Ambient Connections (Asynchronous Session)
Constructing Urban Stables in New York City: GallopNYC and the Four Barns
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Anne Marie Sowder
This paper contributes knowledge from the practice of constructing buildings and creating landscapes at the sites of therapeutic horse-riding facilities throughout New York City. Creating urban riding spaces is a unique construction process that knits together construction, the environment, and community building. Logistically, projects involve extensive earthwork, drainage, and specialty construction and well as overlapping governance from Departments of Health and of Parks and Recreation. Case studies from GallopNYC will cover various completed and proposed projects; new facilities, landscaping, and renovations. GallopNYC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit in New York City that offers therapeutic horsemanship to people with developmental, emotional, physical, and social challenges. GallopNYC offers riding and learning programs at their urban stable sites that house barns, horses, and riding arenas. Facility expansion is critical to meeting program delivery goals. At a sample site, desired improvements include a year-round riding covered arena, office, and learning spaces that will expand use of the sites and allow for weather-independent operations.
Listening with the Underground View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session David Madden
This study considers the ongoing creative and theoretical outcomes of the sounding project that I am carrying out in Montreal’s Underground City. This well used, expansive, and understudied area is comprised of more than 30 km of tunnels, corridors, and commercial spaces located throughout the downtown core of the city. By way of using soundwalking, semi-structured interviews and various sound reproduction techniques, the project considers how listeners engage with Montreal’s Underground City while also attempting to extend and problematize the auditory scope of current locative sound art and sound mapping praxis, which too often maintain a narrow focus in relation to what constitutes urban sound and the creative possibilities of locative media. While certainly not the only method for urban sound practitioners to forge connections between sound and place, sound maps are increasingly becoming the most common and widespread, and reveal many of the limitations of web-based and networked aural arts praxis.
Spatial Choreography: Giancarlo De Carlo's Use of the Percorso Narrativo in Collegio dell'Aquilone, University of Urbino View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mark Blizard
The link between dance and architecture is of course, a metaphor. Space has been considered an integral and, occasionally, an almost palpable element of architecture since the Borromini in the 1600s. More recently, following a trajectory set by Team X, Giancarlo De Carlo noted that “Architecture is––and can’t be anything but––the organization and form of physical space.” For De Carlo, space was inextricable from the concrete elements that define its boundaries and shape our occupation, gesture, and movement. The space of a building and organization, for De Carlo, was modeled after the city. Notably, his work for the University of Urbino became both a mirror and an extension of the urban fabric. Our experience of his spatial choreography, in a way similar to a Cubist painting or a film, is a montage, garnered from moments remembered along the route or percorso. Architectural elements, never singular, seem to exist in spatial constellations. Understood as a whole, the percorso follows a distinct narrative structure and plays the decisive role in the choreography. For De Carlo, the larger narrative or discourse is integral to social space and a necessary extension of the city. This paper traces the development of the percorso as an geometric organizing structure in De Carlo’s buildings at the residential campus of the University Urbino, specifically addressing the Collegio dell’Aquilone. The greater purpose is to present a case for understanding choreography as a critical tool in De Carlo’s design process of reading the territory.
Spatial Factors Influencing Occupants' Energy-related Behavioral Beliefs in Residential Units View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hebatalla Nazmy, Eunsil Lee, Suk-Kyung Kim
Buildings' energy performance depends on technical and human factors. Occupants' interaction with windows and blinds significantly impacts buildings' energy demands. Contextual factors influence occupants' behaviors to control their indoor environmental conditions. The Theory of Planned Behavior demonstrated that beliefs about the expected outcomes associated with the behavior drive human behavior. This research hypothesizes that spatial factors: orientation, floor level, and space type influence occupants' beliefs of operating windows and adjusting blinds to control their indoor environmental conditions. Two surveys were conducted in summer and winter to identify occupants' behavioral beliefs of operating windows and adjust blinds in multifamily residential buildings. A total number of 103 and 104 responses were collected from the summer and winter surveys, respectively. The binary logistic regression showed that occupants of north-facing apartments were more encouraged to adjust their blinds to allow natural light into their spaces during summer. First-floor units' occupants believed that the benefits of operating windows and adjusting blinds outweighed their drawbacks. In summer, occupants were not encouraged to open their windows due to the hot weather in living areas. Also, noise concerns were less in living areas compared to sleeping areas. In conclusion, this research proves that spatial factors such as orientation, floor level, and space type significantly impact occupants' behavioral beliefs of operating windows and adjusting blinds in residential buildings. Thus it is recommended to consider spatial factors in the early stages of the design process to enhance the building's energy performance and improve occupants' satisfaction.
Constructing Place Identity Through Sensorial Heritage: An Exploration of South Asian Contexts View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nisha Fernando
Some urban design scholars perceive South Asian cities as disorganized, chaotic, and confusing. This view originates from a Eurocentric stance that cities must follow a standardized, systematic urban order. However, traditional and historic urban spaces in South Asia tend to follow a different order altogether with spatial patterns and uses evolving slowly over time in a more organic, tacit manner. Additionally, such urban spaces consist of not merely a different physical morphology but also conspicuous sensoryscapes (i.e. sounds, aromas, textures, and so on) created by spontaneous and varied uses and activities. This paper presents the argument that such sensorial urban experiences are critical in deciphering South Asian urban identity beyond the visual fabric. Through extensive literature reviews, empirical participant observation studies and sensory mapping in naturalistic settings, and qualitative content analyses, the research focused on comparing three cities in Sri Lanka. The scope of the research included: (a) analyzing space-form-function layouts of each city; (b) identifying specific sensory modalities and related spatial activities; and (c) determining how the resulting sensoryscapes contribute to specific urban place identities beyond the physical urban fabric. The paper illustrates the comparative findings that sensoryscapes are vital to place identity and socio-cultural meanings of a city, and that by association, they also form a critical component of the cultural heritage. The research implications include developing a non-Eurocentric research mode emphasizing the importance of systematic study of sensorial experiences and generating a framework to gain a deeper understanding of place identities of other South Asian cities.
Environment versus Housing Construction in East Kolkata Wetlands: "Illegal" Occupation of Ramsar Wetlands View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nilendu Bala
With rapid urbanization and expansion of Indian cities, there is consequential depletion of wetlands. To preserve the wetlands and formulate policies to protect them, it is necessary to know the causes by which the wetlands are getting compromised. The East Kolkata Wetlands is one of the largest remedial wetlands in the world. The inhabitants of the wetlands have perfected the art of turning “Waste to Wealth” using the sewage and wastewater generated by the city, to produce fish and vegetables. In the wetlands, fragmented ownership of land between individuals and authorities, combined with the demand for land and proximity to the city, is making it vulnerable to urban encroachments. Before Ramsar Convention, these wetlands were used extensively for city development by both Government and Private entities. The process of first land reclamation on the wetlands started after Indian Independence with the need for a new area to handle the ever-growing population. The construction of the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass in the 1970’s ensured that urban sprawl would continue undeterred irrespective of the threat it poses to the wetlands. Even after enlistment of the Wetlands in the Ramsar Convention in 2002, which provides international legal protection, there has been some major housing constructions on it. To restrict urban growth, it is imperative to ascertain the methods by which land is being converted for housing needs. Based on the ground study and extensive discussion on planning practices in place, this research uncovers major methods in practice used to occupy and legalize the wetlands.
