Urban Planning Disciplines Research Articles

The governance of urban heritage

The term integrated conservation first entered the lexicon of urban heritage in the 1975 Council of Europe European Charter, recognising that the future of the architectural heritage depends on the weight attached to it within the framework of urban and regional planning. Since then, the agendas of sustainability, sustainable development and climate change have entered the debate, and various attempts have been made to re-position urban heritage from a specialist to a mainstream activity in the European context. In ‘The Geography of Urban Heritage’, we argued that the quantum of urban heritage recognised and appreciated today underscores a level of responsibility for the maintenance and processes of continuity whose realisation is beyond the scope and capacity of a specialist field. Additionally, that the complementary values of community, heritage, resource and usefulness, harnessed to common purpose, afford a potent combination for responding to the challenge. That article promoted the thesis that for urban conservation to become a mainstream activity, heritage professionals need to nurture relationships centrally within the broad discipline of geography – the core discipline of urban planning; and reciprocally, geographers need to recognise the vital role of urban heritage beyond a limited perception of its compass. The 2010 European Union Toledo Declaration acknowledged the importance of urban heritage, and defined the multiple dimensions of sustainability as economic, social, environmental, cultural and governance. Governance at the municipal level is the key to integrated urban planning policy and practice. This article explores current initiatives in the field and proposes directions for further research and implementation.

Energetic Communities: Planning support for sustainable energy transition in small- and medium-sized communities

Energetic Communities: Planning support for sustainable energy transition in small- and medium-sized communities

Energetic Communities: Planning support for sustainable energy transition in small- and medium-sized communities

Energetic Communities: Planning support for sustainable energy transition in small- and medium-sized communities

Energetic Communities

Energetic Communities

Sir Peter Geoffrey Hall

Sir Peter Geoffrey Hall

Integrating the Community in Urban Design and Planning of Public Spaces: A Review in Malaysian Cities

Both disciplines of Landscape architecture and Urban Planning prepare a development plan for public spaces in cities and towns. Much of the design and planning of the spaces are done by the landscape architect and urban planners without community participation. This practice results in incompatibility of the spaces for the communities; underutilizing or abandoning the spaces, and worse vandalizing the properties of the spaces. This paper argues that community participation in the design and planning of urban public spaces can draw residents to establish a sense of attachment that may lead to community maintaining the spaces. A plethora of studies in human geography, urban sociology, landscape architecture and urban planning were reviewing the themes of community participation in the planning of public spaces. It is found that community participation needs to be underpinned by a philosophy that emphasises empowerment, equity, trust and learning. The quality of decisions made through community participation is strongly reliable on the nature of the process leading to them.

LEED, its efficacy in regional context: Finding a relationship between regional measurements and urban temperature

Sustainable building performance has become one of critical concerns in recent architecture and urban planning disciplines. In this extent, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) has proven that the LEED badge provides a certain type of owner benefits. The question, though, is that it still is not very affirmative whether or not a LEED certified building also enhances environmental benefits to its surroundings. For example, if a LEED certification promises a standard for an environment-friendly building, then a group of these certificates should imply greater environmental benefits to the society. This is the main question of this study and the authors answer with the possible relationship of LEED certificates and their influence on outdoor temperature of surroundings. With the analysis results shown, both the LEED certification levels and the mass effect of LEED buildings do not have significant influence on regional climate. The result shows that the relationship of LEED clusters and their effects on regional heat has very minimal interactions and thus, we may possibly question the positive side of LEED's regional credits, such as Sustainable Sites or Heat Island Effect credit.

The food environment within the primary school fringe

Purpose – The school fringe environment (peripheral 400 m buffer) offers an important opportunity for young people to obtain food and drink. There is international evidence to suggest socio-economic influence on food outlet availability and healthfulness within these environments; however the situation in the UK is unclear. The purpose of this paper is to describe food outlet provision (frequency and type) within primary school fringes across the spectrum of deprivation. Design/methodology/approach – Ten primary schools in Newcastle upon Tyne were purposefully selected from a comprehensive list of all schools within the region. Two schools were chosen at random from each quintile of deprivation. A total of 400-metre buffer zones around schools were audited. School fringe food environments were classified using a Food Outlet Classification System. Access (i.e. frequency), and type of food outlets were compared to area level deprivation, obesity prevalence rates and area type. Findings – Food outlet frequency was highest in the most deprived school fringe area. Convenience stores and takeaways represented the greatest proportion of total food outlets across all school fringe environments. More total food outlets were observed in fringes with above national average obesity prevalence rates for children. Research limitations/implications – UK case study approach limits widespread and international applicability. Practical implications – Informs school, health and urban planning disciplines regarding current picture of UK school fringes. Originality/value – Provides evidence in UK context that area deprivation and Census 2001 Supergroup class show significant correlations with school fringe food environment.

