Brownfields

"Brownfield sites are abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use. Expansion or redevelopment of such a facility may be complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations. In the United States urban planning jargon, a brownfield site (or simply a brownfield) is land previously used for industrial purposes or certain commercial uses. The land may be contaminated by low concentrations of hazardous waste or pollution, and has the potential to be reused once it is cle
aned up. Land that is more severely contaminated and has high concentrations of hazardous waste or pollution, such as a Superfund site, does not fall under the brownfield classification. Mothballed brownfields are properties that the owners are not willing to transfer or put to productive reuse." (http://en
.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownfield_land)

(Example of brownfields, image author: Dumelow)

Brown fields are lands used to be used as industry field or commercial field and are lightly polluted. Some highly polluted lands are not brownfiles. Brownfields are not abandoned lands. They are potential developing land and can be of great value if developed successfully. Usually brownfields are located in the suburban industrial districts, and sometimes may be located in old residential districts when the lands are polluted by some service facilities.

Now more and more designers are trying to explore methods to reuse and redevelop urban brownfields because of the limitation of available lands. Redeveloping the brownfields can decrease the developing pressure of urban green fields. Usually developing brownfields need a longer progress time because it takes time for the fields to recover.

(Example of the reuse of brownfields project, image author:Scott Ehardt)

Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism. Cosmopolitanism may entail some sort of world government or it may simply refer to more inclusive moral, economic, and/or political relationships between nations or individuals of different nations. A person who adheres to the idea of cosmopolitanism in any of its forms is called cosmopolite. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitanism)

In my opinion, cosmopolitanism should be the special turf of urbanists and architects. Standing against tribalism sectarian division and universalism of global placelessness, cosmopolitanism not only has the creation and reinforcement of the unique and particular qualities of places, but also welcomes immigrant populations, the disenfranchised and the poor into the places to make diversity, which encourage individuals from different places to form relationships of mutual respects.

Sidewalk

A sidewalk is a pedestrian path along the side of a road. A sidewalk may accommodate moderate changes in grade (height) and is normally separated from the vehicular section by a curbThere may also be a strip of vegetation, grass or bushes or trees or a combination of these between the pedestrian section and the vehicular section.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidewalk)

The sidewalk, severs far more purposes besides carrying pedestrian. It acts as the onjunction of the buildings and other users that border it. It provides a place that people could participate into the city life. Nowadays, a csidewalk by itself is nothing. It may be used for rich social spaces ground retail, markets by busking musicians or bicycles.

City of Global Capitalism

Through decades after the WWII, it is not difficult to claim that still we are living in the consequences of Modernism, and the merge of cities of global capitalism is one of them, inevitably, which is the expansion of capitalism based with the key of Modernism. Everything in the process of the city growth is not evaluated by the essence of the process, instead, the efficiency, being copy-able, the scale of global development, and the common value serving as the vital criteria for a city. Indeed, all these elements provided us with the brand new world that the scale were redefined by the efficiency of capital flow rather than the physical distance, for example , as a banker, or even an “urban designer”, you can decide what is going to happen in China when you sitting in the office in NYC; however, coming with, global capitalism is destroying the identity of cities, the self-protection of regional economy system such as the recent financial crisis which is the aftermath for the all the countries engaged in globalization, as is shown in the diagrams and photos.

the diagram is original composed by Wilson

Luckily, people are coming to realize the problem of uncontrolled globalization. Some architects, like Utzon, Aalto, are working to recalling the sense of places and for now there being the theory of critical regionalism headed by Tzonis, and so forth. Also in the field of urban design there are so many pacers, like Jan Gehl.

Olfactory

Olfactory which is one of the five basic sensations of human is always ignored by us in describing and feeling architecture and city because it is invisible. But when we try to experience the space by sense of smell, I really find something. Smell of the space is influenced by the wind direction, temperature and humidity. So the description of smell can reflect the climate and air quality of a city. On the other hand, smell is always connected to the memory of human and can conjure images. The smell of fresh water may lead us to think about the blue ocean, the smell of smoke may lead us the image of burned house. What is more, smell is also related to the culture. The smell of east world may be easily distinct from the west. Finally, It is a subjective sensation that everyone’s description of a specific smell may be different.
Here are how some architecture express smell visibally.

