Refugee-led socio-spatial organization in Al Baqa’a camp, Jordan

The increase in refugee numbers is an increasingly important concern globally. Many countries in different regions have been accommodating refugees by providing temporary shelters made from ineffective and inadequate materials to provide thermal comfort for refugees. However, the shelters provided are often inadequate solutions for shelter and neglect the social and cultural diversity of the refugees. Socio-cultural norms, practices and values are rarely considered in the design of shelters and this has an adverse impact on how refugees live in these spaces. Using insights from the Al Baqa’a refugee camp in Jordan as a case study, this paper uses a mixed-method approach to explore how the challenges of inadequate shelter has consequently led refugees to self-organize and create new socio-cultural spaces to adapt to the place. The findings suggest that historically, Al Baqa’a camp has reorganized by users due to social needs and climate challenges. When the camp was created in 1967, the inadequacy of the housing and infrastructure to provide comfort influenced refugees to self-organize and create adaptive spaces of comfort. However, over the decades, these spaces have evolved into spaces of enterprise, belonging and memory of their homeland. Therefore, this paper argues that refugee shelter design should have an integrated consideration of the climatic elements and the social and cultural aspects of refugees. The paper concludes with lessons learned drawn from the evidence to act as guideline for the consideration of official humanitarian organizations in other camps and local communities.

The materialization of the Buen Vivir and the Rights of Nature: Rhetoric and Realities of Guayaquil Ecológico urban regeneration project

In 2008, Ecuador became the first country in the world to declare nature as a subject of rights based on the ‘Buen Vivir’ (Good Living) philosophy which is premised on an indigenous principle that envisions a world where humans are part-and-parcel of a larger natural and social environment. Although Ecuador’s constitution is groundbreaking from a legal standpoint, the question arises of how the rights of nature is spatially manifested beyond the designation of protected areas? To shed light on such interrogation, this article, based on qualitative research, focuses on the linear park component of the mega-project Guayaquil Ecológico heralded as a first materialization which champions the “Rights of Nature” under the vision of the Buen Vivir. It unravels the contested rhetoric and realities of the Guayaquil Ecológico linear park in a critical review of the as-built project in relation to the larger objectives of Buen Vivir. The Guayaquil Ecologico linear park promised to simultaneously upgrade both social and environmental dimensions. However, it did not fully address the complexity of Guayaquil’s socio-ecological context and some of the structural injustices of the estuarine territory. Buen Vivir was rhetorically mobilised to implement a project where aesthetic dimensions dominated, further perpetuating socio-ecological vulnerabilities through relocation and evictions. Furthermore, its implementation was dependent on a specific political moment, leaving it in a state of abandonment and neglect. The Buen Vivir philosophy—as a decolonial stance that challenges western forms of development—can offer a fundamental base to question current modes of territorial occupation based on extractivist planning and design strategies. It holds significant potential to serve as base to re-think the relationship between forms of settlement, natural dynamics, and worldviews.

Too many rights: too many people without rights—two opposite case studies of claiming spaces and rights in Turin and Geneva

Introduction The multiple forms of living in the contemporary city clearly demonstrate how the relationship between living space and rights reveals itself in many ways, even to the point of being divergent and contradictory. Case description In order to analyze this point, we decided to observe two case studies that are emblematic for the divergence of issues that they are able to highlight. The neighbourhood of Les Grottes in Geneva can be described as a ‘manifesto of living’ based on sharing, solidarity, and freedom. On the other hand, the former Olympic Village in Turin expresses the “individual need to exist” of a population (of political refugees and migrants) not legitimatized to be in that place but one which, generally speaking, has nowhere to live. Discussion and evaluation These two situations are able to highlight how the right to housing today no longer has a universal meaning as in the struggles of the last century (70 s) but explodes in very different meanings. Conclusions For this reason the aim of this paper is try to rethink the concept of housing rights in order to emphasize how this term is still able to tell a lot about the urban and social transformations in contemporary cities.