Tourism-Dominated Spaces – The Strategic Potential of Hotel Lobbies

Today, tourism has become a crucial factor in urban economies, and the extended presence of tourism facilities within the urban fabric has generated a new basis for planning decisions. However, the phenomenon of tourism has primarily been discussed by sociologists, ethnologists, geographers and not least by economists. The architectural voice in the general tourism-related discussion, in a very wide sense, has been relatively vague. The aim of this article is to discuss the strategic potential of a specific tourism programme, namely the hotel lobby as well as the immediate urban context of this lobby. From a qualitative architectural point of view the article examines the evolution of specific lobby-qualities at Miami Beach; from the pre-war Art Deco hotel lobby to the post-war MiMo 1 resort lobby. In particular, the study highlights ‘extraordinary’ qualities of tourism-dominated spaces (as opposed to ‘ordinary’ everydaydominated spaces). The article addresses the phenomenon of tourism at a very local planning level, and touches on the concept of ‘positive interference’. Positive interference is understood as the friction between tourism-related and everyday-related activities and is launched as a ‘potential desirable quality’ of the tourismdominated space. Overall, the article points towards an untapped strategic planning potential of specific architectural tourism-related programmes. (This article is rooted in theories presented in the PhD-dissertation Tourism and Strategic Planning which was defended in October 2012). A Note on Concepts and the Overall Approach to the Phenomenon of Tourism This paper features a number of much discussed concepts related to the complicated phenomenon of tourism and to the discipline of strategic urban planning. It is beyond the scope to enter into a detailed discussion of all mentioned concepts; however, it is important to set the stage by providing a few compressed notes on the overall approach to tourism-dominated spaces and potentially desirable qualities of these spaces.

The role of green corridors for wildlife conservation in urban landscape: A literature review

Green corridors are an attempt to mitigate negative effects of the built environment of cities and towns. The corridors act as conservation for rapidly extreme intervention and development of the urban environment. Most importantly, it enables dispersal movement of animals within city areas. Issues relate to wildlife conservation in urban areas has been studied for many years and thus, the research makes a review for how the green corridors contribute to the conservation of urban wildlife. This study reviews groups of articles in disciplines of urban landscape planning and biology conservation to discuss the relationship between elements of green corridors and urban wildlife dispersal movement behaviour in Malaysian context. Accordingly, this research is purposely studied to give understanding on how green corridors contribute to the animals' ability of moving and dispersing within the built-up areas. In advance, it is found that there are three factors contribute to the capability of colonization among urban wildlife which are individual, physical and social factor. Green corridor has been defined as one of the physical factor that influence urban wildlife behaviour movement. Consequently, safety area indicating to animals species for traversing in any time such as at night can be defined as the primary potential corridor.

Estudio sobre el urbanismo moderno: Adolfo Blanco y Pérez del Camino, pensionado por la JAE en 1927

Adolfo Blanco carried out one of the first studies within the discipline of urban planning. The work analyzed includes 66 plates (plans and drawings) for the expansion of cities in North Africa and Europe.

Heritage buildings and energy performance: Mapping with GIS tools

The energy policy about energy performance of buildings, including minimum energy requirements and energy performance certificate (EPC), is applied to new and existing buildings, especially in the case of energy retrofit. Among existing buildings, heritage buildings are a special case. Another problem is finding an evaluation and measurement tool for town energy consumption which is related to the age and the characteristics of existing buildings. This problem concerns both urban planning discipline and heritage buildings discipline.The introduction of EPC database in Emilia-Romagna legislation (a region located in the North-East of Italy) is an opportunity to perform studies and simulation, in addition to GIS networking elaboration.This paper deals with the case of Ferrara, an old town, in order to debate:-number and energy incidence of heritage buildings;-influence of typology factor for energy saving in heritage buildings;-use of GIS tools to refer EPC, energy class in order to suggest a zone energy indicator (ZEI) for measuring the city and the old town.

