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Modal shift to inland waterway transport: Five case studies in the North Sea Region
Get PDFModal shift from road to water is a strategy prioritised by both the European Union and many of its member states. However, inland waterways remain underutilised in most member states, and even the small number of countries in which inland waterway transport is well established, the sector faces fierce competition from road-based solutions. There is potential to develop tools and strategies for expanding the use of inland waterways by better understanding what activities key actors can rely on to facilitate modal shift. In this multiple-case study, we identify activities that actors perform to realise modal shift to inland waterways in five cases from the North Sea Region, by conducting interviews, workshops, and field observations. In each case, the process of modal shift varied depending upon which actor initiated specific activities, the order of performing activities and the number of iterations required to advance. Activities revolved around understanding the current situation, identifying potential solutions, testing solutions and promoting solutions. Getting stakeholders on board and identifying goods flows were integrated in all themes. The structured and emergent approach were outlined, highlighting varying starting points (mature or immature market) and actor engagement (facilitating or initiating roles). Different actors could assume leading roles. Authorities can target initiatives and policies to form relevant alliances and support modal shift by approach, while practitioners can relate and be inspired by the described activities in the varying contexts and adhere to entrepreneurial roles. Realising large-scale modal shift requires multi-actor engagement, openness to emergent solutions and long-term endurance
Narrative Methods for Writing Urban Places: EDITORIAL
No full textThis fifth issue of the Writingplace Journal examines different narrative methods, understood as procedures, techniques or ways of relating or recounting events, and how they can be used to appraise and imagine the city. The editorial process of the issue has been developed within the context of the EU-funded COST Action ‘Writing Urban Places’,1 a multidisciplinary network of researchers who are interested in developing new narratives for the European city. By recognizing the value of urban narratives – stories rich in information regarding citizens’ sociospatial practices, perceptions, hopes and ambitions – the network seeks to foster and preserve the democratic, and therefore inclusive, nature of the modern European city. 
Unknowing through Writing-(and)-Drawing
Get PDFIn this article, unknowing is the human condition when a person experiences an intense dissolving into the environment. Analytical modes of thinking and rational and deductive modes of getting to conclusions and have their own meaning and importance. However, emotional and intuitive awareness and the imaginative empathy, have their own way of revealing meaning embedded in a specific place. In this article, I will reflect on three examples that illustrate how writing and drawing may bring about a different reading of places, architectural typologies and architectural symbols – when filled with fictional stories and speculative narratives: Yuri Nornstein’s Hedgehog in the Fog, Dostoyevsky’s Crystal Palace in the Notes of the Underground, and Brodsky and Utkin’s project of the Crystal Palace. Along these examples, the article discusses writing and drawing methods that stimulate a creative disjunction from habitual research in architectural and urban thinking through three forms of unknowing: ascending, denying, deconstructing. 
Business Innovation Towards a Circular Economy: An Ecosystem Perspective
Get PDFWe currently live in a carbon intensive linear economy. On the basis of burning fossil fuels, we take, make and waste an increasing amount of materials. This has pushed us against serious planetary boundaries. Radical reductions in environmental impact are needed over the coming decades. Entire economies and societies will have to reorganize. A promising candidate to support this reorganizing is a circular economy. It cuts waste, emissions and pollution, and it keeps the value of products, components and materials high over time. Companies can innovate towards a circular economy by following five key resource strategies: narrow, slow, close, regenerate, and inform. This thesis explores these strategies – through case research and a design science approach. It shows that an ecosystem perspective is necessary to implement these strategies – and provides tools and methods that can help to put an ecosystem perspective into action. This can help companies to develop circular ecosystem value propositions: that propose a positive collective outcome, fulfill user needs in exciting ways, and minimize environmental impact
Public Rental Housing Governance in Urban China: Essence, Mechanisms and Measurement
Get PDFRecently, Chinese Public Rental Housing (PRH) provision has witnessed a shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’: policy making shifted from government steering to mixed forms involving government, market and civic actors to pursue effective and fair policies. In the meantime, this new-era PRH governance is credited with mixed results. However, the existing studies fail to describe the mechanisms underlying this new-era governance of PRH with the rising involvement of market actors and those in civil society and whether the new-era governance is considered to be effective, achieving the objective of stability. Therefore, this PhD research aims to fill the two research gaps through building a better understanding of the PRH governance in the current Chinese context and evaluating PRH governance. To fulfil this aim, this dissertation is underpinned by a theoretical foundation from the governance perspective and adopts a mixedmethod approach with quantitative and qualitative data in the study of Chinese PRH provision. The dissertation reveals the essence of the current Chinese PRH governance by bringing forth a governance model and shows the structures and mechanisms for non-governmental actors to play a role in the governance of PRH. The dissertation also shows the perceived governance outcomes from tenants’ perspective and demonstrates two main governance challenges of Inclusionary Housing, a newly introduced instrument adopted in the Chinese PRH governance. Based on the results, this PhD research theoretically and empirically contributes to the housing governance literature
Spatial Planning for Urban Resilience in the Face of the Flood Risk: Institutional Actions, Opportunities and Challenges
