Doing Justice to Time-Sensitive Urbanisms? Challenging Semantics, Symbols, Policies, and Politics in Making-Do and Sense-Making

Organizers:  

• Sara Caramaschi, DAStU – Politecnico di Milano 
• Robin A. Chang, Chair of Planning Theory & Urban Development, Faculty of Architecture, RWTH Aachen University

In the ever-evolving tapestry of urban life, we have come to value the dynamism of our cities and identify urgencies in development. From temporary or interim uses, pop-up installations, to ephemeral experiments, and exacerbating crises, our environments are continually shaped by rapid changes and broader trends. This special session is an opportunity to scrutinize the evolutions of how we formulate, design, plan and narrate contexts or constructions to respond to, or make sense of, agile futures.

We invite students, scholars, and practitioners in the fields of urban planning and design, geography, public administration, and public policy to contemplate how/whose/which terms, tactics, and timings compel whose/which semantics, symbols, policies, or politics.

We encourage abstract submissions on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to:

• Semiotics of Urban Change: How does the language we use to describe agile forms of urbanism affect perception, policies, and decision-making processes?
• Temporal Considerations in Urban Processes: To which horizons do we bind ourselves, our decisions, and our actions? How do these align with the infrastructural, regulatory, and processual work that planners do?
• Political and Discursive Forces: How do political agendas, ideologies, and power dynamics shape or make sense of agile futures?
• Responsive Interventions: What best practices and novel methods(ologies) can be employed to create agile and appropriate solutions for current challenges and uncertainties? How does this translate to research in comparison to scholarship?

Keywords: temporality; urban change; improvisation and adaptation; temporary interventions; uncertainties