"    Léviathan Thot, Ernesto Neto
As part of the Paris Autumn Festival, Neto displayed Léviathan Thot in the Panthéon, Paris in 2006. Neto used tulle and polystyrene suspended from the ceiling to create a new relationship between space and the body. The translucent skin allowed for visitors to see the scents establishing a tension wanting to touch and play with the hanging floral stigma releasing more scents into the air. Through the passage of time, the scent dissipated into the space and would visitors would need to interact with it again (spray more perfume into the room).Like perfume which encompasses the space all around, Léviathan Thot provided a new spatialized scent formula which worked with gravity to place smells directly in front of the nose like a top note. The aromatic combination included black pepper, powdered cloves, turmeric, ginger and sand representing a flower with unique colors and perfume. The chandelier was intended to be touched, seen and smelled. Residue of the different spices and herbs left circles on the floor as a remnant of the installation (like the base of the perfume)."


"Eating the City, Song DongEating the City is a series of installations by Song Dong beginning in 2006. He recreates a mini-replica of the city in wafers, cookies, biscuits and candy. Viewers are presented with a sweet olfactory experience of the city rather than the usual urban stench of steam, garbage, and other urban pollution odors. Because food is an edible product, Dong explores it the temporality of a city through a decomposing, non-permanent material. The public is allowed to nibble the exhibit as their human footprint changes the daily footprint of the modern city landscape."


http://jodipfister.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/territories-of-olfaction/

Infrastructural Urbanism

Infrastructural Urbanism is a branch of urbanism which offers a new model for practice and a renewed sense of architecture's potential to structure the future of the city.  ( Infrastructure Urbanism, Stan Allen）

In our studio's recent assignment, we are designing a series of infrastructure to improve riverfront area in Detroit. This is a way to work at the larger scale that escapes master planning. However, that doesn't mean that we could neglect mapping,  projection, notation and visualization. We are just designing infrastructural projects to give people some brand-new experience.

Like the Swimming Pool showing left, the artist designed this infrastructural project to attract people to the site area. It worked really well. Human curiosity is been considered a lot in this case. Our projects are the same, to design  infrastructural projects to attract people to Detroit and make it revatalized.

Posted by Shuchen Lin

Nuisance

"Under the common law, persons in possession of real property (land owners, lease holders etc.) are entitled to the quiet enjoyment of their lands. However this doesn't include visitors or those who aren't considered to have an interest in the land. If a neighbour interferes with that quiet enjoyment, either by creating smells, sounds, pollution or any other hazard that extends past the boundaries of the property, the affected party may make a claim in nuisance"(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuisance)

category and difference: Public nuisance and Private nuisance. The defference between two kinds of nuisances is the nature of the interest invaded. A public nuisance interferes with the rights of the public, whereas the private nuisance interferes with the rights of private, such as the use and enjoyment of the land.(land use planning and development regulation law)

Remedies: Public nuisance's remedy is injunction, which means the court stop the public interest invaded activities by force. Moreover, the private nuisance's remedies are different. Damages is an usual remedy, but sometimes the court may give injunction.(land use planning and development regulation law)

                   http://www.flickr.com/photos/grebo_guru/13122681/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Holism

Holism

Holism means “a theory that the universe and especially living nature is correctly seen in terms of interacting wholes( as of living organisms) that are more than the mere sum of elementary particles” (www.m-w.com).

The holism theory is widely used in whole building design, ecology research and public management since the term was coined by a South African Prime Minister and philosopher, Jan Christian Smuts, in 1926. Holism emphasizes the interdependent relationships among diversified patterns and arrangements. There is no individual part can exist without other parts’ involvements. In sustainable urban design, holism provides us a broader vision to consider urban development. For example, climate change may arouse waterfront cities’ self conscious in urban safety. Oil crisis may change people’s mind toward public transportation. Transformation of industry may set up a chain reaction in death and life of global cities. In a word, everything is connected together. Design is to find these connections and highlight on some certain nodes.

