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Missing Teeth and Sticky Parts of Urban Plans: The Case of Patrick Geddes’ Tel Aviv
No full textThis paper is focused on the rise, development, and current state of the built environment of Tel Aviv, specifically looking at (1) the historical context within which Tel Aviv’s origin story is situated; (2) the ideals initially espoused by Patrick Geddes in his master plan for the city, and how the built environment mutated as varying pressures began to push and pull at its seams in the decades that followed; (3) the parts of the initial master plan which maintained their tenacity within the built environment, in comparison to the parts which were absorbed by the weight of rapid urbanization; and (4) the unexpected micro-architectural typologies that have emerged within the built environment of Tel Aviv, anchored within the micro-scale urban morphological niches framed by Geddes’ original master plan. The first two points, located within the discursive landscape of architectural and urban history, are addressed via a historical methodological approach. The latter two points are scrutinized via an analysis of the contemporary built environment of Tel Aviv, with the final point specifically utilizing an ideal-type analysis often deployed within psychological and sociological research. The findings presented across the paper are in close relationship with the growing body of literature attempting to partially steer the discursive landscape concerning Tel Aviv away from an obsessive focus on the city’s modernist architectural legacy and towards a deeper understanding and recognition of what has pejoratively been deemed the background fabric of the city
Evaluation of Glucose-Infused Ceramic Separators in Microbial Fuel Cells
No full textRecently, global energy demand has been increasing. Most of the energy is produced from fossil fuels. Since fossil fuels are finite and produce greenhouse gases during energy creation, alternatives are needed. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are a promising source of renewable energy. These cells utilize ceramic separators, and enhancing the performance of these separators is crucial for increasing the power output of MFCs. In this experiment, ceramic separators were fabricated with varying volumes of glucose. During the firing process, the glucose dissolves, resulting in separators with porous properties. The performance of MFCs with these glucose-infused separators was evaluated. The results showed that ceramic separators mixed with glucose had significantly more small holes in their surface compared to those without glucose. This increased porosity enhances proton transport, thereby improving the performance of the separator. Consequently, MFCs using these separators demonstrated higher power output, with the cathode performing better as the glucose content in the separator increased. This indicates that glucose-infused ceramic separators are effective in improving MFC performance
Metal Ions Intercalated to Birnessite Manganese to Make High-Performance Catalyst for the Cathode of MFCs
No full textMicrobial fuel cells (MFCs) have garnered significant attention recently due to their dual ability to purify wastewater and sludge while generating electricity, addressing the growing energy demand. However, the practical application of MFCs is hindered by the cost and performance challenges on the cathode side. In single-chamber MFCs, the choice of cathode catalyst is crucial for enhancing output. This study explored the use of manganese oxide, a cost-effective material with diverse structures and properties, as a catalyst. Specifically, manganese oxide with a birnessite structure was utilized for its low fabrication costs and high oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity. The research compared the performance of manganese oxide catalysts intercalated with various metal ions, identifying the optimal metal ions for single-chamber MFCs. The experiment evaluated cobalt, nickel, and zinc as potential metal ions. Measurements of the cathode potential using a reference electrode and power density assessments were conducted to determine the most suitable configuration overall
Integrated TLS-UAV Surveying for Risk-Aware Conservation at the Jupiter Temple in Baalbek Castle: Policy Application and Evidence for Resilience
No full textInformation about cultural heritage resources is archived and documented through data collection, including measuring results. The capacity of these measures to represent all the object's primary and secondary characteristics accounts for their efficacy. This article investigates the combination of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and photogrammetric surveys utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for the three-dimensional modeling of the Baalbek temple complex, a globally significant cultural heritage site. However, due to their relatively recent introduction into geodetic practice, and especially useful for fixing monuments. There are many questions about the use of this technology for fixing monuments. They basically come down to making sure that accuracy standards are met. To ensure the accuracy of survey points and, more generally, laser scanning and aerial photography, this article uses the geodetic method. Simultaneously, the least-squares approach was used to create the reference network and estimate its accuracy. The accuracy of several supporting network designs was simulated, and the outcomes were compared with real data (Novel, 2015). This study emphasizes the crucial role of current geospatial technologies in conserving architectural and cultural integrity while addressing urbanization pressures and environmental threats, so directly complementing SDG 11.4 on safeguarding cultural heritage and SDG 13.1 on resilience to hazards. (United Nations, 2015)
Transition Between Transitions: The Contemporary Energy Challenges in The Traditional Mediterranean Landscape
No full textThe contribution aims to demonstrate that the contemporary energy transition is part of a wider transitional process where the landscape plays a key role. The contemporary energy transition is a challenging step of a continuous path that involves the Mediterranean landscape throughout its entire history.