Get PDFThe research was inspired by the increasing impact of extreme weather events and changing climate patterns on flood-prone regions and cities, and the consequent human and economic costs. Despite global efforts for flood resilience and climate adaptation involving climate analysts, economists, social scientists, politicians, hydrological engineers, spatial planners, and policymakers, it is only partially clear how best to construct resilience measures and implement concrete initiatives. The complexity of institutions is a key factor that is often neglected, and which needs further investigation. The thesis examines the institutional arrangements that determine the role of spatial planning in managing flood risk, through an in-depth case study of Guangzhou, one of the most vulnerable cities in China and globally. The thesis employs theories of historical institutionalism, planning procedure and planning tools, policy framing and collaborative governance, to explore the mechanisms and factors that influence the creative planning and design process. Content analysis, GIS-based mapping, stakeholder analysis and TOWS analysis are used to investigate data from official policy documents, grey literature, geo-information data and interview scripts. The findings indicate that institutional arrangements, such as long-established planning traditions, formal planning procedures and tools, policy framing patterns and contextual organisational factors, determine spatial planning’s role in managing flood risk. They do this through (1) the extent of the changeability of an established planning system towards expanded flood resilience measures; (2) the performance of cross-level communication and boundary-spanning work between planning and water management; (3) the legal framework that planners and hydrological engineers follow; and (4) the capacities of planning and water management institutions to work on flood issues. This research shows how to apply knowledge from policy science, political science, institutional science and administration, to analyse the nature of the planning process in tackling the urgent challenge of flood risk and climate change
Solar Geometry in Performance of the Built Environment: An Integrated Computational Design Method for High- Performance Building Massing Based on Attribute Point Cloud Information
Get PDFAs part of the passive design strategy, the development of computational solar envelopes plays a major role to construct a cooperative environmental performance exchange between new buildings and their local contexts. However, the state-of-the-art computational solar envelopes pose a great challenge in understanding site characteristics from a given context. Existing methods predominantly construct 3D context models based on basic architectural geometric shapes, which are often isolated from the surrounding properties of local contexts (i.e., vegetation, materials). Thus, they only focus on context-oriented buildings and energy quantities that unfortunately lack a contextual solar performance analysis. It is clear that this condition may result in a fragmented understanding of the local context during the design and simulation process. With the potential application of attribute point cloud information, it is necessary to consider relevant parameters such as surface and material properties of existing contexts during the simulation of solar geometries, which are currently absent in computational frameworks. As such, the new method is required to enable architects not only to measure specific performances of the local context but also to identify vulnerable areas that may affect the proposed design. This research focuses on exploring an integrated computational design method for solar geometry based on solar and shading envelopes, and geometric and radiometric information from point cloud data. In particular, two computational models consisting of SOLEN (Subtractive Solar Envelopes) and SHADEN (Subtractive Shading Envelopes) are developed, which are applied to temperate and tropical climates, respectively. In design practice, these models help architects to produce informed-design decisions towards high-performed building massing
Challenges of prefabricated housing in China: Supply chain, Stakeholders, and Transaction costs
Get PDFRecently, the implementation of prefabricated housing (PH) has become prevalent in China to achieve sustainability while ensuring green construction, innovative products, and higher quality. However, numerous challenges arise, such as the overrun costs, inexperienced workers, and the inefficient management process. High transaction costs (TCs) occur in the PH project supply chain since additional efforts are consumed for overcoming these challenges. This study aims to seek insights into TCs of PH and investigate strategies for minimizing the TCs thus smooth the development process of PH projects. Three key elements have been addressed throughout the thesis: supply chain, stakeholders, and transaction costs. Four-step research is employed to uncover the TCs in the PH supply chain, collect the stakeholders’ perceptions, investigates the causes of TCs, and explore decisions for reducing TCs. This thesis identifies three types of TCs in Chinese PH projects by their nature: due diligence costs, negotiation costs, monitoring and enforcement costs. Private stakeholders in China’s PH industry put more of their attention on TCs related to the specificity of prefabrication. The simple and joint strategies are provided for reducing their benefits lost from the unexpected TCs. Additionally, the value of the governmental TCs has been revealed for reducing the TCs of PH, which inspires and supports the policymakers to develop a healthy policy environment
One Map, Multiple Legends: Exposing Military Spatial Narratives in the Israeli Desert
Get PDFAbstract
This paper investigates the blurred borders between civilian and military ways of envisioning, experiencing and mediating space in the context of Israel political geography. It does so by way of a close reading of Detroit, a short video work by Amir Yatziv where the construction plans of an urban combat training facility in the Israeli desert are the focus of attention (2009). Taking Detroitas a point of departure, I will present a number of works of art that address the phenomenon in which a military-inflected construction of space yields material and cognitive consequences, naturalising the military’s status as the guiding principle of daily life. Within this sub-genre of critical city- and landscape imagery in Israeli art, Yatziv’s work stands out as it turns the focus from the land itself towards its mediation. This approach, I argue, is highly productive for critical anti-military visual projects, as it directs attention towards those who code and decode urban military landscapes, and highlights the fact that while the borders between military and civilian mediations of space may be blurred, they are not lost just yet.
Keywords:
Social geography; critical cartography; Israeli art; militarism, Israel-Palestine; simulacrum, maps and mapping
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