Growing Cities (Asynchronous Session)
New Urban Design for Adaptation to Climate Change - Theory of Urban Relativity : New Scale of Territorial Planning between Utopia and Scientific Reality View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Salima Bellili
New urban design technology for responsible urban planning of our living environments, based on our territorial energy indicators. The calculation of urban energy on several forms and strategic planning for adaptation to climate change caused by massive urbanization. A territorial planning of the urban project going from utopia to a scientific reality. An advanced morpho-typological analysis that we propose, "The scale of the electron is one billionth of a millimetre, the scale of the atom is one ten millionth of a millimetre, the scale of the cell is one millionth of a millimetre, the physical scale of man is one metre, "1 The scale of the intelligent urban project is the square micrometer (μm2), our new utopian scale of analysis introduced in the study of the urban project, which allowed us to integrate the territorial axis in the field of physical sciences to develop the theory of relativity in an urban context "beyond the approximation limits of the experiment. In micro-physics, to find the place of an electron, it is necessary to illuminate it with a photon. The meeting of the electron and the photon modifies the place of the electron, its future trajectory; it also modifies the frequency of the photon".2 This allowed us to measure thanks to our "Index B. Smog [IBSmog]"3 the concentration of tropospheric ozone (O3) and carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by the heat released from urban structures during high temperatures, the main cause of mortality and the change in the microclimate in our living environments.
Associations of Neighborhood Built Environment Characteristics and Community Spread of COVID-19: The Case of Wuhan, China View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Zhou Fang, Chunping Li, Patrick S. W. Fong
There is increasing evidence that the built environment contributes to the transmission and spread of COVID-19. The purpose of this study was to identify the associations of neighborhood built environment characteristics and spread of COVID-19. 1,150 neighborhoods of 9,691 confirmed cases were retrieved and 495 neighborhoods (6,675 cases) were included in this study after screening. Neighborhood built environment characteristics include value related, scale related, and distances to hospital and metro station variables were retrieved from four platforms. One-way ANOVA was first conducted to test the relationship between neighborhood infection index and built environment characteristics and multinomial logistic regression analyses were later conducted to test the significance of each variable. The results show that there are positive relationships between higher infection index and lower property management fee (significance level is 0.01), earlier year built (0.01), property prices (0.05), lower floor area ratio (0.05), lower green area ratio (0.05), larger number of households (0.01), larger number of buildings (0.01), and larger number of households/buildings (0.01), and closer distance to hospitals (0.01). The findings of this study further affirm the relationship between community spread of COVID-19 and several major neighborhood built environment characteristics.
Development Model for Urban Environments of the Inner-city: The Case of Al-Baha, Saudi Arabia View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Abdulaziz Alzahrani
This paper examines the inner cities that are neglected in Saudi Arabia. This space is the product of several political, economic, and social issuess. Despite the apparent similarity in most of their characteristics locally, sometimes appear different according to the economic and urban composition of these countries, as well as the reasons that led to their presence in the urban environment. The research studies the inner city of Al-Baha, Saudi Arabia to find out the causes of their continuous urban structure condition and their urban characteristics and propose appropriate solutions to upgrade them. The aim of the study requires the achievement of the following objectives: deducing the reasons that led to the current state of these areas, identifing the most important physical characteristics of it, highlighting the most critical challenges facing these areas, reviewing similar experiences, and establishing a general strategy for developing the inner-city of Al-Baha. The research followed a field and analytical study of the inner-city in order to propose guidelines for upgrading inner cities, despite the apparent disparity in its built environment. A GIS map was created for the study site and includes the urban structure. This study's findings demonstrate the current land-use, buildings heights, buildings conditions, built area, and unbuilt areas of the study area. The study outcomes suggest a proposed development model that improves the urban environment of the inner-city of Al-Baha.
Designed by Law: How Law Shapes our Communities View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Benjamin Sasges, Kirandeep Kaur
Taking inspiration from Alex Lehrnerer, we examined 12 land use rules in the City of Calgary, with attention to their legal basis, and practical outcomes for the built environment. This paper considers a handful of these rules, and critically analyzes how rules shape the urban form and the city, both purposively and unintentionally. Far from a unilateral imposition of power, the relationship between law and design is bilateral, with both components exerting influence on the other. For example, the common law principle of the right to light was explicitly excluded at the provincial level in Alberta. However In Calgary, bylaws and community specific plans create distinct rights to sunlight not found everywhere in the city. In a residential context, the right to sunlight is used to contest a neighbour’s addition or an increase in density. Another example of rules shaping the urban form is found in areas transitioning from lower to higher densities. In these transition areas, rules restrict the floor plate above but require more density below. This is driven by design considerations for better street frontage and flexibility for a mix of uses at the higher levels. One such example is the Centre City East Village Transition District. By analyzing these examples, we demonstrate the way in which law is applied, as well as obfuscated and manipulated, by those who implement it. Rather than a mechanical application of rules, the intersection of law and design is a creative undertaking, negotiation of interests, and expression of values.
Intensified Spatial/Social Injustice as a Result of Modern Urban Renewal Plans : A Case Study of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Zeinab Seifpour
The urban renewal project in 1970s of the Borgia area, a problematic neighborhood in the core of the City of Sudbury, was an important factor in the breakdown of social cohesion. What occurred there was a form of spatial injustice and was reproduced amid large shifts in society in many inner-city neighborhoods. A mall replaced the neighborhood, which was torn down. The renewal plan did not provided for new residential accommodations in redeveloped area. Former residents were marginalized and mostly remained homeless. This massive architectural intervention was made under a typical modern urban renewal plan belonging to a discernible era of urban revitalization. One of the effects of these urban renewal plans, mostly conducted in 1950s - 1970s, is gentrification, and its attendant consequences such as spatial segregation, spatial injustice, and marginalization of deprived people. In deep interviews with former residents of Borgia neighborhood, we inquired about the main good thing about Borgia neighborhood that they had missed. The answers were analyzed, coded, and categorized applying grounded theory method. People stated that they had lost their childhood memories, and the connection to their neighbors and relatives. They felt lonely, evicted, and unsafe. People have a deep interconnection with their constructed environment, which is known as place attachment. Such dramatic changes have caused huge transformations in people’s lifestyles; they had lost their collective memories while suffering from a lack of sense of belonging to the place. Such interventions in Sudbury and, we surmise, in other similar cities have contributed to spatial injustice.
