Architecture

This paper explores a collaborative web-based learning space named "Introduction to Housing" created in the context of the Erasmus Lifelong Learning Project OIKONET. The learning space mainly draws on the curriculum of the design studios in the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Cyprus and includes work from a 3D Visual Communication course at the University of Belgrade. All learning activities developed in this learning space aim at the introduction of students to housing studies through a collaborative learning environment that cuts across traditional and institutional boundaries. The paper starts with a brief discussion on design studio teaching, its importance in architectural education and recent impacts of emerging information technologies on traditional teaching methods. The transformation of the traditional design studio learning into a "blended" learning environment is then discussed through the presentation of the web-based learning space. The paper concludes with a discussion of the participants' experience which renders the proposed learning space as a fruitful and potentially innovative learning environment. Tutors had the opportunity to incorporate blended learning in their teaching and get familiar with different and diverse teaching methods and learning resources in different academic environments. Participating students on the other hand, were exposed to different cultural and academic contexts and were able to experience different methods of learning through the virtual campus.

This book chapter presents the findings of research on the spatial properties of Anexartisias, the traditional high street in the historical core of the city of Limassol, and a stretch of Makariou, the first inner ring road of the city built just after the World War II; once the edge of the city and now a central area. Space syntax analysis reveals that as Limassol grew, its integration core shifted towards the edge of the old city and then further out into the contemporary city. The spatial properties that once belonged to Anexartisias were appropriated by Makariou, which became a new high street with characteristics very different from its older counterpart, being a much wider, vehicular road. Despite the spatial changes, Anexartisias continues to retain the characteristics and functions of a high street, competing with and complementing its younger ‘sibling’.  Comparing the spatial features of the two streets six points in time (1880s, 1930s, 1960s, 1980s, 2000s and 2010s) while assessing their contemporary situation through land use, pedestrian and vehicular movement analyses, the question is raised as to whether there is such a thing as ‘spatial memory’. As centrality shifted with city growth and planning developed to suit the post-war car based society, how did Anexartisias retain high street characteristics typical of its former spatial properties? And how did Makariou turn from ring road to high street? The findings show that the historical spatial properties played an important role in the development of the function of the two high streets and that there are important differences between available uses. The analysis not only highlights the importance of considering historical spatial properties when analysing contemporary land and space use, but also points to the relevance of diachronic analysis for understanding and assessing how streets at the edges of cities may have the capability to transform into vibrant central high streets.

Analysing the relationship between urban form and society through time is key to understanding the patterns of socio-spatial phenomena observable in contemporary cities and the mechanisms through which such phenomena unfold. The engagement of space syntax research with historical comparative studies of urban form has opened up possibilities for studying the relationship between urban development and social phenomena through time. The theory and methods of space syntax have a positive contribution to make to this research agenda. They need, however, to be better integrated within a multifaceted research framework. While space syntax provides a reliable methodology to compare the city’s urban form at different points in time, the evolution of a city’s spatial structure is only one component of the processes which shape the city as a social entity. In recent years, relational theories such as Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and assemblage theory have highlighted the value of integrating different social science approaches in the analysis of social entities if we are to truly understand the complex processes which define the ways in which the social is realised in urban form. Although the implications of these theories in geography and urban studies have been widely explored, their relevance to space syntax research has received little attention. A meditation on their possible relationship informs the research presented in this paper. Drawing on key findings of an ongoing research project into the relation between social and spatial changes in the city of Nicosia through time (1883-2014), the argument advanced is that a critical reflection on the ways in which syntactical theory can engage with approaches from other disciplines is needed to inform methodological developments and facilitate the better interpretation of research findings in making spatial sense of historical social data.

A blended-learning approach was adopted to create a learning space to introduce architecture students to be basics of architectural design through the study of housing. Components of different courses from three European schools of architecture, in Spain, Cyprus and Serbia, were combined in a joint learning structure. The learning activities were structured as sequences which were carried out synchronously or asyn-chronously by students from the three schools. The main supporting technology was OIKODOMOS Work-spaces, an on-line learning environment specifically created to support the design and implementation of learning activities in collaboration based on a constructivist philosophy of learning.

Multiple, abrupt and often unexpected changes that cities face today due to globalization, massive internal flows of labor and migration, climate change, economic fluctuations and terrorism pose challenges of increasing complexity. On one hand, important global forces underpin the aforementioned changes, while on the other hand there seem to be alternative effects in cities around the world whose understanding entails taking into account local socio-spatial realities. Tensions between global forces and local identities entail a respective transformation of the built environment where the everyday life of the diverse and different groups living in cities unfolds. Contemporary urban contexts lead to an enormous increase in the complexity of the challenges architects have to deal with and have an evident impact on design practice and the design process itself; the latter has gradually become a complex process involving an increasing number of agents and types of knowledge. The future actors of the built environment, therefore, need to be trained to address effectively continuous changes and transformations, instability and the increased tensions between global dimensions and local contexts. Design studio pedagogy, still considered as the backbone of architectural education, needs to be informed and encountered in its broadest sense. This paper seeks to address these issues, in the educational context of the design studio offering a diversity of options on possible futures of architectural education. How well do we prepare students in an age of change and uncertainty? The tensions between global dynamics, cultural diversity and local realities are explored highlighting potential 'opportunities' to redefine the core of education for our future graduates by rethinking and redesigning the teaching and learning relationship.

