THEMATIC GROUPS

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Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS

Category: Ethics, Values and Planning

Published: 24 May 2021

First OPEN SPACE* event: What are AESOP’s shared values?

While AESOP is a European association, its network extends beyond such boundaries. What does it mean for the community? What are (or should be) the primary and shared values of the AESOP community? What could this mean for AESOP’s future? The purpose of the event is to foster an open discussion about the values of the association. Its goal is to explore ongoing questions, challenges and find new connections.

On June 8th from 4.00 to 6.00 pm (CET) invited speakers will deal with this issue and respond to three questions: 1. What are the fundamental values that all members of the AESOP community should share and promote? 2. How would or should AESOP like to be seen by planning schools outside of Europe? 3. Does the current AESOP logo represent AESOP's fundamental values? Does the logo present AESOP to planning schools outside Europe in a suitable fashion?

After a panel presentation, the floor will be open for a discussion by participants of the TG session. The session will be recorded for further use in future debate.

Participants to the panel discussion:

• Rachelle Alterman (Technion Israel Institute of Technology and Neaman Institute for National Policy Research - AESOP Honorary Member)
• Claudia Basta (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency)
• Tijana Dabovic (University of Belgrade)
• Pinar Dörder (Technical University of Darmstadt – Chair of YA Coordination Team)
• Francesco Lo Piccolo (University of Palermo)
• Izabela Mironowicz (Gdansk University of Technology)
• Paulo Silva (University of Aveiro)

Register to the event by sending an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (you will receive a zoom-link a few days before the event)

• This TG aims to facilitate lively debates on relevant ethical urban planning issues. It organizes monthly colloquiums, an annual conference and provides an open space for members to initiate debates and workshops. This event is an idea of Ben Davy. Everybody, who is interested in why Ben had this idea, should watch his 2021 JAMMAL INTERNATIONAL LECTURE: [“Random Planning Values?” at https://buffalo.zoom.us/rec/share/134jyJTIsc8RLi4MxIOntJLgDirUuEx7XbX1lMzHK0s0uIhCp9CzKnYK1rwRu3.xjihdl8Z4o_9270f .]

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Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS

Category: Ethics, Values and Planning

Published: 29 April 2021

There is a lot of speculation on the lasting effects of COVID-19 and how it will change (urban) life and planning. One way to cope with such uncertainties in our field is to study different scenarios. In this fourth colloquium on Wednesday May 26, from 5 to 6 pm (CET), we will together explore the potential consequences in regards to what we value in (urban) life of two extreme scenarios:

1) The threat of COVID-19 and it’s mutations will pass;

2) Vaccines will not result in the high level of containment of the virus as hoped and the threat of COVID-19 and other viruses will remain present.

The colloquium will be divided in two parts, both focused on one scenario.

In this exploratory collective thought-experiment we will explore the effects on urban life and planning, not from what we think will happen, but from these two opposing perspectives. We hope to better understand the uncertainty that lies ahead, explore the consequences of possible futures and the possibly different roles of planning in different futures.

You are welcome to participate. Please consider the following:

• Register to the event by sending an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;
• You will receive a brief text which describes the two scenario’s that will be explored;
• You are invited to reflect on the two scenario’s up front and share your initial ideas in advance.

Stefano Cozzolino & Arend Jonkman

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Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS

Category: Resilience and Risks Mitigation Strategies

Published: 12 April 2021

The report represents a collaborative effort of more than 300 experts on disaster risk, coming from different sectors and disciplines, that worked for more than 2 years together to present the consequences of disasters on various assets at risk (population, economic sectors, critical infrastructures, ecosystem services and cultural heritage).Studying the impacts helps in managing risk after a disaster, guiding the response and facilitating recovery, and in preparing measures to prevent, mitigate and prepare for future events, by supporting risk prediction and the planning of measures to manage risk. 

The various chapters and subchapters provide specific recommendations for the target audience, four groups of stakeholders that can actively contribute to reducing disaster risk: policymakers, practitioners (such as civil protection groups, critical infrastructure operators and organised civil groups directly engaged in disaster response), scientists and citizens.

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Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS

Category: Public Spaces and Urban Cultures

Published: 25 March 2021

AESOP TG PSUC 2021 international meeting
Between THE HOME & THE SQUARE: bridging the boundaries of public space

October 22-23, 2021 | Aristotele University of Thessaloniki (Greece)
http://southeuropean-cities.arch.auth.gr/en/betweenthehomeandthesquare#callforpapers2021


The Research Unit for South European Cities of the School of Architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, will host the next meeting of the AESOP Thematic Group on Public Spaces and Urban Cultures (AESOP TG PSUC) in Thessaloniki, Greece.


Theme

The meeting is entitled “Between the home and the square: bridging the boundaries of public space”. It is structured around the concept of boundaries of public space and the relation between public space and more private spheres of urban life, like the home. By taking an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach, the meeting will discuss, challenge and rethink traditional boundaries between public and private, legal and illegal, planned and unplanned, formal and informal, natural and social, digital and material, familiar and uncanny. Moreover, the meeting will reflect on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the making and unmaking of boundaries within the public space as well as between public space and home.