CRADLE TO CRADLE IN URBAN PLANNING

Cradle to Cradle is a well-known sustainability concept introduced by Braungart and McDonough. It is a concept about how a product can be designed from the outset so that, after their useful lives, they will provide nourishment for something new, thus “waste equals food” (Braungart and McDonough, 2002). This eco-effective principle has been applied widely in products development; however, it is less known in the urban planning discipline where sustainable development is the main ‘key word’ in transforming the urban area. The question that this paper expands on is whether it is possible to apply the Cradle to Cradle concept into urban planning practice. This article explains the difference between the eco-efficient concept and the eco-effective concept and elaborate from there on a possibility to apply the Cradle to Cradle principle to urban planning practice. It is shown that the Cradle to Cradle principle offers an instrument for bringing complex sustainable concepts within reach of planning thinking and discussion, and for generating alternatives which may not otherwise be given serious consideration.

Preparing Future Food System Planning Professionals and Scholars: Reflections on Teaching Experiences

This article fills a gap in knowledge related to the preparation of future food systems professionals and scholars. Specifically, the article explores challenges and opportunities encountered by educators who teach food systems courses in university settings. The topic of food systems has recently experienced a boost in acceptance as an area of academic inquiry and legitimate professional practice. The article presents seven first-hand accounts by university educators who reflect back on their early experiences teaching courses on food systems in the discipline of urban planning. Set within a specific global region — North America — the findings are relevant to other professions and academic disciplines grappling with the topic of food systems. The analysis points to tensions and opportunities related to the professionalization of this emergent field of research and practice.

The use of three geophysical methods for 3D images of total root volume of soil in urban environments

How does the tree root system develop in the subsoil? This question is important to the development and urban planning disciplines, especially when the trees occur near building foundations and underground utilities. This interest is based on the potential for buildings to suffer subsidence or structural damage from nearby trees. The inspection of both the extension of the tree roots and the degree of decay in wood are still undertaken using classical single-point and destructive methods. However, as pointed out by several authors, geophysical methods provide an alternative method of studying root architecture in a non-invasive fashion.In this paper, three geophysical methods were applied to produce 3D images of total root volume in the soil in an urban environment. The three geophysical methods used were ground-penetrating radar, electrical-resistivity tomography, and seismic refraction tomography. Each of the geophysical methods alone is able to isolate root system but cannot resolve the ring structures.

Per una città più sicura. Ed amica. E più bella

For many years the security of mobility in the city has been considered as a crucial social subject because of the high number of the victims and, more generally, of its impact on the life conditions in the city. The above-said subject, indeed, if rightly set out, shows important and basic implications regarding the quality of urban life, since the citizen – and the weak user of the road in particular - is strongly limited in the use of urban public spaces. Besides, those spaces are a basic element of the city structure: in fact from ancient times the city has been considered mainly for its attitude to allow social relationships. And that can be achieved only if the urban public spaces are fit for it, as regards quantity but above all as regards quality. Consequently, there is an increasing attention to acquire methods, techniques and strategies to face the planning, building and management of roads, squares and urban green areas (mainly according to the logic of recovering the historic and consolidated city) aiming at making citizens fully use the city. The subject is on the agenda of those Countries which pay more attention to social questions and of consequence, in a laudable way, to the real quality of urban places, meant as spaces with high functional level mainly targeted to people aggregation as well as to outdoor activities in general. Therefore, the subject itself is an opportunity of reconstituting the urban and regional planning discipline (and, generally speaking, of the city’s disciplines) starting from the renewed interest in the public spaces. That is the most significant and expressive meaning of the term “friendly city”, which really highlights the target of security connected with that of the effective usability of urban environment. The subject will acquire then a further value if it includes also the territorial dimension. The soft mobility (i.e. pedestrian and cycle)strongly affects the long distances too, involving also the extra-urban ambit. As regards this, the lay-outs of historic roads can be effectively utilized, if they are still in use, by making restricted interventions. An example of that is given by the towpaths of (natural and artificial) streams and sites of vacant railway stations. The report deals with the above mentioned statements and introduces supporting elements and examples, with reference also to the implications on urban landscape. On the one hand, the city looks prettier when interventions are carried out to re-qualify public spaces, which produce non banal aesthetic improvements too. On the other hand, above all, the possibility of moving slowly, on foot or by bicycle, allows to perceive the complexity of urban and territorial landscape in its composition of several visual plans and components, which otherwise would be impossible.