Military archaeology and contemporary reality in Albania

Heritage conservation provides economic, cultural and social benefits to urban communities. The building conservation role has changed from preservation to being part of a broader strategy for urban regeneration process and sustainable development. Heritage buildings are vital in for transferring the cultural identity for upcoming generations. Where heritage buildings can no longer function with its original use, proposing a new function is necessary to preserve the significance of the heritage building. This study aims to explore the fascinating dialogue between totalitarian regimes introduced in two museums adapted within the anti-nuclear bunkers in Tirana. The architectural projects of the museum aim to preserve the identity of their interior. While the careful architectural intervention is necessary to create the atmosphere of totalitarian ideology, in many cases we have to do with the continuity of existing architectural and urban elements in these particular projects. The work explores two museums, BuncArt 1 and BunkArt 2, quite interesting reflection of the parts of history, during the years of world wars and the period of dictatorship of communism, with the facilities and elements exhibited there. In the meantime, thereafter, one can speak of a longer period for the period of the communist regime extending from 1945 to 1990. The impact of communist ideology, coming from the communist bloc of the East, also affects architecture and urban studies in Albania. In some respects, we have a silent follow-up to the monumental interventions that were made before the end of World War II. Another important element was the radical intervention in the bunkers in the territory and in the cities. Their quantity is considered with an amount of 700 thousand pieces. They were different in size and were seen more as defence-related parts rather than as a direct link to the new realist-socialist architecture. The return of some of them to the exhibition space was a good step to revitalize them. Currently they have been transformed into successful tourist attractions. Visitors come to perceive three important elements: (1) attractive military engineering, carried out in contrast to the challenges of the time, (2) the suffocating atmosphere during the communist dictatorship, which required extreme safeguards, (3) elements and historical facts of the World War period, as important elements during the Cold War. An ambitious third project, which is expected to be implemented in the future, is the conversion of the Pashaliman Naval Base in Vlora into another important military museum. This port was originally set up by mid-Fifties, by Russian troops, to have control over the Adriatic. The port is currently part of the military, thought to turn into a strong tourist pole.

A retrospective towards a biodegradable material concept for future Indonesian sustainable architecture

The awareness of the negative effect of the intensive usage of synthetic material has led to a significant phenomenon in recent global development. Moving forward to become a fully ready developed country, Indonesia shall move toward a more sustainable architecture for presenting a greener environment. Despite blessed with a distinctive collection of tropical material variants, reflected in its vernacular architecture, advanced material development must be invented to promote more progressive architecture in Indonesia. This research illustrates a new perspective regarding biodegradable material concepts for future Indonesian sustainable architecture. It is produced by respecting local and global development trends by using a bibliographic coupling and experimental methods in the laboratory to contribute to Indonesian sustainable architecture. A retrospective is aimed to highlight Indonesian biodegradable material and Indonesian vernacular architecture potency; it is presented as follows; (1) Understanding local–global trends in biodegradable architecture; (2) Indonesian potency on biodegradable materials; (3) A biodegradable material concept as an alternative perspective for Indonesian sustainable architecture. As a result, a new concept is proposed as an alternative for developing Indonesian biodegradable building materials. A more profound sustainable architecture is expected to engage local craftsmanship while highlighting unique biodegradable materials easily found in the surrounding environment, such as Indonesian Kombucha Tea and Indonesian Coffee.

More dense but less walkable: the impact of macroscale walkability indicators on recent designs of emirati neighborhoods

With the aim to enhance sustainability in general including walkability, the recent urban forms of the designs of the Emirati neighborhoods have been denser and more compact, if compared with the older design models. While there are various guidelines and regulations related to the microscale walkability measures for the urban design of neighborhoods in the Emirates but unfortunately the macroscale walkability measures have not received similar attention. So, to investigate how would these denser and more compact recent neighborhoods designs better perform regarding walkability macroscale measures, the research utilized the urban modelling interface (UMI) walkability simulation tool to calculate the UMI Walkscores of these designs because it considers almost all macroscale factors including both urban morphology and urban planning measures and it also allows for the customization of the types, required catchment distances, and weights of the significance of locally provided amenities. The UMI Walkscores were calculated for the six recent denser and more compact neighborhoods designs and were compared with the UMI Walkscore for a conventionally designed model of urban sprawling neighborhoods. Unexpectedly, it has been found out that urban compactness per se is not a sufficient design measure for enhancing walkability in local neighborhood designs, where much higher compactness and density have achieved disappointing UMI Walkscores. So, it seems that for the recent neighborhoods’ designs, little attention was paid to the impact of the street network connectivity measures of Intersection Density, Block Length and the link-to-nodes ratio, on UMI Walkscores, if compared with the main attention paid to increasing FAR through decreasing plot sizes. Meanwhile, the explicit macroscale urban planning measures including the land-use factors of the types, numbers, and the location of amenities, as well as the implicit factors of their destination and global weights seem to be more influential in enhancing the UMI Walkscores but have been less considered when planning these neighborhoods. So, besides considering well-known macroscale urban morphology aspects of street network connectivity and locational distribution of provided amenities, boosting walkability macroscale measures on the design level requires adopting a set of adequately customized measures including the appropriate values of their global and distribution weights. These walkability design weights should be also resilient and continuously reviewed to satisfy the changing needs of the local communities. Based on its findings, the research proposed a five-actions plan to help boost walkability macroscale measures in the design of local urban communities in the UAE.

