Spatial Typologies Research Articles

From History to Architectural Imagination: A physical ambiences laboratory to interpret past sensory experiences and speculate on future spaces

The built environment offers an impressive corpus of spatial typologies on which architects and users may build their knowledge based of ambiences. This corpus primarily consists of existing buildings originating from a wide spectre of historical backgrounds, but it could also include past ambiences. A physical ambiences laboratory has recently been developed, built, and inhabited to compare existing and past ambiences, but foremostly speculate on future ambiences. It consists of a full-scale, adaptable structure that allows for the experience of architectural typologies, and enables spatial transformations through time. Building the adaptable structure in an outdoors environment aims to connect the theory of ambiences with the actual complexity of experiencing on a site, which cannot be adequately approached with digital simulation. The definition of an ambience therefore involves complexity because of the changing nature of the environmental conditions that generates it, such as light, wind, sun, and sound, creating varying distribution patterns of natural fluxes. This research-creation project recognizes that the people-environment issue constitutes an essential basis to the creation of genuine genius loci. The research suggests that adaptive opportunities and reinterpretation of existing ambiences could ultimately translate into new spaces to experience environmental delight for responsive inhabitants.

Spatial typologies of Greek coastal zones and unregulated Urban growth

Coastal zones attract a large number of people and productive activities. This puts pressure on ecosystems and affects the organization of local economies, having an impact on social cohesion and coherence. The complexity of coastal socio-spatial systems and the fact that coastal zones, and, more particularly, islands that are considered vulnerable areas (that is, parameters: such as sea level rising, desertification, built-up areas excessive expansion etc) and important for the overall operation of the state imply the significance of a further study of the subject. The paper deals with the principal socio-spatial pressures on coastal zones and islands that are caused by unregulated urban growth. The incompetent spatial planning framework, the “loose” political system, related to urban growth, and the socio-economical characteristics are considered as the principal reasons for built-up areas excessive dispersion. Here, delineation of the coastal zone is proposed, using physico-geographical and man-made variables. Soil Sealing dataset is used to illustrate where built-up areas dispersion and basic metrics can be applied. Furthermore, an overview of the planning spatial framework is attempted, so that the particularities of urban growth can be interpreted.

Segregación, estructura y composición social del territorio metropolitano en Santiago de Chile: Complejidades metodológicas en el análisis de la diferenciación social en el espacio

The study of social differentiation in space requires significant theoretical and methodological definitions in order to address the complex relationship between space and society. In that regard, it is possible to identify different lines of research that claim to account for this relationship. The aim of this paper is to present an analysis of social differentiation in space in the metropolitan area of Santiago using socio- spatial typologies. The results indicate that, although it is possible to identify some general patterns that are similar when using different approaches, typology analysis can better address the social complexity of metropolitan space. Finally, this paper aims to account for the centrality of the variable occupation as a factor of social differentiation in the urban context.

Mesure de l'impact d'une politique publique visant à favoriser l'installation et le maintien de médecins généralistes : l'exemple du soutien au développement des maisons et pôles de santé en France

Cet article propose une première évaluation des maisons et pôles de santé à travers une démarche mobilisant des outils géographique et économétrique. L'objectif de cette double démarche est l'analyse de l'implantation de ces structures, puis une analyse de l'impact de celles-ci sur la densité de médecins généralistes libéraux. La méthodologie repose sur l'élaboration de typologies spatiales, puis d'une analyse cas-témoin comparant l'évolution de la densité de médecins généralistes dans les espaces avec et sans maisons de santé, avant et après la généralisation de cette politique. Les résultats obtenus mettent en évidence une implantation davantage rurale de ces structures, de surcroît dans des espaces fragiles, ainsi qu'une moindre diminution de l'offre dans certains espaces ruraux et périurbains dotés de maisons et pôles de santé.

