UPLanD - Journal of Urban Planning, Landscape & environmental Design
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Landscape Decoding in Urban City Planning
Full text linkThe European Landscape Convention, with great determination, has placed as a priority target, the necessity to promote a high level of attention to the landscape, as a common asset. According to the Convention each part of the landscape conveys meanings: the areas of particular beauty, daily life landscapes and degraded ones. The evidence of this changed reading is the “Law on the Cultural Heritage and Landscape” (DLgs 22 n. 42 of 2004), which in the 2008 version (Dlgs. n. 63) embrace even the principles of the European Landscape Convention, which Italy ratified in 2006. If the Territorial Landscape Plan and the Territorial Coordination Plan have the useful role of containing guidelines, directives and safeguard provisions for the areas with landscape value, the Urban City Plans are the most appropriate tool to allow a planning which is respectful of landscape requirements. As a consequence, the urban city planning has to investigate the values of the landscape decoding both its specific and relational characters. The proposed landscape decoding method, already experimented with different scales of planning, offers a possible key to read and interpret the landscape in order to orient the Government projects on territorial-land transformations, which must be linked to protection, redevelopment and enhancement
INTENSSS PA: a systematic approach for INspiring Training ENergy-Spatial Socioeconomic Sustainability to Public Authorities
Full text linkThe INTENSSS PA project, funded by Horizon 2020, the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation of the European Union, aims to support the local authorities involved and their stakeholders to develop an innovative integrated sustainable energy planning concept through a participatory, interdisciplinary and multilevel process. By building individual and institutional capacity of the actors involved, using the Regional Living Lab approach, the concept will be applied in order to develop seven sustainable integrated energy plans. In this first article the project activities and the results achieved so far are preliminary described, anticipating a more extensive and detailed publication on the project planned for the December edition of UPLand – Journal of Urban Planning Landscape & Environmental Design
A framework for research on pedestrian streets in America
Full text linkSustainable cities require sustainable streets, placemaking, and pedestrian- focused urban planning. Americans who visit Europe are often struck by the many vibrant pedestrian precincts and pedestrian friendly streets across the Atlantic. People walk these streets for utilitarian purposes or just to experience street liveliness. Healthful walking is integrated into their daily lives. Why aren’t there more pedestrian oriented streets and precincts in the United States? What has made some pedestrian streets around the country not only endure but prosper? On the other hand, why have so pedestrian malls been re-opened to auto traffic? From the late 1950s through the late 1970s main streets across the United States were closed to automobile traffic in an attempt to compete with the emerging regional shopping centers. For the most part they failed and were eventually re-opened to automobile traffic. Other pedestrianized streets have been notably successful. Why? This article reviews the prospects for pedestrianized streets in the US, discusses factors that may have contributed to their success or failure, and outlines a program of rigorous research needed on success and failure factors for these streets. The aim is to advance understanding of this important part of a more sustainable street ecosystem so as to inform contemporary US urban planning polic
Retrofitting and the epistemological problem of urban sustainability
Full text linkThe growing use of green building certificates within the construction industry reflects a societal shift towards environmentally sensitive practices. However, role of technology in providing sustainable commodities can be considered contradictory: while green building certificates neither incentivize, nor disincentivize new construction building in favor of refurbishing, they pose an implicit claim that new construction buildings can be, at the least, as sustainable as retrofitting ones. This paper adds to the rhetorical analysis of sustainability’s discourse by analyzing the gap existing among knowledge and discourse, in public policy arguments made regarding to the choice between building refurbishing and demolition. In the light of the analysis of main indicators of the “three pillars of sustainability” and follows a current policy debate at Bajos de Mena (Chile) where the discussion between opting for refurbishing and new building construction of social housing takes place. In doing so, the paper addresses the quantitative-bias leveraging a developmentalist approach towards urbanization, and highlights the underlying epistemological conflict eroding the notion of sustainability
Aquatic Urbanisms: Water as Planning and Territorial Instrument Considering The 9 Dash Line Policy
Full text linkThe notion of territoriality, territory and terrain are all derivatives of ‘terra’ or ‘earth.’ As discourse, ‘territory’ has remained largely land centred for its terminologies, means of representation or in its application within urbanization. Water, conversely, is often considered as a resource or as a specific morphological characteristic but rarely as a key object of discourse. China’s claim within the South China Sea and the subsequent creation of newly formed ‘island outposts’, has brought to light the political welding that water holds, as both territorial claim and negotiating instrument. Particularly significant in the context of increasing pressures on development in this urban age.This paper examines how the substitution of ‘terra derived’ concepts with that of ‘hydro’ driven concepts, impact the domains of territoriality in planning and urbanism. Focus is placed on speculative projections of design work that highlights one possible method of reconfiguring the territoriality of the South China Sea. Consequentially this work questions the assumptions and spatial ideologies in the ‘nine-dash line’ policy
Characteristics and Planning Challenges of Hilltop Settlements in Jos Metropolis, Nigeria
