Articles

What is beyond the edges? Gated communities and their role in China’s desire for harmonious cities

During the rapid process of urbanization in post-reform China, cities assumed the role of a catalyst for economic growth and quantitative construction. In this context, territorially bounded and well delimited...

Authors: Badiaa Hamama and Jian Liu

Designing refugees’ camps: temporary emergency solutions, or contemporary paradigms of incomplete urban citizenship? Insights from Al Za’atari

Millions of people have been forcibly displaced around the world at an alarming rate. In 2018, approximately 70.8 million people (UNHCR 2018) were living in refugee camps. These camps are the most immediate re...

Authors: Rania Aburamadan, Claudia Trillo and Busisiwe Chikomborero Ncube Makore

Co-designing the pedestrian revolution in Muscat

Rapid growth coupled with the prevailing land allocation system in Oman led to a shift from compact dwellings typologies to detached single-family houses, arranged in monofunctional zoning systems that exclusi...

Authors: Gustavo De Siqueira and Amal Al Balushi

Abandoned landscape project design

Conversion and transformation of historic buildings and industrial site reclamation projects are becoming topics of renewed interest. Many industrial buildings beckon architecture design theory to revitalize u...

Authors: Giovanni Maria Biddau, Antonello Marotta and Gianfranco Sanna

Soil releasing as key to rethink water spaces in urban planning

Soil sealing processes that involved European cities in the twentieth century have reduced the quantity and quality of permeable soils (open land for agricultural and leisure resources). These processes have a...

Authors: Fulvio Adobati and Emanuele Garda

Four plus one dimensions of transferability: defining a framework for the application of a landscape characterization in the USA

This perspective article presents considerations based on an attempt for initiating a landscape characterization in the United States using the Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) method initially developed i...

Authors: Stefania Staniscia, Charles Yuill and Vincenzo Cribari

Among territorial project and architectural design

The contribution develops a reflection on the urban space project in contexts characterized by historical-cultural relevance by exploring interdisciplinary approaches through the intersection of research and d...

Authors: Michele Valentino and Laura Lutzoni

Cities and migration: generative urban policies through contextual vulnerability

This paper deals with the relationships between urban policies for the integration of migrants and the construction of new spaces of coexistence in the contemporary city. It discusses the limits of the current...

Authors: Valeria Monno and Silvia Serreli

Planning tourist infrastructures to regenerate marginalised territories: the study case of North Sardinia, Italy

European marginalised areas are affected by an alarming rate of abandonment and depopulation. Thus, they are therefore object of specific European policies aiming to their reactivation. Official guidelines, bo...

Authors: Ludovica Sechi, Rossella Moscarelli and Paolo Pileri

Inside the system-wide cultural district: a new relational and organisational taxonomy of cultural districts based on the sector policies by Italian Regions (2000–2015)

A considerable environmental turbulence pushes cultural and creative firms to cluster and to adopt new forms of cross-integration. An issue common also to wider entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) of SMEs. This e...

Authors: Anna Maria Colavitti and Alessia Usai

Migration, translation, and transformation of western urban planning models

People, ideas, lifestyles, cultures, architecture and urban planning models have invariably traversed the world as a consequence of military compulsions, political goals, commercial motivations, or aspirationa...

Authors: Pilar Maria Guerrieri

Towards a new school’s role in the Italian contemporary city

In Italy there is a considerable amount of experience in school constructions from the 60s that have anticipated the Italian national school’s standards with a fair level of quality. Like in other countries th...

Authors: Lucia Nucci and Laura Galimberti

Practicing transformative planning: the territory-landscape plan as a catalyst for change

This paper advocates the need for transformative planning practices to cope with contemporary crises of climate change and intensifying economic inequality that regions, city-regions, and cities are increasing...

Authors: Louis Albrechts, Angela Barbanente and Valeria Monno

Aldo Rossi: the ‘autobiography’ and its fragments

The year 1966 demarcated a borderline in the urban design discipline. Three books published that indicated a change of direction: City architecture by Aldo Rossi, The territory of architecture by Vittorio Gregott...

Authors: Antonello Marotta

Hosting spatial justice: Riace model and rhetorics of recognition

The paper investigates the relation between spatial justice and recognition. With this respect, it focuses on rhetorics of recognition, namely discourses, narratives and slogans put in place by actors who produce...

Authors: Giulia Li Destri Nicosia

Land use and urban sustainability assessment: a 3D-GIS application to a case study in Gozo

Balancing urban growth and natural resource availability has been recognized as the main challenge of the 21st century from the strategic documents adopted by the recent World Summits. Agenda 21 advocates sust...

