UTM-FAB Summer course: Planning in Developing Metropolitan Regions

UTM-FAB is organizing a summer course this year as following:

Summer course title: Planning in Developing Metropolitan Regions
Date: 18th - 31st July 2010

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia is announcing the UTM2010 Summer School in Urban and Regional Planning "Planning in Developing Metropolitan Regions". It will be held from July 18th till July 31st, 2010 in Johor Bahru, Johore, Malaysia.

The summer school features advanced courses for graduate students and young researchers in the field of urban planning, metropolitan planning, and urban and transnational studies.

It consists of 2 weeks on site workshop with excursions in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Iskandar Malaysia Corridor. One online preparation week will precede the event.

The program aims to equip participants with urban management and planning knowledge to understand the complex metropolitan planning issues in fast developing countries. This will also help them to apply the knowledge in design and project planning of neighborhood or a city.

The summer school is organized by UTM in collaboration with Curtin University. Decisions for admission are made on a case by case and first come first served bases. We have applicants from all over the world. Therefore the earlier you apply the better.

http://utm2010.blogspot.com/

PLUG & PLAN

In the last 15 years Helsinki and Tallinn have been developing a bottom-up partnership led to strength local economy in Estonia and global benefits for Finnish companies. This partnership is bringing many advantages to both cities, but also disadvantages especially in Tallinn. Disadvantages are, for instance, social segregation, environmental pollution, and traffic congestion. A more balanced structure will help the HTR to compete with other cities in the Baltic Sea Region, allowing a better way of live for its inhabitants.

see: http://www.cityleft.altervista.org/


Border Cities_presentation+exhibition

Flyer_trashback_bauhaus

trashback...an ID-card of the urban society in Europe today, more than ever,trash contributes to give us a sharp picture of our urban society. a great amount of objects that are a part of our daily life are thrown away: bottles,toys,shoes,fridges,TVs,PCs,cans,and papers are all part of the "inconvenient landscape",these can be found in the corner shadows in our cities. in Dessau we can find all these things in Rodebille Viertel. Here we have an interesting case study from which we can try to draw-up the life style of the urban society. [a.rizzo-r.micheller-r.santacruz-s.krishnamurthye. soares-t.jonsson]


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Shrinking countryside in Sicily

see:
http://www.bda.unict.it/Pagina/It/La_Rivista/0/2007/10/31/1152_.aspx



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ARCHIPELAGO CITY

In 2007/2008, the Border Cities Kolleg, facilitated by the Germany-based Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, brought together an international group of young planners, architects, artists and urbanists to explore the complex dynamics of trans-national urbanism in the Baltic Sea Region.

Within this framework our group came together to consider the cities of Helsinki and Tallinn as a case of EU spatial policy implementation. Region makers such as EUREGIO view the two cities as part of an emerging European Region, one that opens an opportunity to enhance economic and administrative capacities, as well as to expand transportation and distribution networks. These in turn form or enhance a number of interweaving bonds.

The focus of our group research was to see how far this notion of region building has progressed, compared with past and present common identity building processes. The cross border effects as well as historical pre-conditions manifest in the urban fabric of Tallinn appeared to us as an archipelago of ‘islands’, each with different economic, social, and cultural milieus; segregations overlooked or underconsidered by city planners and administrators. The model of the archipelago also created an inverse space between these hegemonic ‘islands’ where new inputs can enrich HTR’s diversity.

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Abruzzo

P2PFOUNDCITIES: Project Proposal for the Reconstruction and the Preservation of Abruzzo


We present a scheme for efficient transitional housing for the communities of Abruzzo accounting for the need to maintain the social cohesion of original communities under reconstruction. With this proposal we hope to offer a comprehensive strategy that will serve as a model for similar contexts worldwide.
What we propose is a form of transitional architecture specifically intended to quickly re-establish the functional 'social infrastructure' of damaged towns in ways similar to the original architecture being restored and in the immediate proximity of the original towns so that people are 'at home' and able to function as a community to support the restoration effort. Our key tool for this is a concept called Peer-To-Peer Architecture; building methods that allow the inhabitants of a community to design and spontaneously redesign their habitat as they see fit. Our main priority is, in fact, to develop a design process which is open to the local community. We think that after establishing a nucleus of our cargotecture we could then involve local stakeholders in the development of temporary settlements. This participation process is actually coherent to our P2P ideal. We think that for the self-sustainability of any design process a direct involvement of locals must be achieved.

Plug & Plan urban centers are a system of temporary, removable, and adaptable urban workshops creating the necessary space to allow experts (say architects, planners, region makers, researchers) and non-experts (say NGOs, inhabitants) interaction.
We have called this approach Urbanism 3.0, a new way to deal with urban issues, where trans-disciplinary research and P2P urbanism merge together for the study/planning/developing of urban environments. This conferencing approach is not only intended to be a mode of collaborative design but also a means to restoring a sense of empowerment to the members of the community.

The use of adapted ISO shipping containers -often called 'cargotecture'- for relief shelter is nothing new and has many advantages in the role of emergency relief and transitional shelter. However, we propose to use this technology in a very different way. We propose to use containers as modular elements for the construction of complex multi-storey structures formed of single, pair, triplet and quad side-by-side room sets with a number of additional accessory elements such as stairways, walkways, pergolas, and outdoor decking. These would be combined into larger conjoined complexes serving as neighborhood clusters -microvillages-, freely designed and adapted collaboratively by their own inhabitants in order to approximate some of the character of their original homes and reestablish, in parallel, the same social, commercial, industrial functions of damaged structures under restoration.

The basic module set for our system is composed of the following structural elements;

- Shelter Units: basic 20'x8' finished building units for housing and other uses composed of single-room and multi-room sets with one or both ends fitted with windows or sliding door units.

- Shelter Accessories: special purpose single container modules for pre-finished bathrooms, kitchens, utility systems, staircases, balcony/decks, repositionable friction-stay partitions, rooftop gardens and decks, and the like.

- Open Space Modules: containers modified with no walls used to create outdoor spaces and outdoor structures like gazebos and seating areas interconnected to the shelter modules. Would also be used as open interstitial elements to support raised/cantilevered portions of the shelter structures.

- Special Purpose Modules: concerned mostly with infrastructure systems including solar/wind power, telecommunications, water supply, waste processing (though most dwellings may employ marine incinerating toilets), trash handling, etc. Would also include kiosks for small shops and outdoor cafes and certain health and recreational facilities.

- Industrial Units: simple work-shed variation of the Shelter Units intended for light industrial applications and used for local container modding facilities as well as work facilities for the ongoing restoration work. The free demountability of the structures also means that the initial community design is not set in stone. At any time things that prove less workable or effective than originally anticipated or which must be updated to suit changes in the neighborhood situation, can be changed with minimum disruption to the community. Ultimately, these transitional structures would disappear completely from their sites leaving no trace.

*** This project was submitted to an international open context held in June in Italy and titled “Un’idea per la ricostruzione”. Together with other proposals, it was selected Among 204 participants for a honorable mention.***

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