The picture is cited from (http://www.wbdg.org/wbdg_approach.php)

“A Holistic Design Philosophy---Whole Building Design provides the strategies to achieve a true high-performance building: one that is cost-effective over its entire life cycle, safe, secure, accessible, flexible, aesthetic, productive, and sustainable.” (http://www.wbdg.org/wbdg_approach.php)

Landscape ecology

"Landscape ecology is the science of studying and improving relationship between urban development and ecological processes in the environment and particular ecosystems.""The term landscape ecology was coined by Carl Troll, a German Geographer, in 1939."1

Ecology, if defined in a strict way, is a branch of the biological sciences studying the complex relations between organisms and their environment.2 Now ecology could mean the research on human being with the whole environment even including the culture as well. And landscape, as it develops into a larger scale, is no longer limited within "nature". It becomes a part of urban space rather than a opposed force to urbanism. "The most salient characteristics of landscape ecology are its emphasis on the relationship among pattern, process and scale and its focus on broad-scale ecological and environmental issues. These necessitate the coupling between bio-physical and socio-economic sciences"3

Picture from http://www.iowaytrail.org/7-Landscape-Ecology-Trail.jpg

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_ecology

2. As defined by Eugene P. Odum and Howard T. Odum in the classic text Fundamentals of Ecology (third edition) (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1953 [1971])

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_ecology

Distribution

Distribution in economics refers to the way total output, income, or wealth is distributed among individuals or among the factors of production (such as labour, land, and capital).( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_economics)

According to Richard Musgrave (1959), distribution is one of the three functional branches of government (the other two are stabilization and allocation). Distribution is different from allocation because its goal is equitable income distribution, rather than efficient resource use. Distribution is a representative of normative economics (content from Musgrave, Richard A. (1959). The Theory of Public Finance: A Study in Public Economy). Most often it refers to progressive redistribution, from the rich to the poor, although it may also refer to regressive redistribution, from the poor to the rich. The progressive income tax that the US Government practices now is a kind of progressive distribution (content from Wikipedia).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_redistribution

Figure 1 is an example of how a subsidy (a type of distribution) for a good (Good Y in the figure) will increase the amount of the subsidized good purchased by a greater portion than it increases the amount of the non-subsidized good purchased (Good X), as a result of the substitution effect.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_redistribution)

By Qi Shen

Public Space

"A public space is a social space such as a town square that is open and accessible to all, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level. One of the earliest examples of public spaces are commons. For example, no fees or paid tickets are required for entry, nor are the entrants discriminated based on background." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_space).

Public space is built to serve the society for multiple purposes. It can add the beauty to the surrounding environment of citizens; it can provide people with a place to gather together and hang out; it can also present as a symbol of certain area. Whether a public space can be successful or not is influenced by many social factors. The economic development level, the historical experience, the culture background, and many other aspects of a society can influence the use of a public space. Therefore, building a public space is not only a geographical issue but also a social issue for planners.






View at Piazza della Signoria from the front balcony of Palazzo Vecchio, in Florence. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Piazza_della_Signoria.jpg)

Transit-oriented development

Sources: http://funniez.net/Latest/bodyheatforabuilding.html

Sources: http://www.collaborativelandscape.org/wiki/Ostermalmstorg

Definition: Transit-oriented development is a city planning and design principle striving to maximize access to public transport. By locating a mixture of housing, office, retail and other amenities within a half-mile of public transportation, it advocates a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood accompanied with better and equal access to jobs and urban resources. (content from wikipedia.org).

In the effort to stop the spreading of the suburbanization and control the decentralization after the World War II, American architect and urbanist Peter Calthorpe sparked the notion of mixed-use development and density around transit in the 1990s. As the pioneer of New Urbanism, Peter Calthorpe illustrated his idea about the compact and active use of transit in the neighborhood development in his book "The American Metropolis-Ecology, Community, and the American Dream" in 1993. (content from The Transit Metropolis)

However, unlike the prevailing of New Urbanism in the states in the past decades, especially in the new suburban town construction, there had not been a lot of mature practice of TOD. Except in some old metropolis such as New York or Chicago, where the train or metro has been kept as the connection tool for the nearby suburban area to the downtown, the transit cease to achieve popularization in the United States. But if you look outside the United States, you will find that more than half a century ago, some cities in Europe had already adopted a regional vision of transit, using a well-developed transit system to stimulate and find new growth for economy and re-locate its job market.

The best example of rail-based metropolis might be Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden.Stockholm benefited a lot from the development of rail transit after using rail transit to transform a monocentric city to polycentric metropolis. It is maybe the first and only one Western European city where a integrated public transit system is prevailing while the automobility is receding. Why the rail transit can be successful in Stockholm, an affluent city with the highest automobile occupancy rate ? The primary reason responsible for the huge success of rail transit would be the coordination of new town development and rail transit services under an integrated and farsighted, regional planning framework.

