Urbanism and Planning

Graduated in Spatial Planning and Management. PG in Spatial Management and Urbanism

[probablyasocialecologist]

“Historians have long noted the many problems generated by the shaping of American cities in the mid to late twentieth century by a system of automobility. The problems associated with automobility range across all the scales of spatial formation, from bodily harm, community decay, and urban failure, to global pollution and economic injustice. Numerous commentators have shown the ways in which car-based cities reduce community. Systems of automobility overrun and over-pave physical space, which has detrimental impacts on other kinds of movement through cities. Car crashes cause massive numbers of fatalities (being the leading cause of death among young people).”

— Mimi Sheller, Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes

[radishreader]

How to Design a City for Women

A fascinating experiment in "gender mainstreaming."

…The decision to look at how men and women used public transit wasn’t a shot in the dark. It was part of a project aimed at taking gender into account in public policy. In Vienna, this is called gender mainstreaming.

Gender mainstreaming has been in place in the Austrian capital since the early 1990s. In practice, this means city administrators create laws, rules and regulations that benefit men and women equally. The goal is to provide equal access to city resources. And so far, officials say it’s working.

Vienna has adopted gender mainstreaming in a number of areas of city administration, including education and health care policy. But nowhere has it had more of an impact than on the field of urban planning. More than sixty pilot projects have been carried out to date. As the size and scale of these projects increase, gender mainstreaming has become a force that is literally reshaping the city….

[citymaus]

'For me, this is paradise': life in the Spanish city that banned cars

In Pontevedra, the usual soundtrack of a Spanish city has been replaced by the tweeting of birds and the chatter of humans

“Listen,” says the mayor, opening the windows of his office. From the street below rises the sound of human voices. “Before I became mayor 14,000 cars passed along this street every day. More cars passed through the city in a day than there are people living here.”

Miguel Anxo Fernández Lores has been mayor of the Galician city since 1999. His philosophy is simple: owning a car doesn’t give you the right to occupy the public space.

“How can it be that the elderly or children aren’t able to use the street because of cars?” asks César Mosquera, the city’s head of infrastructures. “How can it be that private property – the car – occupies the public space?”

a metro-style map of pontevedra shows typical walking times. 

“They stopped cars crossing the city and got rid of street parking, as people looking for a place to park is what causes the most congestion. They closed all surface car parks in the city centre and opened underground ones and others on the periphery, with 1,686 free places. They got rid of traffic lights in favour of roundabouts, extended the car-free zone from the old city to the 18th-century area, and used traffic calming in the outer zones to bring the speed limit down to 30km/h.

The benefits are numerous. On the same streets where 30 people died in traffic accidents from 1996 to 2006, only three died in the subsequent 10 years, and none since 2009. CO2 emissions are down 70%, nearly three-quarters of what were car journeys are now made on foot or by bicycle, and, while other towns in the region are shrinking, central Pontevedra has gained 12,000 new inhabitants. Also, withholding planning permission for big shopping centres has meant that small businesses – which elsewhere have been unable to withstand Spain’s prolonged economic crisis – have managed to stay afloat.

flickr/rodolforamallo

“The city is the perfect size for pedestrianisation,” says local architect Rogelio Carballo Soler. “You can cross the entire city in 25 minutes. There are things you could criticise, but there’s nothing that would make you reject this model.”

read more: guardian, 18.09.18. 

[worldurbanplanning]

. Location | São João de Brito, Lisbon, Portugal

São João de Brito is an old township of Lisbon created in 1959 during the administrative city reform. It was led to extinction through the administrative reorganisation carried out in 2012. The former township now has about 12,000 inhabitants today.

Here from Conde de Ficalho street, a street filled with townhouses in 3 stories placed neatly towards the street.

#lisbon #lisboa #portugal #portuguese #worldurbanplanning #architecture #cityplanning #urbanplanning #landscapearchitecture #city #architexture #aerial #aerialview #drone #townhouse #buildings #도시 #도시계획 #مدينة #포르투갈 #리스본 #street #park #residential #dronephotography #cityhistory (at Lisbon, Portugal) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxtbq4qh73a/?igshid=9n48ox7dhkcs

[wronghands1]

[sociology-of-space]

Landscapes should not only be regarded as physical spaces, as natural scientists usually understand them. In social sciences they are more often understood as social constructions resulting from individual and societal processes.