Authors: Rosa Morosini and Floriana Zucaro

Drawing on nature: a vision of an urban residential street adapted for biodiversity in architectural drawings

Cities are becoming more built up and less hospitable to wildlife, which is in alarming global decline. Consequently, cities are becoming worse for their human inhabitants, who benefit from contact with nature...

Authors: Siân Moxon

Rules and the production of built space: an investigation on compliant nomotropism

State-enforced norms regarding the production of built space play a central role in determining architectural and urban quality. When addressing to this issue, researchers concentrate on social, historical, po...

Authors: Davide Pisu and Giovanni Marco Chiri

Post-industrial, post-socialist or new productive city? Case study of the spatial and functional change of the chosen Warsaw industrial sites after 1989

In 1989 in Poland the transition period was initiated, which caused a profound change not only of a political and institutional nature, but also an economic change of local labour markets and urban space. One ...

Authors: Katarzyna Sadowy and Adam Lisiecki

A scholarly backcasting approach to a novel model for smart sustainable cities of the future: strategic problem orientation

Sustainable cities have, since the early 1990s, been the leading global paradigm of urban planning and development thanks to the different models of sustainable urban form proposed as new frameworks for redesi...

Authors: Simon Elias Bibri and John Krogstie

Strengthening the city’s reputation in the age of cities: an insight in the city branding theory

City brand is a valuable asset that improves the competitive advantage of the city in the globalisation era. Relying on uniqueness and utilising various methods, cities endeavour to promote their reputation an...

Authors: Ahmadreza Shirvani Dastgerdi and Giuseppe De Luca

A methodological approach on the procedural effectiveness of EIA: the case of Sardinia

The evaluation of environmental effects of the projects is nowadays an essential element to consent to their realization. For this reason, since 1985, the authorization procedure for Environmental Impact Asses...

Authors: Cristian Cannaos and Giuseppe Onni

Geographies of discontent: urban segregation, political attitudes and electoral behaviour in Catalonia

The increase in social inequalities and the evolution of real estate markets are fomenting urban segregation in European cities. The impact of this phenomenon on living conditions, education, health and access...

Authors: Oriol Nel·lo and Aina Gomà

Beyond flatland: when smart cities make stupid citizens

The ‘smart city’—insofar as the concept has any definitive purchase—is really what I termed in my (2008) a ‘hyperspatial’ city. That is, its social world is not just connected, but hyperconnected. This means that...

Authors: Michael McGuire

The ontology of the architectural work and its closeness to the culinary work

According to a standard view, architectural works are nothing but material buildings. This paper argues that this is just one of many options, each of which may capture more incisively what architects really p...

Authors: Fabio Bacchini

Smart cities, social media platforms and security: online content regulation as a site of controversy and conflict

Smart, technologically managed city-regions are one of the main characteristics of the contemporary world. Since the attack to the Charlie Hebdo offices, city-regions and social media digital technologies have...

Authors: Chiara Poletti and Marco Michieli

Smart cities and security: Editorial preface

Authors: Adam Edwards and Marco Calaresu

Dynamic relationship between landscape and new energy system categories

Landscape is an ethics-oriented human action. Even energy systems have an active role in structuring landscape. They must establish with landscape a positive and proactive role and be able to guide it towards ...

Authors: Elisabetta Ginelli and Gianluca Pozzi

Epistemological critiques to the technocratic planning model: the role of Jane Jacobs, Paul Davidoff, Reyner Banham and Giancarlo De Carlo in the 1960s

During the 1960s, different critical voices emerged with regard to the main gaps of technocratic planning (what Jacobs calls ‘modern, orthodox city planning’), voices highlighting the oversimplifying epistemol...

Authors: Carolina Pacchi

Technology and organised crime in the smart city: an ethnographic study of the illicit drug trade

The term “smart city” has circulated across the developed world affecting urban development programmes and government strategies. Such “future cities” are heralded for their efficient networked technologies em...

Authors: Mark Berry

The landscapes of energy incentives

The huge economic resources which have been available for more than a decade to promote the development of renewable energy sources (RES) and assimilated ones have had as a side effect the installation of plan...

Authors: Marcello Magoni and Roberto Adami

Energy: territory and new landscapes scenarios

Always in history, the shaping of new landscapes is accompanied by important economic and social changes, and the relative outcomes had great impact on the formation of a new system of relations between invest...

Authors: Maria Cristina Treu

Smart cities and the architecture of security: pastoral power and the scripted design of public space

The architecture of security is often thought of in terms of situational crime prevention and defensible space. In this article, we argue that the emergence of smart cities and smart technology compel a broade...

Authors: Marc Schuilenburg and Rik Peeters

The architecture of energy systems between technological innovation and environment

This paper has the aim of defining possible interpretive models concerning the integration of energy infrastructures and landscape, highlighting emerging issues and drafting future paths for further developmen...