Voided Biaxial Slab

Voided biaxial slabs are reinforced concrete slabs in which voids reduce the amount of concrete. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voided_biaxial_slab)

The voided biaxial slabs can be also called BubbleDeck technology, which is a brand. "The BubbleDeck technology comprises a biaxial carrying hollow slab in which plastic balls serves the purposes of eliminating concrete that has no carrying effect. In other words, it removes the non working dead load, while maintaining biaxial strength."(http://www.bubbledeck.com/)

SANAA uses this technology in their project of zulleverin school of management, which reduces the weight of the slab by 30% and also the width of the premier wall which is also functioned as a part of structure in order to achieve a thiner and lighter outlook of the pure white box.

Typology

Typology is a classification according to a general type. This is a term widely used in many fields of study. In the area of architecture and urban planning, more specifically, " is the taxonomic classification of (usually physical) characteristics commonly found in buildings and urban places, according to their association with different categories, such as intensity of development (from natural or rural to highly urban), degrees of formality, and school of thought (for example, modernist or traditional). " --Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typology_(urban_planning_and_architecture)

(image: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6601781)

Further, this term shows that the relatively unclear inner functions of a certain building may be indicated by its physical appearance. In the image above, six same designed houses are showing different living states. The satellite receiver reveals a TV, or two TVs when there are two receivers. The mottled wall may be a sign of an abandoned house. These connections between inner and outer of a building can be used as a design technique as well as a field of architectural or urban study.

Conduit Urbanism

Defination: Conduit Urbanism explores large-scale systems and networks of the Great Lakes Megaregion. Positioned within the lineage of speculative, visionary urban proposals, this work investigates how existing infrastructural systems—designed for the 20th century, currently on the edge of maximum capacity and immanent collapse—might be modified and mobilized to address the needs of the 21st century and beyond. How might the specific characteristics of these systems that lie at the root of their contemporary failure be reconsidered in terms of their inherent potential for modification and enhancement. (http://www.rvtr.com/research/research-a/)

Image from: http://www.rvtr.com/files/gimgs/15_rvtrwebpch.jpg

From my understanding, the Conduit Urbanism researchers regard the network of infrastructure(highway, railway, pipeline, etc) as the "spatial matrix" of conduit, which is the vital element supporting the movement of people, freight, and power. If architects and city planners fully recognize the importance of this "spatial matrix" of conduit and fully develop the potential of this matrix to improve our living environment, our cities might have a brighter future.

Green building

Green building refers to a kind of building that protects resources, environments and human health. Not limited to growing plants on roofs and balconies, it is more about maintain harmony relationships with nature. The green building strategies include: making full use of solar energy, improving air insulation, employing natural ventilation structures, designing site plan that suitable for local climate, using less and recyclable constructing materials, consuming less energy, using renewable energy and producing less waste materials, etc.

One example of green building is the INTEGER Millenium House, Watford, UK.

Its building construction highlights inclue:

1. Materials for the building fabric were selected for sustainability, low embodied energy, long life and low maintenance.

2. A low maintenance turf roof provides good insulation, is visually attractive and provides a natural alternative to conventional roof materials.

3. Off-site fabrication of components included pre-cast concrete floor slabs and timber panels for the superstructure insulated with 170mm of cellulose recycled paper.

4. Standard components from the commercial glasshouse industry were used to construct the conservatory.

5. Bathroom modules similar to those originally designed for the off-shore oil industry were craned into the site as fully completed timber-framed rooms.

Its running technical systems include:

1. A heat pump extracts energy from water circulating in a 50m deep borehole. Although the heat pump runs on electricity, it is very efficient using only one unit of electricity for every three units of heat provided.

2. Solar water heaters mounted on the roof can provide free hot water at up to 95°C which is then pumped to a highly insulated hot water tank at 77°C. This water is then supplied at mains pressure around the house as required.

3. A grey water system treats and recycles water used for washing and bathing and re-uses it for flushing the toilet, reducing water usage by around 30%.

4. Rainwater is collected, treated and stored in an underground tank for garden irrigation and car washing.

（Picture and the project information sited from The INTEGER Millenium House pdf file www.ecbcs.org/docs/Annex_38_UK_Watford.pdf)