L. Gailing - ‘Dimensions of the Social Construction of Landscapes’ (via sociology-of-space)

[humanscalecities]

2014 in Placemaking: A Quiet Movement Takes Root  by @PPS_Placemaking

[mgbertoni]

[sociology-of-space]

The square as a contested public space exposed the conflictual nature of social relations and the design of the square itself assumed symbolic importance in this conflict. It should not be seen just as an arena where this particular power game was played, however, but, as one instance of the interaction of space and people which forms part of the routines for the reproduction of power relations in an advanced capitalist society.

 D. Sibley - 'Geographies of Exclusion' (1995)

[earthglance]

Magdeburg Water Bridge, Germany

[fabriciomora]

GEHL METHODOLOGY

[designcityla]

Seems so simple, but there is such a difference in this approach than to what normally happens…. At least here, in the US. We start with the car, and with the 10% of effort left after that, we deal with the building. We have no room for life and space in our process…..

[thislandisparkland]

When a park lives more for its design than for its people

Last month Toronto’s newest park, June Callwood Park, opened just south of Fort York. Designed by gh3, it’s a beautiful plaza with granite pavers, trees, and, its most eye-catching feature, bubble-gum pink elements threaded throughout that will find much love on Instagram, I’m sure.

And yet, after visiting the park I felt disappointed. 

June Callwood Park seems like a park that lives more for its design than for its people. As a piece of art, or a theatrical set, the park is wonderful. It has a compelling narrative behind its design in recreating the sonic waves of a June Callwood quote (“I believe in kindness”) in its granite pavers. Its pink highlights add the whimsy often lacking in Toronto parks.

But the park doesn’t make me want to stay and linger. In fact, it seems designed to let you flow through it and come out the other side with a few good pictures (though kids did seem intrigued by the pink maze-like structure).

It’s not fair to really judge a new park before its had a chance to integrate itself into the surrounding community, though. Often people will find weird, creative, unintended uses for a space. This may happen at June Callwood Park. Maybe they’ll add more seating. Maybe the trees just need to grow taller.

But hyper-designed public spaces seem to disinvite participation, which I think is a crucial part of a successful park. People need to feel they can make it their own, adopt it and hack its elements to suit their own needs.

When a park’s design is so fine-tuned and seemingly perfect already it presents itself as a toy which, rather than being played with, should instead be left in its packaging and admired from afar.

That’s not to say that the design of June Callwood Park is perfect. In fact, there are some key issues. One is that the gravel tree pits are flush with the granite of the park, meaning that small gravel pieces are already scattered throughout its surface. Another is that small changes in grade in the park’s south end create two inch lips that are hard to see and will present accessibility issues. 

We should want our parks to be beautiful. We should advocate for designs that are unique, whimsical, and bold. But we also need to be sure we aren’t creating museum pieces, but spaces that can be used and lived in.

[nickkahler]

Le Corbusier, Ville Radieuse, c. 1933

[acidadebranca]

1930 | Le Corbusier studies for “Ville Radieuse”

[sociology-of-space]

Much of the history of modern urban society is the history of the breaking of traditional values. The rise of capitalism, religious individualism and democracy have invariably affected the traditional values of church and kinship.

Harry Gold - 'The Sociology of Urban Life' (1982)

[newurbanismfilmfestival]

Traffic begets traffic! Posting this on the heels of the new report that the 405 widening worsened commute times on the 405!

[towns-and-cities]

why the idea of planning should not be abandoned

planning deals with important public issues;

it is oriented to obtaining results in the "real world" whose realization requires political strategies;

it is transactive, communicative, collaborative;

it seeks dynamic balances between the part and thw whole, the technical and normative, the empirical and theoretical, the pragmatic and utopian, the near present and the distant future, exchange values and use values;

it allows us to be visionary with an emphasis on values that include social justice, ecological sustainability, civic empowerment, social solidarity and human flourishing;

it is transdisciplinary and can be made operational at multiple scales, from local neighbourhoods to transnational and global spaces and the political forces they generate; and finally,

it is engaged in continuous social learning.

Insurgencies, John Friedman (2011)

[metr0pical-deactivated20151015]

Components of a True City by Leon Krier