Cities and “Postcovidcene”, an open challenge (original) (raw)
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Reading Built Spaces. Cities in the making and future urban form, 2018
In the international architectural panorama, where cultures, movements and actions are increasingly hybrid and contaminated by a global language, an element eems to emerge transversally to all the experiments underway: time. Consumption of land and natural disasters, the crisis of the real estate market due to overproduction of buildings and lack of reuse strategies, the ordinary transformations of cities, increasingly alien to urban programs and activated by the social partners, are the great problems that architecture cannot yet give concrete answers. In Italy, cities and architecture discount the delay in adapting to new conditions of indeterminacy, fluidity and dematerialization, not only of the existential certainties of the modern era, but also of functions and programs, construction techniques and materials technologies. The result is the permanence of elitist practices, far from the needs of the urban populations, requiring ever more space and time for their own lives. Furthermore, the lack of public interest in the city temporary aspects reveals the absence of public policies capable of triggering widespread urban regeneration processes. The new temporary trials underway in The Netherlands are giving exemplary results, such as the De Cuevel site in Amsterdam and the Pompenburg Park in Rotterdam. Therefore, the forms of cities and buildings of the modern period become temporal algorithms, which synchronize different times, compressing/dilating space according to needs and desires. Finally, the new media will be decisive in determining the demarcation between the space forms of the 20th century and the time forms of the 21st century, which open the way to a new vision of the future, that of temporal city and architecture.
Urbanization and Sustainability after the COVID-19 Pandemic
International Journal of Social Quality , 2020
This article explores the current scenario of urban agglomerations, drawing attention to the growth of population and the process of unruled urbanization that endangers the delicate balance between human settlements and the surrounding environment. It focuses on the heritage values as fundamental elements for a correct urban development and highlights the impacts that metropolises and megacities have on climate change and the effects on them produced by COVID-19. It then looks at the role that minor cities and towns play and the coming opportunity to revamp them using new technologies and connectivity corridors and to mitigate urbanization. It concludes by observing how complex urban problems must be faced with a comprehensive vision that is driven by the social quality approach and an engagement with the BRICS countries.
Ways of interpreting urban regeneration: Hamburg, London, Brussels and Rome
2016
Over the coming decades all cities throughout and beyond Europe, be they large or small, will face the great challenge of regeneration. European Commission has promoted a “regeneration agenda” focused on an integrated sustainable approach. But, while the European Commission draws the path, European cities provide a variety of ways to transform drafts in deeds. The four case studies described below – Hamburg, London, Brussels, Rome – give evidence that, in the last decades, every city had drawn its own “regeneration way”, with a different level of sensitiveness regarding the European principles. However, all the case studies deliver at least one action attuned to the principles of a sustainable regeneration, and it’s possible to select from every experience the “good” that has been realized.
Re-imagine, Re-load, Re-cycle: New Urbanism for the City of Future
Metamorphosis is the new and powerful keyword in the actual age of crisis. We are not undergoing a mere -even though dramatic -passing situation, but we are living in a crisis which requires a metamorphosis of the ecological, cultural, economic, social and political systems to get out of it other than we were when entering it. The metamorphosis will have to be mainly urban, because we live in the Urban Age in which more than half the population live, work (and dream the future) in cities, dense or sprawled, capital or reticular, local or global (Burdett and Sudjic, eds., 2007). The city, as the predominant form of inhabiting, is invested with the "responsibility" of producing innovative, more sustainable, intelligent and creative life styles, able of generating the innovative propelling force which can make us emerge from the quagmire of decline.
World Heritage and Design for Health, 2021
The starting point of this paper is a circumstance that generates concern: culture has not been directly included in any of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that underpin the 2030 New Urban Agenda. Today, the restrictions and social isolation caused by the COVID-19 health crisis make it clear that culture is more necessary than ever. In contrast to the limited interest shown in the 2030 Urban Agenda, paradoxically, the G20 does highlight its importance, as was clearly expressed at the joint meeting held in Saudi Arabia under the title “The Rise of the Cultural Economy: A New Paradigm”. In the context of planning for the implementation of the European economic recovery funds, culture must take on a leading role as a strategic and sustainable driving force capable of contributing more to the Gross Domestic Product than other economic sectors. Throughout our paper, we will reflect on this and other contradictions, focusing on the new challenges facing urban conservation within the context of 21st century cities. Challenges that must be adapted to an idea of a dynamic city in continuous development where capitalism has found an excellent environment for intensive consumption. Globalization, trivialization and depersonalization must be considered, as they are rapidly gaining ground in the face of timid appeals in defense of local, every day and collective aspects as new bastions of identity.