Methodology for a stormwater sensitive urban watershed design

Summary In urban stormwater management, decentralized systems are nowadays worldwide experimented, including stormwater best management practices. However, a watershed-scale approach, relevant for urban hydrology, is almost always neglected when designing a stormwater management plan with best management practices. As a consequence, urban designers fail to convince public authorities of the actual hydrologic effectiveness of such an approach to urban watershed stormwater management. In this paper, we develop a design oriented methodology for studying the morphology of an urban watershed in terms of sustainable stormwater management. The methodology is a five-step method, firstly based on the cartographic analysis of many stormwater relevant indicators regarding the landscape, the urban fabric and the governance. The second step focuses on the identification of many territorial stakes and their corresponding strategies of a decentralized stormwater management. Based on the indicators, the stakes and the strategies, the third step defines many spatial typologies regarding the roadway system and the urban fabric system. The fourth step determines many stormwater management scenarios to be applied to both spatial typologies systems. The fifth step is the design of decentralized stormwater management projects integrating BMPs into each spatial typology. The methodology aims to advise urban designers and engineering offices in the right location and selection of BMPs without given them a hypothetical unique solution. Since every location and every watershed is different due to local guidelines and stakeholders, this paper provide a methodology for a stormwater sensitive urban watershed design that could be reproduced everywhere. As an example, the methodology is applied as a case study to an urban watershed in Belgium, confirming that the method is applicable to any urban watershed. This paper should be helpful for engineering and design offices in urban hydrology to define a sustainable and decentralized stormwater management plan and redaction of performance standards at the watershed scale. The method applied in this paper toggles the decentralized stormwater approach from a common experimental point of view to an oriented problem–solution point of view.

Spatial Typologies of Care: Understanding the Implications of the Spatial Distribution of Off-Base Civilian Behavioral Health Providers Who Accept TRICARE Prime to Service Persons and Their Dependents.

Over the last decade, demand for services from military treatment facilities (MTFs) has frequently exceeded capacity resulting in increased usage of off-base civilian Tricare providers (OCTP). This capacity shortage has been particularly acute for mental health care. At many installations, OCTPs are the main source of mental health care for military personnel and their families. Utilizing data on the location of mental health OCTPs and demographic data, we examine the spatial accessibility of mental health OCTPs around five military installations. Variation exists in the spatial accessibility of mental health OCTPs depending on the geographic context of an installation. There is a mild correlation between the number of mental health OTCPs proximate to a base and the beneficiaries enrolled in an MTF. There is a strong correlation between the size of the general population proximate to an installation and the number of mental health OCTMPs present. Installations located in densely populated areas had high ratios of mental health OCTPs to the MTF beneficiary population but not when the civilian demand on these providers was accounted for. This study's findings open several avenues for future research and policy aimed at increasing the effectiveness of the mental health OCTP network.

Place making facilitators of knowledge and innovation spaces: insights from European best practices

Knowledge economy seeks its nourishment from diversity and dissemination of ideas and creativity of its talent base. This has led to the acknowledgement of place making as a major strategy to attract and retain the knowledge base into the emerging knowledge and innovation spaces. The study seeks to explore the adoption of place making in this context. Literature and practice provide information to understand the evolution of various spatial typologies and the specialised role of place making in such locations. This helps in determining the key facilitators of place making. The paper takes an interdisciplinary approach and develops an integrated conceptual framework considering dimensions and facilitators of place making. Through the lens of the framework, best practices across Europe - i.e., Cambridge Science Park (UK), [email protected] (Spain), Arabianranta (Finland), Strijp-S (Netherlands), and Digital Hub (Ireland) - are scrutinised to highlight various approaches to place making. The findings provide insights and a discussion into the interplay of form, function, image and underlying processes in globally emerging spatial typologies of contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces.

