New Horizons (Asynchronous Session)
Evaluating Adaptive Re-use Potential of Abandoned Factories in India: A Case of Mangalore Tile Factories along Malabar Coast View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Amrutha Das, Smriti Saraswat
The de-industrialization of colonial India had a significant impact on the development of socio-spatial frameworks for modern cities in India. The industrial buildings lost their original functions and it is often impossible to restore older buildings, even being sympathetic to history. Now these industrial buildings stand as an iconic backdrop to the urban fabric. Adaptive reuse is an alternate program to give life to obsolete structures by retaining its integrity while providing for contemporary needs. This research is an attempt to evaluate the adaptive-reuse potential of abandoned roof tiles factories along Malabar Coast in India. The first tile factory (1865) established by Basel Missionaries of Germany in Mangalore, marked the beginning of region’s one of the largest industries that produced Mangalore tiles. These clay roof tiles later defined the language of pitched roof structures throughout the Southwest coast of India. By the end of the 20th century, the tile industry had declined drastically, resulting in the closure of many factories. The aim is to investigate and explore the adaptive reuse potential of abandoned industrial buildings and develop proposals for re-purposing them. This is a mix of both qualitative and quantitative research methods, and employs a case study based approach. Existing gaps in adaptive reuse practices are identified through the state-of-the-art literature review and case studies. A detailed review of history, evolution of this industry, documentation processes and complexities involved in reuse practices are presented here to understand the relevance of this topic and guide similar future efforts in adaptive reuse.
Reviewing Methods for Detecting Occupancy in Building Environments: Increasing Building Security and Energy Performance View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Avery Schwer, Donald Levi Tryon, Dale Tiller
Detecting occupancy accurately is an ongoing building performance goal. In order to detect occupancy events precisely and to provide improved performance, there must be a systematic approach to the building investigation. Building performance goals are the core motivators that encourage the development of well designed occupancy systems into the next stages of predictive analysis. These next stages will need to use several types of detection methods. Some of these methods will use improved sensors/arrays and some will use additional algorithms that will help fine tune the sensor data into valuable event occurrences. Using the traditional method of detecting occupancy within a building and comparing the improved principles of applying analytics that would detect the desired or undesired events happening within the building environment will be discussed. A summary of these methods is presented.
High Altitude Architecture – the Utopian Expressionist Reset of Architecture View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ana Maria Machedon
Consequently to significant historical events, architects have thought of design resets aiming to produce changes into culture and society. After the First World War, a group of architects in Europe had imagined a new future for architecture that would have changed fundamentally the principles of society and would have avoided another global conflict. The Glass Chain utopian correspondence between architects in Germany defined the new concepts of building expressionist architecture. The architect Bruno Taut proposed to leave the ancient world contaminated by war and to move to virgin territories: high altitudes. The Chrystal Architecture on the highlands of Europe would have been a new precious and pure constructed environment, based on an immense effort of the entire society with new rules and concepts. The Alpine Chrystal Architecture had never been produced. The Second World War devastated the society. Nevertheless the expressionist desideratum came into reality almost a century later and architects started to build on the European highlands. Despite the quality of architectural objects and the revival of the crystal architecture metaphor, the social impact and transformation didn’t follow the primordial intentions. It didn’t create a new social paradigm but altered the character of high altitudes, transforming the wild territories into commercial products. The research explores the concepts of Expressionist architectural reset, as basis for a theoretical possibility of transforming the society through constructed environments, in antithesis with the real evolution of the world.
From Playgrounds to Ground for Play: A Comparison of the Playgrounds in Pevidém, Portugal with the Playgrounds in Heidelberg and Karlsruhe, Germany View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cidália Ferreira Silva, Cláudia Pando
This paper compares the playgrounds in Pevidém, a region in the municipality of Guimarães, Portugal, to those in Heidelberg and one in Karlsruhe, Germany. The comparison has a clear purpose: why is it that the standardization observed in Pevidém is not seen in the selected examples in Heidelberg and Karlsruhe, despite the fact that the playground equipment is regulated by the same European norms? Pevidém's playgrounds are standardized, with the same equipment and materials repeated and a stereotypical design. Unlike in the examples of Heidelberg and Karlsruhe, there is opportunity for variation; each park has its own unique qualities; the equipment, materials, and ground are various and distinct for each of them, and the design is site specific. In Pevidém, we wonder: where is the place for children's free play in these spaces? How are the children's many senses stimulated in these types of parks? What is the role of parents, other from being the children's safety guardians; why is it always forbidden for parents to play with their children? Why is there always a fence, a physical boundary, even when the children are not in risk? Case studies from Heidelberg and Karlsruhe are included to demonstrate how "playgrounds" can become true "grounds for play," fostering children's free appropriation, creativity, and imagination, as well as intergenerational play in some circumstances. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the transformation of the myopia with which children's playgrounds in Portugal are designed and built.
Identifying Leisure Amenities that Attract Highly Skilled Workers to Indian Cities View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nabanita Saha, Haimanti Banerji
Lately, urban amenities have been perceived through the concept of “quality of place”, which, according to Richard Florida, influenced the location preference of the highly skilled creative workers based on the ways they utilise their leisure time. Leaning on perspectives relating to leisure amenities and urban development. This study attempts to identify the leisure amenity that aids the top cities in attracting skilled workers and its effect on the built environment of urban areas. The study uses the hierarchical regression analysis with different groups of amenities to identify which is the most significant. The study is relevant in the scenario where cities, especially in the developing countries, are competing to become investment-worthy at the global stage. City administrators can pursue the expansion of these amenities as an added attraction for the highly skilled labour, thereby improving their importance.
Public Aquatic Spaces and Their Contribution to the Reconnection of the City and Its Waterfront and to the Conservation of the Human Experience of Biodiversity View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Luis Carlos Mestrinho
This study reflects on the contribution that public aquatic spaces can bring to the reconnection of the city and its waterfront through a more direct and active relationship with the marine environment. One characteristic of the current wave of urban requalification of these spaces is the search for reinstatement of the links between the waterfront and the wider urban fabric. The study addresses how the requalification should include the rescue of the urban-social-ecological connection that may have been compromised during the urbanization process and, later, by the monofunctional uses of the waterfront. These phenomena may have promoted a decrease in the experience of local society in its relationship with urban waters and created a distance between them. To this end, an introductory analysis is made on a specific aspect of the ecological dimension of the use of this type of infrastructure, the conservation of the experience between man and nature, considered to be a critical factor for the social support for the biodiversity conservation agenda. The hypothesis defended in this work is that, by being designed for an active engagement with the environment, aquatic public spaces could create a differentiated and more direct form of iteration in contrast to the passive engagement offered by public promenades on land, the most adopted type of infrastructure for public use in this transition space.