Developing a process-oriented approach towards Positive Energy Blocks: the wind-analysis contribution

Positive Energy Block (PEB) is an emerging paradigm to transform cities into low carbon cities. It is expected that buildings will become the main components of the future energy infrastructure. This scenario demands a structural integration of the cyclical environmental variables in designing our buildings and cities as a whole. However, such an integration continue to be rare due to the dominance of object-oriented approaches. This study contributes to reducing these difficulties by developing a process-oriented approach, focusing on the wind contribution. The assumption posed herein is that the transition towards PEBs should be an opportunity to redefine the rules to organise the built environment structure integrating energy and urban environmental qualities. A case study, involving three public school buildings located in three different urban patterns in Rome, illustrates a preliminary step in developing an integrated platform to orient strategic design solutions towards PEBs. This is done by developing and assessing three indexes: wind form index, wind thermal-loss index, and wind energy production index. The results point out the usability and limits concerning the approach adopted, stressing the relevance of an integrated platform to support decision-makers in planning the agenda to transform buildings as components of PEBs.

Strategic actions of urban development to define the intervention policies of slums

The problem of slums is one of the most imperative problems experienced by many developing countries as well as some developed countries. The random gatherings shape real disruption in the economic and social development plans of the concerned countries. The importance of the research lies in conducting a field study for Ezbet El-Shahatin area in Mansoura city, given that it is the largest unplanned informal area in Dakahlia Governorate in terms of area. Geographic information systems were used to make enter data to form a coordinated database. In addition, policy intervention matrix in slums was used to make the appropriate decision regarding the development of the area. The study concludes to specifying several recommendations to deal with slums and set a model for integrated urban development in low-income areas that can be repeated in other similar locations.

The relevance of science-policy-practice dialogue. Exploring the urban climate resilience governance in Italy

The concept of resilience has been developed for over 40 years in different disciplines. The academic discussion on defining resilience is thriving to create interdisciplinary understandings and meanings. Simultaneously, resilience has firmly entered into planning practice to address vulnerabilities and cities' exposure facing to present and future hazards particularly related to climate change effects. In the last twenty years, a growing number of cities are adopting local climate actions, and urban resilience is also gradually a crucial part of international and national policies worldwide. Despite the increasing attention to urban resilience, its implementation at the local scale and the required increasing ambition are still lagging, also due to a lack of dialogue among researchers (the scientific level), policy-makers (the normative level) and practitioners (the operational level). Following the 2018 CitiesIPCC Research and Action Agenda recommendations, this paper contributes to improving understanding barriers, opportunities, and needs for science-policy-practice dialogue for urban climate resilience. The paper analyses the urban climate resilient strategiesstrategies of the Italian metropolitan cities, concluding that a science-policy-practice dialogue is lacking in implementing evidence-based climate change resilience policies and actions actions at the local scale. Starting from the Italian case study, the paper suggests an iterative process to unlock the science-policy-practice dialogue for contributing to operationalise urban climate resilience fostering thanks to a multiscalar governance approach.

Lao Tze and Confucius' philosophies influenced the designs of Kisho Kurokawa and Tadao Ando

Japanese architecture retains the characteristic of appreciating its culture, despite the growing influence of Western architecture. Based on this issue, it is a very interesting area to study to understand the design concepts behind two masterpieces from the world’s architects Kisho Kurokawa and Tadao Ando. This study uses a qualitative method by analyzing theories and case studies in the work of the architects Kisho Kurokawa and Tadao Ando. It conducts the following detailed analyses; (a) Western architects who influenced both design concepts; (b) The primary considerations of the two architects in facing the demands of the times. The study concludes that Kisho Kurokawa was influenced by Kenzo Tange, while Tadao Ando has been influenced by Le Corbusier and Louis Khan. The primary consideration of Kisho Kurokawa is Hanasuki, while for Tadao Ando it is Shintai. The findings in this study are that the two architects in the design concept were inspired by Japanese culture, where Japanese culture is influenced by the philosophy of Lau Tze and Confucius.