Buildings alone do not matter, it is only the ensemble of streets, squares, and buildings and the way they fit together that comprises the true principles of good urbanism and…
Abstract
Buildings alone do not matter, it is only the ensemble of streets, squares, and buildings and the way they fit together that comprises the true principles of good urbanism and place making. One of the main rules of good urban design is the quality of the public space. This paper analyzes the importance of creating & maintaining a true public square in contemporary urban condition, as one of the built environments' pillars for sustaining social and cultural identity.
Criticism has been posed towards the (neo) romanticizing the importance of European squares (as some critics would call it “Postcard Squares”) in everyday life and contemporary town planning. Movements such as New Urbanism, which promote good urban design have not put squares that high on their urban design agendas. Also the usage of the historic European city's public realm model - the square - as the important ingredient for all urban places has not been forthcoming. To investigate this phenomena, and facilitate the discourse, The Square of the St. Blaise Church (Luza Square) and the Gunduliceva Poljana Square in the Old City of Dubrovnik, are analyzed and reflected upon through various data collection, theory reflections and urban design evaluation methods, such as Garham's Sense of Place Typology-Taxonomy.
If cities have livable and vibrant social spaces, do residents tend to have a stronger sense of community and sense of place? If such places are lacking, does the opposite happen?. This paper seeks out to answer these questions. Finally the paper also looks at how the phenomenon of creating good social spaces through creating ‘third places’ is achieved and confirmed in the squares of Dubrovnik.
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Alazar G Ejigu and Tigran Haas
The growing alienation of modernist public housing estates and their ethnically and socially excluded residents, as well as the neglected human potential-capital they symbolize…
Abstract
The growing alienation of modernist public housing estates and their ethnically and socially excluded residents, as well as the neglected human potential-capital they symbolize (not social burden), is a grotesque expression of the failure of a system driven by the profit motive and failed housing, planning and social policy, rather than by the requirement to satisfy sustainable urbanism and dignified and just housing for all. The modernist concept of architecture & urban planning, which emerged in response to a very particular set of regional circumstance, spread throughout the world in the 20th century. The result, where the idea was simplistically accepted, had disastrous consequences. The postmodernist approach on the other hand has given up altogether on the social agenda of architecture and housing. Paying particular attention to housing, this paper discusses the contrasting results of modernist and –or post modernist planning approaches in housing and its consequences. It also looks at the rather recent Sustainable Urbanism paradigm and the possibility that it might offer as an alternative or a new complement to housing planning and design; this in contrast to the modernist satellite-suburban generic type of living in most major European cities as well as in the developing countries. The study is based on multiple methods which include, descriptive and exploratory qualitative approach (observation, introspection, analysis and deduction), as well as Futurescape Method of selected cases in the American Housing Program HOPE VI, and from ethnographic survey of an ongoing large scale housing program in Ethiopia known as Integrated Housing Development Program (IHDP).