1,721,057 research outputs found
Critical Points of Contact:Between urban networks and flows
No full textIn this brief article, we shall illustrate the application of the analytical and interventionist concept of ‘Critical Points of Contact’ (CPC) through a number of urban design studios. The notion of CPC has been developed over a span of the last three to four years and is reported in more detail elsewhere (Jensen & Morelli 2011). In this article, we will only discuss the conceptual and theoretical framing superficially, since our real interest is to show and discuss the concept's application value to spatial design in a number of urban design studios. The 'data' or the projects presented are seven student studios made at the 1st semester of the Urban Design Master Programme in the fall of 2009 and 2010. The CPC concept is double edged since it both provides the stepping-stone for analysis as well as scaffolding for intervention and re-design. Thereby, it fits the underlying philosophy of teaching in urban design at Aalborg University, where urban design consists of both an analytical and an interventionist field of operation. Furthermore, the content of the CPC concept links to research in mobilities, the network city, and urban design. These are among the core pillars of both the masters programme curriculum as well as the urban design group's research
A 'more-than-representational' mapping study:| lived mobilities + mundane architectures |
No full textIn urban design mapping is a generative tool that can evoke site conditions and animate design potentials. James Corner has stated that a “map is already a project in the making” (1999b, p.216), and thereby points to the evocative ‘agency’ of mapping in composing a design project. This paper takes Corner’s essay as its starting point. It couples his considerations with non-representational research to elaborate mapping as a ‘more-than-representational’ tool with which to think and work when we seek to understand and evoke design sites in conjunction with the lived world. This coupling is done through a concrete mapping study of a suburban site of lived mobilities and mundane architectures. From this standpoint the paper elaborates three central attentions of mapping as a creative and reflected more-than-representational tool in urban design: the evocations of eventfulness of sites, intricate relations between lived lives and architecture, and the potential yet-to-be of sites
Is there a doctor in the room? An analytical exploration of local planning in Denmark and a remedy for a healthy future
No full textThe built landscape and urban structures of Danish cities have gone through significant changes, however, it can be presumed that the democratic origin of local planning is challenged in its contemporary context. There is growing evidence that the local plan has a tendency of primarily focusing on legal and technical matters and too narrow detailing of urban environments. This inherits several planning issues. Firstly, the built environment is fluid and living, in that sense, we must work with locally-specific urban qualities as something, which is variable and transforming. Secondly, only planners and perceptive citizens can navigate and fully understand the local plan. Thirdly, planners tend to use informal and creative methods to communicate ideas and visions during the planning process, however, much of this material is excluded in the final local plan. Against this situation, this master thesis sets out to experiment and challenge the local plan's current process and format to set a forward direction for future local planning. To do so, the project firstly frames an analytical exploration that maps the conflicts and controversies in present local planning, to later construct a research question and diagnosis that lead to two qualified scenarios. The two scenarios consist of potential solutions that aim to re-democratize today’s local planning. Leading to the epistemology, that a re-democratization of local planning can fertilize ‘urban quality’ in the built environment
Meeting on borders. Democratic Design in recovering city life in District Six
No full textThe project attempts to catalyst the urban regeneration of district six through democratic design. District Six is one of the neighborhoods in Cape Town, South Africa, which went through a difficult period of relocations and demolitions due to the apartheid policy. The project deals with the land ownership problem, which has prevented the area’s development, by designing on its borders, found and defined during a study trip to Cape Town. The design proposal regenerates city life in District Six by catalyzing community-bonding processes through performative events (Performative Urbanism) implemented in selected points of interaction along the “border” of Keizersgracht Street (Urban Acupuncture and Landscape Urbanism). The project is heading toward creating a Democratic City, understood as togetherness
Deturned City Design:- tools for experiential urban living
