersides are often visually attractive but functionally inadequate. The paper concludes with recommendations to reverse this trend and to create more sustainable and attractive watersides. By describing, comparing and evaluating three cases, this paper by Dutch Shanghai-based urban designer and researcher Harry den Hartog also wishes to contribute to the discourse on China’s urban transition by critically examining the gap between expectations and outcomes in daily life reality.

The combined impact of diverse transitions, such as climate change, population growth, rapid urbanization and ageing infrastructure are expected to affect the quantity, quality, accessibility and affordability of water globally. Water demand and competition for water are likely to increase. Addressing these changes and hazards requires societies to be resilient, i.e. flexible and adaptive instead of only resistant. Seattle, Washington USA, has a long history of sustainable development and adaptation to changes and hazards such as population growth, water pollution, droughts and floods. Based on a literature review and semi-structured interviews among twelve selected local water professionals, this paper a) defines development steps and policies that have led to the current situation; b) explores key policies that are important to the resilience of Seattle’s water services; and c) examines challenges in and recommendations for improving resilience in the future. The results reveal the importance of specific policies and practices in enabling resilience for each water service: water supply, wastewater and stormwater. They also reveal governance levels where resilience is most powerfully implemented. The paper concludes that policies that were found to build and improve the resilience of Seattle’s water services are diverse and most effective when implemented at a local level. In advancing resilience, it is important to acknowledge also informal rules, including mindsets and habits.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the cartographic corpus drawn up by Ambrosio de Vico at the end of the 16th century for the unpublished Historia Eclesiástica de Granada, by Antolínez de Burgos, and in particular the famous engraving Plataforma de la Ciudad de Granada. It is a perspective view that summarizes the political-religious situation of the city during the second half of the 16th century: the desperate attempt by the municipal authorities for restoring to Granada the prestige it had acquired with the Reconquista (1492), the rigorous religious policy of Felipe II and the incisive effects of the Counter-Reformation culture on the city, with theological images as well as urban and architectural operations aimed at channeling the Tridentine dogmas. This paper continues the research line related both to the history of cartography and to the modern history of Granada, undertaken by Moreno (1984, 1989), Barrios (2000), Calatrava and Ruiz Morales (2005), and Harris (2006, 2007), focusing on demonstrating that Vico's cartographic work managed to synthesise two complementary urban realities: the physical one and the symbolic-ideological one, in order to build – and not simply represent – the transcendent image of a utopian Granada renewed according to the Castilian ideas and finally freed from Islam.