Authors: Laura Daglio and Elisabetta Ginelli

The urgency of new quantitative public open space standards in London

The new National Planning Policies Framework (NPPF 2012) in England, requires local authorities to carry out a detailed assessment regarding open space (OS) and to propose new quantitative and qualitative OS s...

Authors: Lucia Nucci

European energy policies and regional burden sharing: what are the effects on the territory of Lombardy?

For over a decade, European energy policies have been aimed at obtaining a sustainable and safe supply of energy at competitive prices.

Authors: Marcello Magoni

The social dimension in energy landscapes

If, nowadays, the Communities’ welfare lies in new expressions of collaboration between different types of subjects for the achievement of common objectives, cultural consensus becomes the collective transform...

Authors: Alessandra Bianchi and Elisabetta Ginelli

Land-allocation and clan-formation in modern residential developments in Oman

Affordable housing with fair and transparent land-allocation measures is a challenge for many countries. The Sultanate of Oman solves this issue by means of land-allocation lotteries in which male and female c...

Authors: Bernhard Heim, Marc Joosten, Aurel v. Richthofen and Florian Rupp

Food, city and territory: some reflections from a socio-spatial point of view

The purpose of this article is to highlight the relationship among food, city and space by adopting a social sciences viewpoint. Since the 1990s, not only in sociology but in the social sciences in general, th...

Authors: Nunzia Borrelli and Alfredo Mela

Review of Territory: On the Development of Landscape and City by ETH Studio Basel: Contemporary City Institute. With contributions by Roger Diener, Liisa Gunnarsson, Mathias Gunz, Vesna Jovanović, Marcel Meili, Christan Müller Inderbitzin, and Christian Schmid

Authors: Cameron McEwan

Development of planning index for evaluating climate change protocols: analysis of Mumbai Metropolitan Region’s Regional Plan 1996–2011

Conserving resources, harmonizing living standards, and employing energy efficient methods are potential solutions to climate change, which can be positively accomplished through development and planning. Howe...

Authors: Sonam Sahu and Izuru Saizen

Beyond rhythmanalysis: towards a territoriology of rhythms and melodies in everyday spatial activities

The recent, rich scholarship on rhythms, following in the wake of Lefebvre’s book Éléments de rythmanalyse (1992), proves that rhythmanalysis is an important sensitising notion and research technique. Despite its...

Authors: Andrea Mubi Brighenti and Mattias Kärrholm

An empirical research study on prospect–refuge theory and the effect of high-rise buildings in a Japanese garden setting

This study was carried out to test prospect–refuge theory and the effect of external high-rise buildings on landscape preferences in a traditional Japanese daimyo (feudal lords) garden, namely, the Hama-rikyu Gar...

Authors: Buket Senoglu, Hilmi Ekin Oktay and Isami Kinoshita

Innovative post-neoliberal policy as a way out of crisis? Another reflection on the case of urban decline in Detroit

Many scholars have discussed urban decline, and one of the emerging discourses has called for redefining the crisis as an opportunity to establish new urban governance models. This paper evaluates the outcomes...

Authors: Nebojša Čamprag

Applying the benefits of biophilic theory to hospital design

In 1839, the Lexicon Medicum mentioned the “healing powers of nature”, arguing that many illnesses could be cured without the help of medicines, simply by paying attention to air, food, rest, physical activity...

Authors: Simona Totaforti

Urban metabolism planning and designing approaches between quantitative analysis and urban landscape

Nowadays, urban metabolism (UM) is believed to provide new insights for more sustainable resource management in cities and their hinterlands. UM studies, however, focalize chiefly on quantitative resource inpu...

Authors: Roberta Pistoni and Sophie Bonin

Resilience thinking and urban metabolism in spatial planning: which possible integrations

The concept of resilience has been used for more than a decade in ever-widening intervention fields and it has assumed ever-wider meanings that have made its applications and measurements uncertain and ambiguo...

Authors: Marcello Magoni

Governing land and urban change: the approaches

The paper asserts that each new urban and land planning approach, (ranging from the environment assessment procedures and land suitability analysis introduced in the past, to the newer methods of resilience an...

Authors: Maria Cristina Treu

Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language: analysing, mapping and classifying the critical response

A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander is renowned for providing simple, conveniently formatted, humanist solutions to complex design problems ranging in scale from urban planning th...

Authors: Michael J. Dawes and Michael J. Ostwald

The food territory: cultural identity as local facilitator in the gastronomy sector, the case of Lyon

In times of increased territorial competition, processes of territorialization of food and gastronomy are often considered as key assets of regional economic performances. Yet, for they are by nature diffuse a...

Authors: Luca Tricarico and Jean-Baptiste Geissler