Full text linkJos Metropolis is witnessing rapid urban growth, which in turn puts pressure on development space. From a small mining town of less than 10,000 in 1920, it is now a buzzing state capital of over 1 million people. Hills and valleys that were earmarked in the 1975 and 2009 Master Plansas urban green, parks and conservation corridors are being swamped by low and medium income groups for housing developments resulting into unplanned spatial growth characterized of poor access and lack of basic infrastructure. Settlements on steep slopes and hilltops pose unique planning challenges arising from their topography, costs of construction and extension of social services and public facilities; poor drainage, irregular developments and propensity to environmental hazards. This paper analyzes physical and social characteristics of five sampled hilltop settlements in Jos metropolis. It is recommended that such settlements need special attention not only in terms of their planning but even more so in terms of their management, provision of basic services and infrastructure, integration with other parts of the city. Governments and the planning authorities should provide land for development for the urban poor at desirable locations at subsidized rate as a strategy of prohibiting housing developments on very steep slopes and difficult terrain
Water Sensitive Urban Open Spaces: Comparing North American Best Management Practices
Full text linkThe paper reports about the opportunity to apply the principles of sustainable stormwater management in urban open spaces, as realized in some countries all over the world. Focusing on the design criteria of green streets and emphasizing their multiple benefits, the main technical solutions of best management practices are presented in a glossary proposal. Having selected nine North American mayor cities, to study possible connections between facilities typologies and geographical positions, their climatic features are associated with the technical solutions suggested in the related stormwaters sustainable design manuals and toolkits. The discussion of presented comparisons indicates directions of development for critical reflections and research on the subject, useful for cities still lacking in these technical indications
transPLANTing Heat island Effects in Tokyo
Full text linkThis research documents recent outcomes set forth by the Guidelines for Heat Island Control Measures (GHICM) in 2005 by the Bureau of the Environment, Tokyo Metropolitan Government. These guidelines incentivized development in general to implement such techniques as green roof, living wall and water-retaining pavements as intensive heat island control measures in the central urban core of Tokyo. The original research findings of this paper stem from a 2016 Snell Endowment for Transportation Research grant intended to disseminate such metrics as methodology for future transportation development, specifically focused on transportation infrastructure’s adaptation of the GHICM and the implementation of living wall systems. This study qualitatively documents three living wall systems in transportation infrastructure design in the most intense heat areas defined by the GHICM: JR Tokyo Train Station Drop-off, Ookayama Station/Hospital and Ginza Station terrace. Ultimately, this comparative research facilitates transportation infrastructure optimization, novel implementation of green building techniques and heat-island reduction through physical and cultural potentials
The Metropolitan City
Full text linkAt a certain moment in its history, the main demand on the city was how to respond to the settlement question, which was territorial in nature. So, starting from the 17th century, the expansion of cities like London, Paris and Naples took place. These cities were celebrated in history and through iconography for their expansiveness, their street networks, and their productive and cultural structures systems, which were related to artisanal, industrial, and mercantile settlements, as well to professional, university and sanitary structures systems.Because of these functional demands, which affected an ever increasing number of citizens, the demand for dwelling places and buildings and for productive, administrative, educational, and sanitary services grew, as did the demand for spaces where to spend one’s free time and practice sports. It became necessary to obtain buildings that would provide the best use and comfort, and that could grow in height (something that became possible also thanks to the development of industrial plant technologies), providing an increased number of services and residences for the same building footprint.Over the centuries, the demand for residences and for every other function supplied by the city grew, and specific building typologies developed, something that we will discuss in this essay: we are talking about the relatively recent urban settlement cases of the North American cities of Chicago and New York, where, at a certain moment in history, construction technologies allowed for building with metal and glass, giving rise to skyscrapers
Eroded resilience, Informal settlements predictable urban growth implications for self-governance in the context of urban violence in Medellin, Colombia.
Full text linkScholars have vastly explored incremental growth of informal settlements as one of their defining features. Most of this work has focused on the family unit scale, concentrating on housing asset growth as related to the family historical narrative, legal status, social image, and financing. However, little has been explored about how this relates to the neighborhood scale and, more importantly, how the type of density growth impacts urban form, governance structures, and community social ties, which are essential elements for the development of resilient communities. Using semistructured interviews and historical mappings of informal settlements in Medellin, Colombia from the past four decades, this research maps the relationship between the urban growth of informal settlements and their impact on social networks. This research presents urban informality growth as following predictable patterns. It demonstrates that the exponential density growth found in these settlements, as they moved through the distinct phases of the predictive model, played a significant role in the fragmentation of social ties and co-optation by non-state Armed Actors, what I call eroded resilience. This finding raises important questions about the role of exponential density growth in connection with existing governance structures, not only in the context of urban informality but also in the context of global population growth