No full textThis article presents concepts of architecture and urban scenography in relation to experiential urban living. The aim is to evaluate the phenomenon of architectural performance and to look at the artistic methods and tools that are involved in large art installations in urban environments today.It draws lines back to the artistic and architectural avant-garde in the 1960s, where the Situationist Movement criticized the absence of atmosphere in modernistic architecture and suburban cities. Along this line they promoted mapping tools and artistic ‘construction of situations’ s that could evoke a more comprehensive way of experiencing city life. The intentions and methods of the Situationist Movement are compared to present art installations and temporary architecture in public spaces. The article put special emphasis on temporary architecture, which may provide a special freedom to construct spatial situations that promote an experimental life. Through symbols, ornaments and decorations it is possible create recognizable urban sceneries in which people can be involved in aesthetically and bodily challenging situations. The article analyze the methods and the architectural tools in this kind of ‘constructed situations’ which mirror and reflect the present poverty of our urban environment and give way for other experiences in public spaces. It advocates for development of ‘relate architecture’ in permanent architecture as well in temporal urban installations and the conclusion is, that this kind of architectural design may contribute to reflection and provide new demands to the performance of our urban environments in general. <br/
Designing concepts and strategies
No full textIn urban transformation some of the most interesting and complex design challenges are related to redevelopment of city centres and waterfronts. Here the conflicts between ‘the old’ and ‘the new’ are the largest, and here the potentials for mistakes are at a critical level. One of the problems is, that new developments often employ very modest research on the subject and often very little has been done in order to challenge traditional concepts and to invent new sustainable concepts for redevelopment. In order to avoid mistakes in urban redevelopment we need to learn from research and evaluation of the best planning practice. But what might be just as important is to learn from concept development practice, which can give us a comprehensive understanding of our complex cities and make us develop a way of experiencing the unique qualities of the architectural typologies at the site. Finally the combination of research and design based development can provide us with a range of conceptual models for alternative development of different valuable parts of the city.This article is focusing on the design-based methods in concept development, which can be tested with the purpose of developing new design concepts and to generate easily grasped images of a coherent transformation.The case is taken form the water front development in Aalborg, where a series of architecture and building workshops has been conducted. The methodology is described in relation to three workshops from 2005 and 2008. The concepts and strategies are briefly described in the article, and the adaption by city planners and developers has been critical reviewed. <br/
Local Asylum: From Isolation to Integration
No full textThe thesis Local Asylum: From Isolation to Integration is based on the belief that urbandesigners and associated fields hold a purpose in the debate and the handling ofrefugees arriving in Denmark. The urban designers focus should be on how to unfold theirtoolbox in order to highlight potentials in the built environment to help create the bestpossible conditions for asylum seekers during their more or less temporary stay. Throughexploration of the potential of new alternative forms of integration, social constellations,locations and connections, the project is developed in order to generate ideas thatbenefit both asylum seekers and the Danish society.The exploration of the possibilities in the built environment is examined through researchof the asylum process and the conditions the asylum seekers typically live under today aswell as the effects hereof. The project proposes that we should start thinking of the asylumseekers and the asylum centres in a different way. Thus, it puts forth the approach ofsplitting the traditional asylum centre into smaller units and instead create decentralisedcentres inside existing towns in peripheral Denmark. Due to negative growth towns hereoften hold a large amount of empty building stock that can be used for home units, aswell as existing functions that can facilitate the practical functions of the asylum centre.Decreasing the concentration of asylum seekers and mixing their everyday functionswith the local functions are meant to afford integration and make their time spent in theasylum centre meaningful.The specific design interventions affording integration are explored and developed bymeans of a design case in the small town of Søllested on Lolland. It pays attention tothe local physical and social context that the asylum centre are placed inside, while itconsiders the extent of the refugee crisis by extracting universal principles that can beused when potentially implementing asylum centres in other peripheral towns. Theseconstitute process tools for analysis, program and design that are assembled in a designguide
Søtorv Kvarteret: an urban city island
No full textThis master thesis is about the urban development of Søtorvet in Silkeborg, where the site is to be regenerated from an wast car park into an active part of the inner city. To this development also follows a new museum outside the project area. The focus of the project is the use of social sustainability and mobilities design as tools in the urban planning and development. As a part of the project is a theoretical discussion on the two themes, and how they cen be influencing each other as design tools is made. Søtorv Kvarteret is an active city island with a diverse programming and strong contextual connections
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