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A Fantastic Guide to the Cybersiren, and Everything Else You Need to Know about the Love, Death, Origins, Characteristics and Chronicles of the Neapolitan Port
Full text linkThe separation of Napoli from its port – driven by industrialisation, privatisation and urban neglect – has disconnected the city from the sea. Drawing on the local mythological tradition, the Cybersiren is introduced as an advocate for change and a way to reconnect city, port and people. It is presented as a disruptive force in response to rigid systems of authority and control that currently dominate the Neapolitan port. This is presented in two ways. First, through a guideline that explains the characteristics of the Cybersiren as a queer entity, one that is body- and techno-fluid, is ambiguously alien on the one hand yet familiar on the other. The guideline also speaks of the way in which the Cybersiren attacks, shatters and eventually, dies. Second, these characteristics are translated into a fictional story that uses imagination to consider how change could be brought about in order to foster technodiversity and reconfigure relationships. Mythopoesis, or the formation of a myth, is used as a tool in order to explore how the grotesque could be used to challenge what has become stuck
Reviews and Responses for Very-low-level U-space Conflict Detection and Resolution: Current Developments and Future Prospects
Full text linkSee detailed reviews and responses in the PDF file.
DOI for the original paper: https://doi.org/10.59490/joas.2025.792
Evaluating Sustainable Last Mile Delivery Solutions: A Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis
Full text linkThe rapid growth of e-commerce and urbanization has caused significant last-mile delivery (LMD) challenges, requiring the implementation of sustainable solutions. To address this issue, this study proposes a new multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework using the Best-Worst Method (BWM) to evaluate and rank different LMD alternatives according to 13 sustainability criteria of economic, technical, environmental, and social aspects within the context of the Netherlands. This method uses structured pairwise comparisons with experts’ perspectives to derive the relative importance of all criteria and the performance scores of all alternatives, ensuring a consistent decision-making process. Results indicate that economic and technical factors are valued higher than environmental and social considerations. Parcel lockers emerged as the most sustainable solution, followed by convenience store pickup, green vehicles, and crowdsourced delivery. The study also proposes several policy and managerial recommendations to help policymakers, logistics providers, and urban planners develop strategies that balance sustainability goals
Artefacts, and Taking on a Religious Variation
Full text linkArtefacts mediate human perception and behaviour for sure, but what is less clear is the way their mediation is exerted. The reason for the ambiguity lies partially in the fact that artefacts work differently in different contexts. Ihde has invented the term multistability to address this characteristic inherent to artefacts. So, there might be various types of mediation conceivable based on such a multitude of stabilities a given artefact could take on. In this article, I try to shed some light on the phenomenon of multistability to see how particularly religious stability may emerge from an otherwise profane artefact. To that end, I will place my focus on the tradition of Islamic calligraphy and the pivotal role reed pens have played in it and explore accordingly how both secular and religious stability might arise from the seemingly same physical object. To that purpose, I will suggest drawing on MacIntyre’s views on three notions of practice, narrative, and tradition, and will argue that these three notions may spotlight how an artefact could receive varying stabilities
Sea-level rise and increasing variability are accelerating record-breaking coastal floods worldwide.
Full text linkIn the first such global assessment we show that record-breaking coastal floods have already occurred due to climate change. In the 2010s the rate of record setting extremes globally was more than double that expected in a stationary climate. 80% of these increases can be attributed to changes in mean sea level, the remaining portion is attributed to changes to storm surges and tide
Technology and the Task of Planetary Thought: Review of Huk, Y. (2024). Machine and Sovereignty: For a Planetary Thinking. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. (341 pages)
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Floating Mansions, Empirical Inquiry and the Appraisal of Architectural Theories
Full text linkIt was through our shared interest in the adaption of Lakatosian research programmes that the topic for this issue emerged. More specifically, the issue originates in our respective studies of fellow architects Stanford Anderson and Royston Landau, who used Lakatos’s methodology to systematically explain architecture and determine some of the principles on which its practice was based throughout the twentieth century.
