Tactical Urbanism

sources: http://myriammahiques.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-is-tactical-urbanism.html

Tactical Urbanism is a kind of urbanism that usually focuses on small scale urban improvements in the efforts to test new concepts before making final substantial changes. Compared to other branches of urbanism, it has five characteristics: planned and phased approach; local solutions; short-term commitment and realistic expectations; low-risks with a possibly high reward; and the control of social capital.

The implementing short-term, low-budget projects of Tactical Urbanism usually take the form of re-discovering and reusing lost urban spaces by turning those spaces into temporary public use,such as turning the surplus parking into resting places. A lot of these practices focus on the street and block scale, aiming to promote livable streets and neighborhood vitality. And in most cases, the leaders of these bottom-up tactics are local advocates, local businesses, non-profits or community groups. To sum up, I think Tactical Urbanism, as a more flexible, community-engaged short-term renovation strategy, can definitely be applied globally but only as the complement of other main stream of urbanism.

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)

Arcology

Arcology is a word coined by Paolo Soleri, an Italian architecture. It is the combination of the words "architecture" and "ecology" and is popular in recent years. This is a kind of building, with high human population density, sustainably supplying all or most of the resources we need for comfortable living and also reduce human impacts to environment at the same time. It can provide a large amount of sunshine, water, energy, food and suitable climate inside the architecture and limit the pollution to almost zero. It aims to provide all the resources by itself and reduce its impacts on nature as most as possible.

An arcology is like a city in a building but it's much more environmental friendly. It contains a variety of residential, commercial and agricultural facilities and advanced transportation system. It doesn't need connection to municipal or urban infrastructure to operate. It is a way to combat urban sprawl and the waste of energy. It highlights the importance of the use of social resources and the reduction of natural resources.