Planning for Flow in Ocean Space: A Barents Sea Case Study

Ocean space is currently being urbanized on an unprecedented scale, a phenomenon under investigation by the architectural laboratoire bâle, EPFL Switzerland. Lefebvre writes of the all-encompassing process of urbanization, that agriculture, industry and urbanization follow each other (Lefebvre 2003). This model can be tested for ocean space, which already plays a major role within mobility and organisational networks and is at the same time a fluid, partially industrialised landscape of dimensions often far exceeding comparable zones on land. The research aims to investigate these relationships, position ocean spatial typologies within the urban debate and identify planning tools informed by the physical, as opposed to the virtual, condition of flow, which implement the ocean itself as an agent. In the case of the Barents Sea in northern Norway, the interest in ocean space is fuelled by the opening of the Northern Sea Route to Asia and the prospect of releasing vast off-shore reserves of oil & gas on the one hand, and the alarming rate of global warming as reflected in the receding ice-front on the other. The strategic development of infrastructure, the provision of access and the complex grid of international networks active in the region are indicators of a particular type of urbanism acting at the scale. This specific character, however, demands an urbanism of flows. Despite its remoteness, its vastness, its extreme climatic and light conditions, its relatively sparse human population and its abundance of natural habitats, this territory is under extreme pressure. The Barents Sea exemplifies the need for a new kind of spatial strategy, a strategy which works with the dynamics of the ocean and its potential for the current urbanization processes. How can urban design methods and principles be applied to ocean territory and how can natural clients such as inhabitants, or phenomena such as ice, be catered for in planning terms? The laboratory's project developed territorial constitutions for the Barents Sea which were then further articulated in singular architectural projects as a proof of concept. The context revealed itself to be both an extremely harsh and aesthetic natural environment and a correspondingly extreme artificial and utilitarian built environment.

INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS AND SQUATTING IN ROMANIA: SOCIO-SPATIAL FEATURES AND TYPOLOGIES

The emergence of informal settlements in Romania is the result of a mix of factors, including some social and urban planning policies from the communist and post-communist period. Squatting was initially a secondary effect of the relocation process and demolition of housing in communist urban renewal projects, and also a voluntary social and housing policy for the poorest of the same period. Extension and multiple forms of informal settlements and squatting were performed in the post-communist era due to the inappropriate or absence of the legislative tools on urban planning, properties' restitution and management, weak control of the construction sector. The study analyzes the characteristics and spatial typologies of the informal settlements and squatters in relationship with the political and social framework of these types of housing development.

Spatial differentiation of farm diversification: How rural attractiveness and vicinity to cities determine farm households’ response to the CAP

Diversification of the farm income base represents a cornerstone of the European model of multifunctional agriculture (MFA) and rural development (RD) alongside the objectives of enhancing competitiveness and the sustainability of agriculture. A knowledge gap exists as to how farmers’ decisions to engage in non-agricultural activities, or to continue farming at all, is affected by landscape characteristics and the farm's location in the urban–rural system. This paper presents the results of research concerning the impact of spatial factors on diversification activities and farm abandonment. Based on a survey conducted among 147 farms in a case study area in Eastern Germany, spatially explicit data on farmers’ diversification activities and exit strategies were analysed using two spatial typologies that classify rural attractiveness and farm location on an urban–rural gradient. Results show that while rural attractiveness positively affects the farmers’ decision-making to diversify activities, the degree of urbanisation encourages farm holders to continue farming activity, i.e., the proximity and accessibility to urban consumer markets. Diversification rather seems to be associated with rurality and touristic development and not so much with the proximity to urban consumer markets.

