2019 vol. 61/3
Tag: City
“Mataró Ideal City” by Jordi Henrich, wins the contest for Centre Development Strategic Plan
Ending 2017 the Mataro`s City Council launched a contest in order to draw a strategic plan for the centre of the city.
“The aim of the Ideas Contest is to design a strategy and a model that includes economy, urban development, architecture, mobility and economic, cultural and social development in its actions to allow the city centre to be put forward as a motor of cultural activity, of trade and tourism within a single discourse that revalues its legacy of history and heritage.
The selected proposal will become the strategic instrument to develop the Mataró Centre Development Strategic Plan”. Continue reading “Mataró Ideal City” by Jordi Henrich, wins the contest for Centre Development Strategic Plan
Public space: the use of vertical and air planes
Journal of a Gadabout (14) by Dr. A. Remesar
The public space is structured in four planes: that of the ground, the vertical (not exclusively of facade); the plane of the air and a fourth plane that can be called zenital. The most studied is the horizontal plane, built from infrastructures, elements of urban service (lighting, vegetation, signage, etc.) and interfacing with urban systems (water, electricity, gas, etc.), with the omnipresent elements of paving. (see)
The study of the vertical plane is reduced to the analysis of the facades, although the vertical containment of public space goes beyond the facades. (see)
Continue reading Public space: the use of vertical and air planes
RACO: Available Nrs. 60/11 and 60/12
Francoist symbols in Barcelona
Journal of a Gadabout (13) by Dr. A. Remesar
In Decembre 2007 it was approved the LAW 52/2007, of December 26, by which rights are recognized and extended and measures are established in favor of those who suffered persecution or violence during the civil war and the dictatorship. This Law is known as Law of Historical Memory. Continue reading Francoist symbols in Barcelona
“URBAN POLARITIES. Aesthetic Energy of the City, 3rd International Conference” Call for Papers
AIMS
The aim of the conference is to critically explore the role of urban art and urban design in shaping the public sphere. The topic of this conference – urban polarization and urban polarities, is aimed at expanding the discussion of the aesthetic experience of the city and the role of various forms of urban creativity – street art, fine arts, architecture and greenery in the processes of urban regeneration and redefinition of city spaces. We would like to look upon the completed and ongoing projects of urban revitalisation and renewal to ask what those changes have taught us, what lessons can be drawn from successful and unsuccessful undertakings. With its specific historical, social and economic characteristics and its present endeavours at revitalisation and redevelopment, Lodz presents itself as an interesting scene for such observations. While discussing the question of urban polarization we would like to reflect on visual, spatial and social polarities that projects of urban renewal might challenge, as well as aesthetic and historical polarities ingrained in urban fabric and everyday life of a city. Continue reading “URBAN POLARITIES. Aesthetic Energy of the City, 3rd International Conference” Call for Papers
“BUILDING REMEMBRANCE” EXHIBITED IN PUEBLA
From 1st June to 7 july, the cultural centre “LA MONJA” at the Benemerita Universidad de Puebla (México) shows the itinerant exhibition “Baró de Viver & Bon Pastor. Urban Cohesion. Building Remembrance”. The exhibition is a first act of the 1st International Conference In Civic Participation in city making organized by Facultad de Arquitectura BUAP, Universitat de Barcelona and Re Genera Espacio Continue reading “BUILDING REMEMBRANCE” EXHIBITED IN PUEBLA
Public Space’s Service System
Presentation of the Public Space’s Service System Project
pbrandao@civil.ist.utl.pt
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5537-0186
http://psss.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/en/
“Instituto Superior Técnico. Lisboa”
Abstract
Recognizing public spaces’ importance, it is necessary to better evidence what it does serve for: its services or benefits, as a principle in evaluating the return of social value, of economic, political, emotional investments, how it is produced, how it is organized and how it is related to the actors.
Almost forty years ago, Kevin Lynch analyzed public spaces for their image qualities: vitality, identity, pleasantness, readability, diversity … Until today, methods do not vary much because of the frequent consideration for new “qualities” that ‘good public space’ is supposed to posess. In the end, Lynch was in fact criticizing his own construct:
The ‘perceptual qualities’ of ‘mental image’ can be opposing each other, or be illusory. So, how to evaluate them? Quality indicators, which only sometimes refer to the “public”, have to accept that there are many types of “publics”, and that space “value” is more than the sum of spatial diverse “qualities” (diverse interests, will find in public space different value). Thus, the evaluation must interpret space, clarifying the multiplicity and variability of services provided by it and demonstrate the values that are involved and the system that organizes them.
We can thus look at public spaces as part of a system (like other urban systems, infra-structural landscape…) and consider in their potential validation, systems’ physical or relational factors: production, organization, limits, context, connectivity, actors, values, services, representations.
This project’s fundamentals are:
• “Space construction” deals with urban public space systems and the practices of “right to the city” (H. Lefebvre), both on Hardware and Software.
• Interdisciplinary mode is the assuming of the subjectivities in the multi-dimensional rational, making cross-evaluations, of different realities (and their actors).
• The interaction process requires a common language to translate values and meanings of space, as a service of public benefit. To interpret the public space system we can’t isolate… nor eliminate variables, unless we integrate them… in the process.
Danae Esparza and Selene Camargo, awarded with the Extraordinary Doctoral Award of the University of Barcelona
In the incomparable setting of the central main hall of the University of Barcelona, the Extraordinary Doctoral Prizes were awarded (04/19/2018). These prizes are awarded the best doctoral thesis of each of the current doctoral programs at the University. Continue reading Danae Esparza and Selene Camargo, awarded with the Extraordinary Doctoral Award of the University of Barcelona