The design studio provides possibilities for an integrated approach from the early stages of the design process, facilitating merging of individual knowledge and interdisciplinary research based knowledge, while enabling new knowledge inquiry and acquisition at various design stages. This mode of inquiry, which aims at crossing traditional research areas, can address the challenges of increasingly complex built forms, bringing together the various aspects of the built environment. Along these lines we suggest that different types of knowledge and knowledge production need to be an inherent part of the design process, which we believe includes individual (intuition, personal experiences, values, believes),rational(research based theoretical and scientific knowledge related to human beings, the environment, history, society) and design driven (new knowledge inquiry and acquisition at each intermediate design stage) ways of thinking and knowledge production, within an interdisciplinary context of collaboration.

This round table discussion addresses the educational aspect of urban morphology. It aims at raising and debating issues around how urban morphology is approached and taught across different institutions, starting from how the basic definition of urban morphology varies across different organisations and attempting to reach a consensus on the nature and scope of this field of study. Building onto this debate the participants will share and discuss their experiences of teaching urban morphology and what they find the most effective educational methods in this field, in particular with a view of providing students with a broad understanding of a variety of approaches as well as the skills to apply different methodologies both within research and practice. Finally, the organization of morphological knowledge for educational purposes will be tackled: how to present a wealth of concepts, a broad range of theoretical ideas and a significant number of practical skills to students at different stages of the educational process.

Design practice and urban morphology: teaching combined morphological approaches to the next generation of practitioners.

This third Round Table of the EPUM project builds upon previous discussions of the benefits and challenges of applying the different morphological approaches to the same case study of the historical centre of Porto during EPUM's first intensive summer workshop in Portugal in September 2018. The first two Round Tables addressed the possibility and desirability of combining the approaches, their complementarity in the understanding of the urban form, common threads and concepts, as well as the potential of building a common structure and systematizing the knowledge of urban morphology to expand existing methodologies, without radically altering the background theories which support them.

This debate focuses on the implications of teaching a multiplicity of approaches for the future of design practice. The discussion will address issues such as: i. the benefits and challenges of teaching multiple approaches within the time and resource constraints of existing urban morphology courses; ii. balancing broad knowledge and understanding of concepts with the need for teaching specific skills and practice of methods ; iii. the potential of urban morphological knowledge for future professionals and for design practice.

Social, economic, and political fragmentation of contemporary cities is strongly related to urban form. In order to respond to this challenge, municipal authorities, policy makers, urban designers and scholars have developed a variety of approaches on understanding urban form in relation to social life, both theoretical and operational. These approaches, however, are characterized by specific disciplinary canons and have seen the emergence of separate schools of thought. They have traditionally been applied in isolation. The project on 'Emerging Perspectives on Urban Morphology' (EPUM, Erasmus+ project) has brought together five international partners embracing/developing different morphological approaches (historico‑geographical, process typological, space syntax, relational‑material and combined).

Through a continuous learning process of meetings, teaching activities and workshops, EPUM aims at i) comparing and improving the ways in which urban form and the agents and processes that are responsible for its transformation over time, are taught; ii) comparing the theoretical, conceptual and methodological basis of the different approaches, identifying their main strengths and weaknesses, and exploring the possibilities for dialogue and combination. The proposed educational model aims to enable various institutions to work both independently and collaboratively, synchronously and asynchronously, eventually formulating an international 'community of practice' connected through embodied practical experience as well as through digital space and blended learning approaches.

The roundtable will focus on contributions that seek to carve out connections between social life and urban form, raising following questions: How is urban morphology (re)defined with regard to relational conceptualizations of space? How is it approached and taught across different institutions and schools of thought? How can blended or face‑to‑face learning methodologies help to circumvent the shortcomings in studying urban morphologies in higher education?

Urban Design and Planning worldwide have long been criticized for their lack of meaningful public consultation and participation in the process of shaping our built environment. Currently, the existing practices of consultation and participation are within the confines of council meetings, complex form filling and survey reports that often carry little weight towards the decisions made by the planning authorities; the latter are increasingly seeking for ways to encourage meaningful public participation in urban development decisions. This paper presents a systematic literature review on sustainable urban governance visa -vis participatory planning, in an effort to consolidate, evaluate and critique the various approaches on involving the public in decision-making process in relation to urban form in general and public space in particular. The literature/case studies presented are referenced across a scale of degrees of participation, referring to a range of influence that participants have in the decision-making. In its two extremes it can be viewed as no participation, where designers make assumptions of users' needs and requirements, and full participation, based on user-defined criteria of quality. The evaluation of many participatory research practices is somewhere in between the two extremes, focusing more on design with the users. However, the given theoretical process, might provide an insufficient degree of realism that designers need to cope with, due to time and budget constraints. If it is to remain grounded to the practice of design, literature should be able to cope with barriers, and seek understanding beyond its conceptual approaches.

