Architecture, Volume 3, Issue 1 (March 2023) – 9 articles

With the intensification of population aging and the increasing awareness of public health protection in the post-epidemic era, the renewal of the old urban community neighborhood space is facing many new challenges and problems. Neighborhood Public Open Space (POS) is the main place for people to carry out various social activities in community life. The quality of the social interaction environment that a neighborhood POS can provide can have a vital impact on people’s well-being, as well as their physical and mental health. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to identify and clarify the key physical environmental design attributes/features of the old urban community neighborhood POS, and to explore the relationship between them from the perspective of creating a high-quality social environment. Through the investigation of relevant cases in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, China, the classification performance of each case on the key physical and environmental elements is used as the conditional attribute, and the quality of the social interaction environment in the current situation of each case is used as the decision making attribute to conduct a data mining analysis. Using rough set theory, this study screened out four important elements: greenbelt form planning (C₁); ped and bike system (C₂); space organization and zoning planning (C₆); Public facilities (C₈). Moreover, this study also presents a set of hierarchical decision rules to describe the classification status of the matching physical environmental design elements when the social interaction environment reaches a high quality in the neighborhood POS. This study provides local policy makers with key current situation assessment and diagnostic tools in urban-built environmental renewal projects. The results of this study can help designers draw up the renovation design plans of neighborhood POS on the basis of efficiently obtaining the practical experience of relevant cases, and then create a high-quality social interaction environment. Full article

One of the highest risk groups the highest during COVID-19 were chronic patients. In addition to being a population at risk, in the lockdown they had to combine the pandemic with their own disease. Through a qualitative study of visual–emotional analysis, the perception of patients and their social environment (immediate support network) about the domestic confinement in Spain was requested during the State of Alarm in the Spring of 2020. For this, 33 participants filled out an online questionnaire with narratives and images describing their experiences. They were asked to share their experiences about quarantine from several perspectives of the housing spaces: the workplace (or alternatively, if they did not work, the most used occupational space), the least pleasant spaces or aspects of the dwelling and the most pleasant or comfortable area. The results suggested the importance for participants of natural and adequate lighting in spaces and tidiness, with both being linked to well-valued spaces. Moreover, rest was the activity most undertaken, for those who did not telework. Likewise, the narratives provided by participants were mostly positive, despite their condition, maybe due to their own coping with the disease. Dwellings were the adaptive means to tackle the situation of physical isolation as a place of protection against an external threat. The living room and bedrooms were chosen as the most prominent places. The characteristics of the dwellings conditioned the experiences lived during the quarantine of chronic patients. Full article

Radical cities have historically been hotbeds of transformative paradigms, political changes, activism, and social movements, and have given rise to visionary ideas, utopian projects, revolutionary ideologies, and debates. These cities have served as incubators for innovative ideas, idealistic projects, revolutionary philosophies, and lively debates. The streets, squares, and public spaces of radical cities have been the backdrop for protests, uprisings, and social movements that have had both local and global significance. This research project aims to explore and reimagine radical cities and urban activism using a variety of visual and collaborative pedagogical approaches. This project will study and categorize these cities through comparative case studies from different regions, including North America, and Latin America, and beyond, in order to better understand and interpret pivotal societal transitions. Full article

In Denmark, appropriate architecture for aging is an engaging topic, often explored through the use of architectural competitions. Since 2013, national guidelines for homelike architecture for eldercare have been in place, open for use in contemporaneous competitions. This study is focused on architectural competitions prior to 2013 and the development of modern architecture for aging. Based on reports on competitions in professional publications for architects, this study covers the period of 1899–2012. Inspired by the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s view of architecture as a spatial practice that ‘does not invoke what no longer is there but what has become through what is no longer present’, the present study revisits competitions on architecture for aging in search of inspirational input and links to the national socio-political discussion. This study uses case study methodology with a mixed method approach. A total of 76 competitions are identified, mainly organized by Danish municipalities, and are linked to four paradigms in social legislations. It is concluded that early competitions defined spatial prototypes, both for the homelike setting and the institutional environment, which have been continuously revisited. Since 2008, homelikeness has become the main design criterion for architecture for the frail aging population with an increasing dependency on caregiving. Full article

This paper is based on 8 months of sociological participatory fieldwork at the office of Gottlieb Paludan Architects, following the design process of a new concourse area for Ny Ellebjerg Station in Copenhagen, Denmark. The study aims to trace what presence users with physical disabilities possessed during a design process in which they were not physically present or explicitly involved. The study bases its findings on the visual material produced during the design process by the employees of Gottlieb Paludan Architects as well as the thoughts and discussions of practitioners. Drawing on actor-network theory, the study describes and analyses these human and non-human actors as they constitute and contribute to the design process. The study finds that users with physical disabilities were present within the design process through an implicit generalized presence and an explicit required presence. Generalized presence refers to those instances where the architectural qualities that were strived for in the project implicitly aligned with the needs of users with physical disabilities. Required presence refers to those instances during the design process where accessibility demands from client guidelines or building regulations played an important role. Full article

The Administration of the Basque Country has been responsible for public housing since 1981. Since then, more than 104,000 protected housing units have been built for 2,200,000 inhabitants, 34,000 of which have been directly promoted by the Basque Government. To better adapt its policies to the requirements of a new contemporary society, the Housing Department of the Basque Government has developed a new Habitability Decree in 2022. This Decree aims to update housing to the new ways of living in Basque society and to incorporate new social requirements regarding housing, such as universal accessibility, gender perspective, productive housing, and remote work, while trying to open new ways to improve flexibility of the housing stock. This article analyses some of the key aspects of the new Decree and one of the newly regulated typologies for temporary housing aimed at young and older populations. In addition to the critical selection of the most relevant aspects of the Decree, this article aims at contextualising its requirements in the European context and the broader reference framework of the housing crisis in the Basque Country. To that end, the most notable novelties of the Decree are presented alongside the analysis of 13 temporary housing projects developed by the Housing Department before the approval of the Decree, placing special emphasis on the issue of over-occupation. The analysis makes it possible to typologically characterise the temporary accommodation built to date and to compare the new minimum living space requirements per person with other international regulations. As a conclusion, a discussion is offered about the usefulness of the Decree for adapting new housing in the Basque country to the 21st century, and for preventing the issue of overcrowding. Full article

The architectural façade has been a site of intensive experimentation and innovation throughout the 20th century, something that continues to this day, resulting in a vast range of architectural imagery, often incohesive in the post-modern reality. This research explores contemporary façade types and classifies the character of exterior building surfaces. In this paper, we aim to explore how the façade has been designed and has affected its surroundings. How and why has the façade evolved in the ways that it has? Is it the material innovation, structural novelty, the new design techniques or new aesthetics? We adopt a method of analytical induction to extract the most prevalent façade themes from relevant contemporary literature, characterize their meanings and categorize them in order to better explain the many sides of the façade. We set out to define the principles of façade design to then develop a general categorization, which can be applied to most building façades in recent history. Full article