Is innovation in cities a matter of knowledge-intensive services? An empirical investigation

The presence of large cities in a region represents a potential for regional innovation capacity: cities are in fact expected to generate dynamic agglomeration economies and knowledge spillovers. The paper adds to previous analyses on this topic by investigating whether the linkage between the presence of cities in the region and the innovative performance is mediated by the urban industrial structure. In fact, a positive correlation is likely to exist between the presence of large cities in a region and its innovative performance. Such a relationship could also depend on the presence of knowledge-intensive service, rather than on advanced manufacturing activities. In order to verify this statement, we classify European NUTS2 regions both from an industrial perspective, as well as by spatial typologies. We integrate this classification with a novel data set on regional innovation, based on the Community Innovation Survey. On this basis, geographical and descriptive analyses of regional innovation patterns are developed and explained. The descriptive results support our expectations. Regions hosting large urban areas are the most innovative, and this statement is reinforced in regions characterized by specialization in knowledge-intensive services. The simultaneous presence of advanced manufacturing and knowledge-intensive service activities generates synergic effects, fostering innovative performance.

And now for something different: modelling socio-political landscapes

GIS technology has been used to build an e-research facility whereby it is possible to (a) investigate and visualise on-line spatial patterns of voter support for political parties at the local level of scale at federal elections in Australia, and (b) model the relationships between those voting data and variables derived from census data on the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of local populations. Using data on voting at the 2007 federal election and from the 2006 census, the paper shows that patterns of voter support for political parties have a distinct geography across Australia’s cities and regions. Spatial and statistical modelling is used to derive spatial typologies of voter support for political parties and to identify key demographic and socio-economic factors that discriminate voter support for political parties. Clear socio-political landscapes are evident. The position of political parties in a two-dimensional socio-political space has changed over the last three federal elections, the first two of which in 2001 and 2004 saw the Coalition Government returned with strong majorities, while the third election in 2007 saw a marked voter swing to oust the Coalition parties and put the Labor Party into government.

Sexualised productions of space

This themed section consists of articles that explore the intricate and complicated relationship between sexuality and space. The underlying premise is that space is never a homogenous, unified, neutral and a-priori entity that precedes subjects but emerges as the outcome of an ongoing production process which involves actors and material components. Heteropatriarchal understandings of space based on masculinist premises have largely ignored women and queer subjects who may subvert or alter normative spatial practices. The latter challenge established spatial typologies and their gendered associations, such as the house with women and the war zone with men. Furthermore, the practices of marginalized subjects point to alternative understandings of space based on fluid and porous boundaries between such dualities as materiality/representation, inside/outside and private/public. The contributors to this themed section analyze non-normative spatial practices by drawing from feminist and queer theories, postcolonial studies, architectural theory and geography. They focus on specific cases from a broad geographical span ranging from South Asia to Europe. Despite their different contextual foci, the following authors speak to each other by engaging in scholarship that resists disembodiment and by addressing the materiality of space as an arena of continuous production in relation to sexed bodies and sexualized identities. They all focus on strategies that counter hegemonic spatial practices and engage with the crucial question of how to think space differently.

Rediscovery of the Courtyard, as a Major Intangible Cultural Heritage

The radical and huge scale changes in the island of Cyprus, especially of the last century, resulted in a significant disruption with the social and cultural heritage. The paper will focus on the Courtyards as an indispensable part of the intangible cultural heritage which carries invaluable ‘wisdoms’ stemming out form the rich history of the island, the climatic and topographical conditions, but decapitated due to the modernization brought by the British colonization and the well rooted enforcement of the urban regulations of the young government. More specifically it will concentrate on ways and mechanisms of not only how to revive this intangible architectural quality, but rather to evolve it in order to generate new spatial typologies responding to the social and cultural changes in relation to their new organizational and functional requirements.

An approach for simulating the street spatial patterns

The form of the urban fabric plays an important role in urban morphology which not only expresses the city’s overall morphological features, but also describes the relationships between buildings and plots, which are called patterns. The majority of morphological studies have focused on the street network pattern, the plot pattern and the building pattern or typology. In the other hand, the form of the urban fabric also reflects the city’s space character, such as street spatial outline, visual variety, and spatial typologies, which are directly related to the quality of urban space. Although these characters influence the urban design decision-taking, the current research has not reached an effective level. With a special focus on potentials for urban design, this paper proposes an account of how building position affects the street spatial pattern. Based on the viewshed analysis in GIS, the variance between the form of the urban fabric and the street viewshed pattern could be measured. The study samples were 600 meters square samples of urban fabric image selected from different cities of Europe, America, and China. This paper proposes a new kind of pattern: street spatial related line (SSRL) pattern. Through viewshed simulating it shows that there is a strong relationship between SSRL pattern and street spatial configuration, and that visual statistical diagrams could indicate the street spatial characters.