In recent years, relational theories, including assemblage theory, have brought new perspectives to urban studies and challenged the ways through which researchers approach the study of the urban environment in their effort to truly understand the complex processes that define the ways in which the social is reflected in the urban form and vice versa. Although the implications of assemblage theory for urban studies, in particular critical urban theory, have been explored, a closer look on how this theory could be related to space syntax theory and the methods it employs has not yet been taken. A discourse on such a relationship lies at the heart of this paper, which focuses on Manuel DeLanda’s idea of cities as assemblages (DeLanda, 2006) and space syntax’s concepts and tools which appear to describe urban properties that fit this notion. The aim of the paper is to address the points made by Netto (2016) about the future of theory and the need to engage with new concepts and interact with ideas other than those from which each researcher starts their journey. In his words new approaches are needed to “escape the dead ends into which the different strands of urban socio-spatial knowledge have been drawn”. The authors believe that an exploration of the linkages between assemblage and space syntax theories is a fundamental step forward in broadening space syntax’s focus on a wider range of possible relations, and thus strengthening it as a socio-spatial theory. The paper starts with a discursive analysis comparing assemblage and space syntax theories. It then offers a detailed text analysis of chapter 5 (Cities and Nations) of DeLanda’s A New Philosophy of Society. Based on the text analysis, relevant key space syntax concepts and their measuring tools are discussed in terms of their similarity to the definitions of components and processes which characterize cities as assemblages, as well as of their potential as tools for assemblage analysis. The main concepts discussed are connectivity, integration, segregation, centrality and scales of analysis. The main criticism to assemblage thinking as a potential research approach in urban studies is its genericity and lack of analytical specificity. The theory is seen as suggestive of themes for research and of methodological techniques, yet tending to be indeterminate due to the complexity of the theorization of cities as assemblages, the high level of contingency in the interaction between different components and the potentially infinite scales at which transformation processes can occur. This paper’s objective is to assess whether assemblage theory can be made analytically relevant and specific to urban studies by deploying space syntax tools when analytically applying assemblage theory. The authors conclude that assemblage thinking could be seen as enhancing the theoretical background of space syntax and that space syntax tools and concepts could be used as practical instruments for assemblage analysis.

In recent years, relational theories, including assemblage theory, have brought new perspectives to urban studies and challenged the ways through which researchers approach the study of the urban environment in their effort to truly understand the complex processes that define the ways in which the social is reflected in the urban form and vice versa. Although the implications of assemblage theory for urban studies, in particular critical urban theory, have been explored, a closer look on how this theory could be related to space syntax theory and the methods it employs has not yet been taken. A discourse on such a relationship lies at the heart of this paper, which focuses on Manuel DeLanda's idea of cities as assemblages (DeLanda, 2006) and space syntax's concepts and tools which appear to describe urban properties that fit this notion. The aim of the paper is to address the points made by Netto (2016) about the future of theory and the need to engage with new concepts and interact with ideas other than those from which each researcher starts their journey. In his words new approaches are needed to "escape the dead ends into which the different strands of urban socio-spatial knowledge have been drawn". The authors believe that an exploration of the linkages between assemblage and space syntax theories is a fundamental step forward in broadening space syntax's focus on a wider range of possible relations, and thus strengthening it as a socio-spatial theory. The paper starts with a discursive analysis comparing assemblage and space syntax theories. It then offers a detailed text analysis of chapter 5 (Cities and Nations) of DeLanda's A New Philosophy of Society. Based on the text analysis, relevant key space syntax concepts and their measuring tools are discussed in terms of their similarity to the definitions of components and processes which characterize cities as assemblages, as well as of their potential as tools for assemblage analysis. The main concepts discussed are connectivity, integration, segregation, centrality and scales of analysis. The main criticism to assemblage thinking as a potential research approach in urban studies is its genericity and lack of analytical specificity. The theory is seen as suggestive of themes for research and of methodological techniques, yet tending to be indeterminate due to the complexity of the theorization of cities as assemblages, the high level of contingency in the interaction between different components and the potentially infinite scales at which transformation processes can occur. This paper's objective is to assess whether assemblage theory can be made analytically relevant and specific to urban studies by deploying space syntax tools when analytically applying assemblage theory. The authors conclude that assemblage thinking could be seen as enhancing the theoretical background of space syntax and that space syntax tools and concepts could be used as practical instruments for assemblage analysis.