The Mediterranean landscape clearly bears the traces of the millennial action of man, who has always attempted to exploit the resources of often inaccessible territories as efficiently as possible. This has been the case, from the very beginning, also and perhaps mainly for energy supply. Thanks to an extensive literature review, the contribution aims to reconstruct in a synchronic way the main stages that led to the conception of the energy Mediterranean landscape as it is perceived and interpreted today. At the same time, it aims to present in a diachronic way the succession of energy transitions that have modified and constructed this landscape.
The adopted method consists of synthetic historical research useful to structure a critical framework able to better orient people in interpreting – and then implementing – the contemporary energy transition.
The aim of this work is therefore to structure a history of the energy landscapes in the Mediterranean context, which are an integral part of our culture. The ambition is to suggest a new perspective of the Mediterranean landscape as an object that has always been in transition – even to produce energy – and whose changes today are so urgent and necessary. This change of narratives is essential for assuring a more linear energy transition, which has an impact on the landscape, and is not only an unmanaged result, but it can also become one of the main focuses of the new architectural and landscape projects
Visible Light-responsive Photocatalyst Synthesized by Incorporating CQDs into SiO2@TiO2
No full textIn recent years, water pollution caused by population growth has become one of the most health-threatening problems. To solve this problem, photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants using solar energy is expected. Among various photocatalysts, TiO2 has been widely used and studied because of its non-toxicity, low cost, and high chemical stability. However, TiO2 has a wide band gap of 3.2 eV, so only ultraviolet light is available. Since ultraviolet rays account for only about 3~5% of sunlight, research on the effective use of visible light, which accounts for about 45% of sunlight, has been active in recent years. Known major approaches include heterojunction coupling, doping, and dye sensitization. Among them, composites of carbon nanomaterials and TiO2 have been shown to improve optical absorption in visible light. In recent years, carbon quantum dots (CQDs) have attracted attention as a new carbon nanomaterial because of their unique properties. CQDs are non-toxic, inexpensive, and easy to tune. Therefore, it has been applied as a composite material for TiO2 and has been reported to have an optical absorption edge of 419 nm and a band gap of 2.96 eV. In this study, SiO2@TiO2/CQD heterojunction structures were fabricated, and their photocatalytic activity was evaluated using methylene blue. By adjusting the particle size of SiO2@TiO2, the optical wavelength to be reflected can be selected. Among them, SiO2@TiO2 which can reflect optical wavelengths around 400 nm was adjusted to form a structure that allows more efficient optical utilization of TiO2/CQDs.SiO2@TiO2/CQD is a mixture of TiO2 and CQDs coated on the surface of a SiO2 porous structure prepared by the Stover method. This simple preparation method resulted in high surface area, efficient light utilization due to the heterostructure, and efficient charge mobility. As a result, the degradation performance against organic pollutants was shown to be improved
Preserve and Reuse or Destroy and Rebuild? Losing the UK’s Twentieth-Century Building Legacy and Sustainable Ways to Save and Repurpose It
No full textUseful, reusable buildings that embody communities’ history, identity and aspirations are currently being lost, and their embodied carbon wasted by demolition. Key twentieth-century buildings that could be reused are being destroyed by a combination of factors that need reform if their potential for adaptive reuse as contributions to sustainability and progress towards carbon neutrality is to be acknowledged. It is hoped that this paper, based on UK experience, has a wider relevance since the reuse of buildings is a worldwide contribution to achieving net carbon zero. It is time to take demolition off the table, but currently, there are UK legislative hurdles unfavourable to this change of direction. Historic buildings are lost as a result of the narrowness of Historic England’s preservation criteria for Listing. The widening of Permitted Development Rights facilitates demolition without consultation or planning permission. There is weakness in the underfunded local authority planning system, while tax inequity charges 20% VAT on restoration but not on new building. We need to change our throw-away culture and remove these obstacles to reusing our historic building stock - to the benefit of both the climate and the sustainable future of our communities
Urban Heritage Revitalization: Significance of Cultural Heritage: Attributes of Sense of Places for Kuala Lumpur
No full textHeritage conservation has been a growing phenomenon in urban regeneration initiatives in the recent decade, playing a key role in meeting Sustainable Development Goal 2030. Goal 11 aims to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. It highlights the association of the new urban agenda in the context of urban development and cultural heritage by “reinforcing efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage”, forming part of section 11.4. The conservation of heritage significance and cultural values requires exceptional attentiveness through its elements and attributes. The objective of this study is to devise a technique for evaluating the formation of the basis for determining and portraying the historical significance of characteristics with adequate precision to appraise the historical influence of Kuala Lumpur's urban renewal. (“Heritage significance and the identification of attributes to preserve the Sense of Places”) This is by providing a set of attributing variables to establish an ultimate benchmark for Kuala Lumpur’s urban heritage revitalisation performance and succession