 
In Defence of Soft Pragmatism: Embracing the Myriad Modalities of Theory
Full text linkDiminished rewards arise from attempts to establish hierarchies within the healthily variegated scope of contemporary theory. A re-emerging pragmatism is present in current architectural discourse, which frames certain modalities as indulgences. To appraise theory—if possible—it is necessary to ask what criteria exists for sorting out theory. Exploring the edges of discourse can accomplish this: to paint a simplified antipodal dialogue between differing perspectives to understand the scope of theory better. This essay uses a dialectic between Existential Theorists (those addressing contemporary issues focusing on human survival) and Esoteric Theorists (those addressing a myriad of topics that are specialised and not as clearly relevant to contemporary topics). Following this analysis, I deconstruct the boundaries between these two modalities to cast into doubt the methods for appraising theory. This is bolstered by a brief reminder of the lessons of Pragmatism in the last hundred years and follows with the stubborn reminders of post-structuralism. William Blake, who revealed a path towards radical subjectivity, is treated as a proto-post-structuralist. All of this is in service to a deep scepticism of appraisal and a plea for a “softer pragmatism,” one that softens the hard boundaries between the variegated modalities of theory. 
Is anyone going to light the fire? Drivers and barriers in the initiation of flexible use of charging infrastructure on major passenger transport hubs in the Netherlands
Full text linkThird party use of charging infrastructure for electric buses on major passenger transport hubs offers potential to make better use of existing electricity grid capacity, especially given the current lack of grid capacity. This requires flexibility in the charging operation, which is hampered due to lacking ownership of this opportunity to share charging infrastructure. This research aims to develop understanding of the perception of drivers and barriers for stakeholder organizations (SOs) to initiate collaboration on flexible use of this infrastructure. A survey under 141 respondents was applied to collect these perceptions on the drivers and barriers, the most logical initiator and motives behind these choices. Results indicate that presence of sufficient benefits, fitting organizational culture and entrepreneurial freedom are main drivers for initiation of collaboration. No specific barriers stood out. Furthermore, public parties – specifically the transport authority – are indicated as most logical initiator. The paper shows that challenge for initiating collaboration lies in the unclarity around the mandate to take initiative. Although the presence of mandate is not seen as main driver for one’s own organization, it is seen as reason why other organizations should be the initiator. The lacking overall mandate for collaboration causes inertia, and thereby is the reason why the fire is not lit yet. Fortunately, this challenge of ownerless opportunities in complex SO-environments can be overcome, but it does require a new way of looking at how infrastructure is applied and managed
Waste Heaps in Germany: Die Halden in Deutschland, 6 814 million m³
Full text linkWaste Heaps in Germany (Die Halden in Deutschland) (2025) is an artwork that explores the future of waste and the topography created by mining activities. It involves identifying all the industrially deposited waste dumps throughout Germany in order to estimate the total volume of terrain that they form. Displayed as a 17-meter-long wall text at the Art Museum Moritzburg Halle (Saale), the work presents a calculation of the vast volume of waste generated by overburden rock over the last 175 years of German mining, raising questions about the future potential of recently formed terrain.
Recognizing that the total extension of waste ground remains unknown, and acknowledging the need for information to plan new uses, a collaboration between art and science was established. The reviews, data collection, and calculations were conducted by RBFK (Regional Society for Education, Research and Competence Development) on behalf of artist Lara Almarcegui. The multidisciplinary team included Andreas Kamradt, an economic geologist familiar with the Mansfeld mining district — an area with thousands of waste heaps resulting from copper mining. To support investigations into new applications, geologists analyzed the mineral constituents of the heaps to explore the potential of the former mining region. For the artwork production, volumetric data were requested from relevant State Offices and mining authorities. To calculate unavailable dump volume data, more hands-on calculations using 3D digital elevation models were necessary — as was the case for the Ruhr area, one of Europe’s largest former mining regions