Pandemic Urbanism: Praxis in the Time of Covid-19
Pandemic Urbanism: Praxis in the Time of Covid-19, 2020
This open access reading list < https://bit.ly/pandemicurbanism> is a result of the collective effort of PhD and Masters students in the Urban Planning program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University. The aim of the list is to provide a collection of materials that address the pandemic as it relates to urbanism, urban planning, architecture, and the built environment. The material presented here is being collected, organized and summarized over the months of March and April 2020 as we witnessed our lives transformed by the COVID 19 crisis, especially in New York City, a city many of us call home and a place that has become one of the main hotspots for the spread of the infectious disease that so far has killed more than 15,000 people (as of April 22). Our hope that this list will be useful in bringing together -in one document- materials that students and scholars will find useful to think about the pandemic as it relates to urbanization. We also hope that this document will become a “living document” that people can take the liberty to update with relevant entries in the spirit of providing a collective resource for people across the globe interested in the implications of COVID-19 for our built environment (instructions to add entries are at the bottom of the document).
The future of sustainable urbanism: a redefinition
City, Territory and Architecture, 2016
In this article the future of sustainable urbanism is discussed. In current times a complex of uncertainties demands sustainable environments. Three uncertainties are distinguished. Firstly, the city needs to deal with uncertain developments, such as the impacts of climate change. Secondly, urban environments are the place where deliberate uncertainties, such as the generation of renewable energy and other sustainability transitions must find a place. The third form of uncertainty is the increased exposure of urban populations to the impacts of a spectrum of uncertain developments, climate impacts. This 'Triple-U problem' urges the design of urban areas to be sustainable. Sustainability has long been a part of urbanism, however, in completely different ways in different periods in history. When learning from the past, the analysis of sustainable urbanism in seven periods brings key elements to the fore. Sustainable urbanism has evolved, but key characteristics of each period may and can still be used to design sustainable cities. Based on these characteristics two strategies, and a potential third one, are identified: to fix the future, to indulge the future, and to create anti-fragile urban environments. Where fixing the future implies the reparation of environmental qualities and closing environmental flows within the urban boundaries, indulging the future focuses on the creation of sufficient space to accommodate the possible spatial impacts of unprecedented events and change. Anti-fragility supports the city in raising its resilience under threat of uncertain impacts. The article ends with a proposed renewed definition of sustainable urbanism.
2020
Often in the past, the great disasters (environmental calamities, earthquakes, epidemics) activated unexpressed energies, triggering transformations of the built environment, able to give rise unexpected conditions of economic, cultural and social development. The fragility of settlement systems in the face of unexpected threats brings out the need for a new planning, changing our gaze on the city. The new framework of needs drawn by the pandemic and the renewed sensitivity towards the combination of health – sustainability, rekindle the spotlight on inner areas. These emerged as "reservoirs of resilience", areas to look at, in order to reach an eco-systemic balance. The aim of the paper is to return an experience of adaptive reuse of the Historical Urban Landscape in an inner area of Southern Italy, where the needs of health and safety of the community are integrated with the transmission of the built heritage to future generations. The goal is the promotion of inclusive ...
SHS Web of Conferences, 2021
Research background: The concept of sustainable development had as its starting point the global ecological crisis 1929-1933 and was later developed by encompassing all economic and social and human spheres, reaching that today, sustainable development is the new path of humanity. Sustainable development has been conceived as a solution to the ecological crisis determined by the intense industrial exploitation of resources and the continuous degradation of the environment and seeks first of all to preserve the quality of the environment. Sustainable development promotes the concept of reconciling economic and social progress without endangering the natural balance of the planet. Purpose of the article: The objective of this paper is to highlight the trends determined by the current health crisis. Methods: The main research method is the bibliographic study doubled by a secondary documentary analysis that allowed us to identify both the historical evolution of the concept and the det...