Stadsvernieuwing en utopie in Brussel : van ideaal naar realiseerbaar ?

Urban projects are central to contemporary urban regeneration and urban visioning/imagining. However, the relationship between vision and the realisation of projects remains problematic. In most of the discipline of urban planning in Brussels -and thus part of the built environment- the vision remains largely invisible, opaque or contradictory. In this article we intend to clarify the relationship between the visionary aims and the actual design of urban spaces. A first focus lays on the imagining process through the development of an analytical framework to qualify and legitimize urban projects. Utopia and heterotopia will be used to coin the relationship between the abstract character of the impossible and more pragmatic elements of a good urban project and a powerful urban vision. The second objective of the article is an analysis of interfaces/connections between different concepts and their use in practices. These connections can be described by looking at three interfaces in the chain: utopia- heterotopia-vision-project. Three Brussels cases are evaluated on their qualitative characteristics of a good urban project as described in The century of the city. City republics and grid cities, the Flemish White Paper for Urban Policy (Boudry et al., 2003), the subject visioning process, heterotopian characteristics and underlying utopian potential. Mutual comparison of these cases showed that if an urban project responds to more qualitative criteria of a good urban project, the higher its utopian potential is. One of the most remarkable and challenging conclusions is that concepts like utopia and heterotopia comport strong elements to deploy a sustainable and powerful vision on urban (renewal) projects in Brussels. Further research includes fine tuning of these turning points and a more elaborate application on more cases from the international development zones-plan proposed by the Brussels Capital Region.

Percorsi. Orizzonti. Miraggi. Fluide ricorrenze nella definizione di senso

Courses. Horizons. Mirages. Fluent recurrences inside the sense definition - Starting from acknowledging the crisis of sense of the discipline of territorial and urban planning, we want to explore the theme of inhabitants’ participation as a fundamental tool for new policies of local self-sustainable development. Participatory processes by governmental agencies are widespread practices; therefore, some key aspects have to be highlighted in order to retain the meaning and the innovative contributions of such practices to the discipline.

Espaços de lazer em área "non aedificandi": uma experiência didática em paisagismo

Natal is a city with environment singularities. The urban legislation tried to preserve the features of the local landscape delimiting “Areas for Controlling Building High”, destined to protect the scenic value of some parts of the city. In 1979 was created a “NonAEdificandi” area to protect the scenery of Ponta Negra beach, one of the most famous view of the city. Since this time, the real state market, the building constructers and the land owners of this area have exerted constant pressure in sense to abolish or to modify this legal instrument.Nowadays, the public administration presented a new project which try to answer public and private interests.This paper is the result of an inclusion of the University in this polemic issue. Architecture and Urban Planning and Statistic students of two universities of the city (UFRN and UNP), helped the process collecting data and producing information. The proposed of the investigation was to know the users of this area and their opinion about the subject. It was done together with the Public agency, Secretaria Especial de Meio Ambiente e Urbanismo. At the end, the students presented their particular solutions for the problem, inside the disciplines of Landscaping and Urban Planning.

Integrando la gestión del riesgo, planificación urbana y vivienda social: lecciones de El Salvador.

Increasingly, attention has been given to the need to mainstream risk reduction in development work in order to reduce the vulnerability of the urban poor. Using El Salvador as a case study, the paper analyses the mainstreaming process in the developmental disciplines of urban planning and housing. The aim is to identify how the existing separation between risk reduction, urban. Since Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and especially after the 2001 earthquakes, social housing organisations have initiated a shift to include risk reduction in their fields of action. However, whilst positive experience has been gained through the implementation of more integral projects, the creation of adequate operational, organisational, institutional and legal frameworks is still in its initial stage. Unfortunately, funding for post-disaster risk reduction has come to an end without the allocation of resources for following up and consolidating the initial process. Based on the findings, an integral model is proposed which shows how mainstreaming risk reduction in urban planning and housing could be dealt with in such a way that it becomes more integrated, inclusive and sustainable within a developmental context.