level.. More excellent socio-economic status and tourism would be the advantages holistically. The paper presents the findings on Attributes within the aspects of the Physical dimension, Senses dimension, and Functional dimension that have a holistic direct impact towards place attachment, place identity, and place memory, and its categorisation of rating significantly contributes to the preservation of Sense of Place. The result of the established Attributes framework is considered the basis for assessing and guiding design, which substantially supports designers to achieve two main pillars: Revitalise Heritage Enclave and demonstrate basic principles for any Heritage Enclave Design, Redevelopment, and Activation. A practical framework that includes an unobtrusive method of content analysis deployed as the primary method, developed through an analysis of content and evaluation of the recent developments of the heritage preservation discourse, and observation as a research method. The research concluded that altogether sense of places dimensions are essential in activating livability, and a sort of balance between the main dimensions. This can further be used as an assessment indicator for the future regeneration of Kuala Lumpur's urban heritage enclave and benefiting in conservation, eventually securing significant heritage place identity while continually sustaining its attraction. This article adopts a practical framework as a research method. The research concluded that dimensions in the realm of sense of places are essential in activating the heritage place, and finding the balance between the emerging dimensions. The more pragmatic strategies, the higher the sense of place to revitalise the heritage place should be.
Digital survey and representation for built historical heritage protection. The case of Gerace (Reggio Calabria)
No full textHistoric centers contain a large amount of unquantified cultural heritage that today is often considered at risk. Due to their nature and intrinsic characteristics, they require protection and safeguard interventions. This article describes how representation, considered as a knowledge process based on architectural survey and 3D modeling, constitutes a fundamental instrument of investigation. Digital survey allowed to collect and systematize a large amount of information related to the oldest part of the historic center of Gerace, a medieval historic centre located in the province of Reggio Calabria (Italy). The work is part of a larger research project, called GENESIS (acronym for Seismic risk management for the tourist enhancement of the historic centers of Southern Italy), promoted by several research groups from numerous Italian universities.
The main goal of the project is to promote safe and informed use of cultural heritage, starting from a deep understanding of their history and characteristics, and to encourage accessibility to places and monuments by visitors, scholars, and tourists through innovative forms of management and dissemination. The work conducted in Gerace concerns urban, architectural, and detailed scales. In this context, we present the work carried out using aerial photogrammetry by UAVs, and its possible developments.
The instrumental survey, carried out at different levels of detail (entire historic center, urban area, single building, morphostructural and decorative elements), was a fundamental tool for starting subsequent investigations, in particular:
analyses related to the seismic risk of the settlement;
structural assessment of single buildings;
study of the characteristics of the materials used for construction, and study of degradation.
The graphic representations of the surveys were essential for the implementation of the platform that collects all the project data (https://genesis.tabsrl.com/) and for the creation of virtual tours of the historic center and the main monuments within it
Heritage in real life: between appreciation and contempt: why are modern Egyptians continuously losing their heritage?
No full textSince UNESCO adopted the task of preserving the world's tangible and intangible heritage, the term "cultural heritage" has become known worldwide. However, there seems to be a gap between cultural heritage as a construct made by academic scholars and adopted by UNESCO on one side, and the popular perception of heritage and its significance in daily life on the other side.
This phenomenon could not be seen clearer than in the case of Egypt: for while the UNESCO initiative is achieving positive results in Europe and the developed world, and while more heritage assets are being added to the world heritage list every year, Egypt is facing a continuous decline in its tangible cultural heritage (Hanna, 2013), as "less appreciated" or "undesired" historical sites are continually being demolished by the government or private owners to make way for other functions (Middle East Eye, 2023) & (Zakaria, 2019), and other heritage sites are looted in search of treasures to be sold on the black market (Hanna, 2013).
On the official level, the Egyptian authorities express their keen interest in the preservation of “monuments and antiquities”, and many projects are being implemented by the government in that direction (Ikram, 2010). Yet many heritage assets are being disregarded and lost, sometimes because of negligence, and sometimes because of intended destruction. This research is trying to investigate this case of double standards in dealing with heritage, assuming that it is caused by problems and misconceptions in the collective mindset of Egyptian society, specifically in the aspects of perception and understanding of the value and use of heritage and of history in general.
To achieve that goal, I have been researching literary and academic resources in the fields of Heritage studies and national identity for the roots of these misconceptions, and trying to connect them with the everyday life of society. Being a part of the community myself and through direct contact with the people, I detected and extracted aspects of the Egyptian mindset on the grassroots level that played a significant role in the problem of heritage