Kent parklarında görsel peyzaj algısının değerlendirilmesi

This study aims to provide a methodology which integrates both user preferences and expert assessments to satisfy user needs and to guide landscape designers and planners during planning and design process of urban open and green spaces, especially urban parks. 25 photographs which belong to different urban park examples from both Turkey and abroad, are the main materials of this study. Two separate questionnaires were prepared and one was answered by users and the other by the experts. Then, user surveys and expert assessments were linked, and evaluated to determine the most preferred scenes. Data gathered in this study is found to be statistically significant and the results are consistent with previous studies regarding landscape preferences. Research findings show that certain levels of order, spaciousness, maintenance and the prominence of natural landscape elements directly influence landscape preferences. Finally, it is concluded that these spatial characteristics can be used to define preferred spatial typologies in urban parks which will guide planners and designers.

From post-industrial landscape to creative precincts: Emergent spaces in Chinese cities

The urban development of Chinese cities has been very much a top-down process, leading to the oft-heard criticism that the current urban development process is overly influenced by national economic plans. This article attempts to unearth an emergent phenomenon in Chinese cities: post-industrial spaces that are initially revitalised by spontaneous occupation, later becoming established arts communities. These processes introduce important new spatial typologies and practices that have the potential to act as spaces of resistance to broad-brush planning by municipal authorities. The authors document the development of some of these spaces, and speculate on the role of artist-led gentrification and the development of new urban spaces in leading Chinese cities such as Shanghai and Beijing. The anatomy of these developments suggests how the face of bureaucratic Chinese planning has changed in the light of new challenges.

Patterns of Knowledge: The Geography of Advanced Services and the Case of Art and Culture

Much emphasis has been placed on the importance of agglomeration economies as a backbone to urban and regional growth. Case study research points out that particular cities and regions have a competitive advantage in industrial activity over others, yet we have little by way of a satisfactory means of formally studying the geography of these industrial patterns to demonstrate how the specific case studies fit into a larger pattern of agglomeration that can be applied to more than one place. Is the agglomeration itself in fact exhibiting statistically robust and significant patterns? What do the patterns look like and how do they differ by region? Using geographic information systems to analyze spatial autocorrelation and “hot spots” of industries, we compare the ten most populous metropolitan statistical areas across several “advanced” service sectors (professional, management, media, finance, art and culture, engineering and high technology). We find that much of the qualitative evidence on industrial clustering is evocative of broader macro patterns that are both similar and dissimilar across industries and geographies. Our results indicate that there are three spatial typologies of growth in the advanced services within U.S. urban regions. These typologies allow us to intimate qualities of place in general and of places specifically that drive the agglomeration of advanced services. New York City's art and culture and media industries represent key examples of geographically unique cases within advanced services that are explained relative to existing literature regarding the importance of density and cross-fertilization across industrial fields.

The Evolving Metropolis: Studies of Community, Neighborhood, and Street Form at the Urban Edge

Abstract This paper examines the form of the evolving metropolitan fringe by means of comparative case studies of fringe development in the San Francisco Bay area at three scales —the community, the neighborhood, and the street and house lot. The study identifies underlying organizing principles and spatial typologies and analyzes patterns of growth, land use, and street layouts for several periods of suburban development beginning early in the twentieth century and continuing into the 1990s. As the scale of development has grown, there has been a parallel growth of self-contained, single-use developments and an erosion of the public street framework. This shift has serious implications for the character, convenience, and adaptability of new urban environments.