Anna Franta

In order to be able to continue functioning within the “capability of the Earth”, the sense of our development must be understood in the spirit of a completely different philosophy: we need to shift focus from the growth in quantity to the growth in quality. Growth in wisdom, knowledge and common sense, so that we can take good care of everything and everybody on the Earth, and this will be emanation of the new pan-human sense of responsibility. If the urbanised environment, being the basic one, is also to become a full-value environment for human existence, it will require continuous and universal improvement of its quality as well as new strategies, methods and scenarios for rational organisation of urbanised space that will be able to meet new challenges. It seems that ‘dramaturgically consistent logic of composition’ may, if the directorial structure, presented in this article, is to be used, become an original formula of creating city spatial scenarios, and a new, consistent and comprehensive form of urban public space. Scenarios built on the basis of the city “genotype”, in which urban “layers of memory” are the basis for adaptive transformations.

Territories of former large industrial plants constitute an equally large problem for cities where they are located. A fall of a factory entails not only the occurrence of the phenomenon of unemployment, but also the reduction of the tax receipts to the municipal budget. Cases which are particularly difficult to deal with are declining steelworks, as due to their sizes and specificity of the production technology they had a strong impact on the planning form of the city and its socioeconomic structure. The question of the future of post-steelworks areas is an issue of strategic importance for municipal authorities as well as for central administration. This paper describes the case of the steelworks in Belval. After its closure, authorities of Luxembourg along with private entities undertook a series of measures allowing to transform this brownfield site into a dynamically developing urban centre. The revitalisation process, conducted since the end of the 20th century, led to the occurrence of one of the most interesting transformations of post-industrial areas in Europe, the new growth axis of which is the knowledge-based development. The decision of the central administration to transfer the University of Luxembourg from the capital to the degraded areas of the former steelworks constitutes an answer to the demographic and economic problems of the entire country, recognising diversification of important services and public structures as a factor which may contribute to more sustainable development of the country by means of activation of local centres.
 

Artificial light, which thanks to new technologies gives us more and more possibilities of enriching and transforming the appearance of the space, unlike the natural and fire light can be recognised as a certain type of pollution of the natural environment. Light pollution seems to be an unavoidable effect of the contemporary urbanisation, hence the need of its effective control, in creative, economic, as well as ecological terms.

Arup is one of companies that try to organise and reconcile the currently undertaken measures with the consequences suffered so far. It has but one goal: synergy of advanced technologies and pro-environmental activity. Due to overillumination in cities, light pollution, and excessive energy consumption at night, Arup started to develop the tactics aimed to turn down the light in the urban space.

Respect for the existing architecture and adjustment of the applied solutions to the existing microclimate of the environment consti­tute ones of the main drivers of success of projects implemented by Arup.

The paper is devoted to the renewal of inner city districts, burdened with a difficult identity. The analysis focuses on the case study of the district of Hulme in Manchester. Within the perimeter of Hulme the attempts to revitalise the area burdened with bad reputation of the biggest slum in Manchester have been made twice. The paper presents the genesis of the bad reputation of the district, its effect on the degradation of the district, as well as it describes the strategies undertaken during both attempts of the revitalisation of Hulme.

Cities with history have ‘a good tradition’ of multicultural expressiveness. What are, however, new dimensions of social expressiveness; where are threats lurking, and where do opportunities reside for the 21st-century city? What is necessary is an intention of composition (in contrast to the quite commonly encountered intention of lack thereof) of parts and of the whole, and the vision of the ‘face’ of the city it entails, as well as the governing principles of formal coordination, coordination of activities, and of the dramaturgy of connections – sequences exhibiting different expressiveness. Public spaces of historical inner cities more and more often NEED to be supported by new public spaces, attractive somewhat differently. They also call for studies of a designing nature. In Ragusa, starting from the Re-use Ragusa 2014 International Workshop, architects-researchers took up issues of key importance for the advancement of inner city structures of this place, making use of the opportunities offered by a properly directed didactic process. The work was based on a thorough – albeit virtual, indirect – observation of the city, on the investigation of diversified problems, but also singularities, in search of the potential of specificity residing in individual areas of activities, including the ones which are seemingly less valuable. Ragusa transformed into a ‘lab city’. It became a place of a fascinating designing experiment, aimed to identify strategies promoting revitalisation of the city from the inside, starting from the resources and the potential it offers. The goal here was to notice and improve the values and opportunities presented by the location, to be able to accept new perspectives for this intentionally creative observation. It is paramount that such an ‘idealistic’ contribution be useful, offering an array of possible activities and opening up fields for further discussions by creating good models in compliance with the specificity and identity of the place, that is local communities and their needs in terms of individualised expression.

The goal of this paper is a confrontation of a study-based and idealistic design approach with the strategy of pragmatic / professional designing for a specific investor. It has the form of a comparative narration of a diploma dissertation with the current design-related activities, soon to be investment activities, referring to the Modlin Fortress. This allows to juxtapose hierarchies of values adopted in both cases and verify the legitimacy of premises underlying the decisions taken in the planning and designing process, and in the context of works of a design team, of mutual proportions in the contribution of pe ople influencing the design, and the order of performance of individual investment tasks.
 

Cities, authorities thereof, communities should pursue the high quality of urban public space which constitute a counterbalance for ‘a multi-stage fake’1 – private space, disguised as public space inside typical2 large-format retail facilities. It is the most effective pressure for the concept of large-format retail facilities to take into account the principles of sustainable development.

When heritage policies and benefits have gradually enabled the process of renovation of the most attractive historical cen­tres, the densest and poorest of them, not being able to count on the rescue provided by tourism, are doomed to suffer from their loss of ‘utilitas’ The double historic centre of the Sicilian city of Ragusa could be a perfect case offering an opportunity to experiment with the innovative potential of this condition. Ragusa is currently a city with the highest ratio of the real estate surface per capita in Italy. If today Ragusa Ibla regained its vitality as a tourist and nightlife destination, Ragusa Superiore needs a new and extensive regeneration process to be launched, which requires comprehensive planning strategies to be adopted and strong economic subsidies to be secured – as the first step, by organising an architectural and urban planning workshop devoted entirely to the historic centre of Ragusa Superiore, a part of a cycle of International Designing Workshops ‘Territories in Evolution” and drew on its years of experience. In any case and in each and every urban centre, basing on a general, common programme drawn up in advance, the objective of any designing workshop is to concentrate proactive skills of an international working group ‘in situ’. The Re-use Ragusa workshop very quickly unleashed a number of ideas, the effects of which can be considered specific and realistic methods of reviving the historic Ragusa. Thanks to the work during the workshop “Re-use Ragusa: Sustainable Strategies to Revive the City Centre”, the students and lectures who were lucky enough to experience the town on a daily basis: live and work here, recollecting their experience of only two weeks in the historic centre of Ragusa Superiore, demonstrated to themselves and to the town residents that positive thinking about an urban and architectural design may offer new perspectives which can creatively benefit from and enhance the already existing resources. The effects of this workshop are the fruit of successful, if unusual, cooperation between municipal authorities and administrators on the one hand and the university on the other, organising this wider highly professional international support.