Format

The meeting is organised as a two-day event, which will be preceded by a seven-day workshop. The two-day event will combine keynote speeches, the contributions to the Call for Papers, fieldtrips and roundtables. The workshop will be an international, urban teaching, action research and design workshop that will investigate transformations of housing and public space in sites of major importance in Thessaloniki. It will provide the opportunity for participants to discuss, exchange views, and propose ideas around the topic of boundaries between public and private spaces in Thessaloniki and beyond.


Call for Papers

Cities around the world change rapidly in response to processes of financial crises, international migration, climate change, globalisation and the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Public spaces are essential ingredients of the urban experience and play a crucial role in this transition (Madanipour et al., 2014). Seeking to understand the ways in which public space can operate as a key component for the creation of ‘inclusive, connected, safe and accessible’ cities (UN Habitat, 2016), the meeting is structured around the concept of boundaries of public space and the relation between public space and more private spheres of urban life, like the home.

Marxist understandings of relational space have already emphasized the need to deconstruct dichotomies between public and private (Lefebvre, 1991). Gender studies have early enough challenged the dichotomy of public and private space (Massey 1984), while more recently, feminist approaches to public space foreground affective care practices, everyday lived experiences and bodily encounters as crucial elements that transcend fixed boundaries in public space (Viderman & Knierbein, 2018). The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shed new light to interrelations of homes, neighbourhoods and public open space accessibility in pragmatic terms of real life, democracy, and its policing. Thus, a critical exploration of the ways in which the boundaries of public space are challenged, and new conceptualisations emerge is nowadays increasingly timely and salient.

The meeting articulates its theme in a way to encourage approaches that:

1. bridge the traditional analytical categories, such as home and public space, public and private, digital and material;
2. bridge the different disciplinary divisions that divide current research and practice and encourage cross-fertilisations and hybrid understandings;
3. bridge the boundaries between research, policy and practice focusing on the ways these three can inform and transform each other;
4. negotiate divisions in public space; age, gender, social, cultural, ethnic, religious and political dimensions as well as issues of social and environmental justice for improving inclusiveness, promoting social and environmental justice and meeting complexity in the public space changing terrain;
5. reflect on new typologies of emerging practices and agents of change that reconstitute lived homes and public spaces.

We invite contributions that address, but are not limited, to one or more of the following themes:

1. Inhabiting the square: exclusionary practices, repression, homelessness, refugees, dissent, participatory / performative appropriation.
2. Housing and public space: spaces of the everyday, neighbourhood spaces, inconspicuous parks, design considerations, everyday routines, psychoanalytic approaches to the public, divided spaces.
3. The limits of publicness: management, authorities, ownership, appropriation, affective, performative and artistic practices, digital contestations and cross-overs.
4. Νegotiating ownership: housing and public space production ‘from below’, housing coops, collective habitation, squats, gated communities, suburban houses, institutional change.


References

Lefebvre, H. (1991) The production of space. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Madanipour, A., Knierbein, S. & Degros, A. (2014) A Moment of Transformation. In: Madanipour, A., Knierbein, S. & Degros, A. (eds.) Public Space and the Challenges of Urban Transformation in Europe? New York: Routledge.

Massey, D. (1984) Space, Place and Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press

Viderman, T. & Knierbein, S. (2018) Reconnecting public space and housing research through affective practice. Journal of Urban Design, 1-16.

Contacts

For further information on AESOP TG PSUC Thessaloniki meeting please contact:
Evie Athanassiou (Local host Thessaloniki), This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.


Important dates

Abstract submission deadline: 30th May, 2021

Acceptance notification: 27th June, 2021

Author registration: 27th July, 2021


Organising Committee

Evie Athanassiou, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Local host)

Charis Christodoulou, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Athina Vitopoulou, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Matina Kapsali, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Maria Karagianni, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki


TG Representatives

Sara Santos Cruz (Portugal) and Burcu Yigit Turan (Sweden)


Scientific Committee

Evie Athanassiou, Professor, School of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Nadia Charalambous. Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

Charis Christodoulou, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Αlex Deffner, Professor of Urban and Leisure Planning, Department of Planning and Regional Development, School of Engineering, University of Thessaly (UTH), Greece

Gabriella Esposito De Vita, Senior Researcher, National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Italy

Jeff Hou, ASLA, Professor of Landscape Architecture, Adjunct Professor of Architecture and Urban Design & Planning, College of Built Environments, University of Washington, U.S.A.

Sandra Huning,  City and regional sociology,  Faculty of spatial planning, TU Dortmund, Germany

Ares Kalandides, Professor of Place Management, Berlin und Umgebung, Germany

Matina Kapsali, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece & Adjunct Lecturer, School of Architecture, University of Ioannina, Greece

Maria Karagianni, Adjunct Lecturer, School of Spatial Planning and Development, Faculty of Engineering Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Garyfallia Katsavounidou, Assistant Professor of Urban Design and Planning, School of Spatial Planning and Development, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Sabine Knierbein, Professor for Urban Culture and Public Space, Faculty of Architecture and Planning/ Future Lab, Interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space, TU Wien, Austria

Penny Koutrolikou, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens, Greece

Sasa Lada, Emeritus Professor, School of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Christine Mady, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, Ramez Chagoury Faculty of Architecture, Art and Design, Notre Dame University, Louaize, Lebanon

Irini Micha, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens, Greece

Stefania Ragozino, Researcher, National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Italy

Sara Santos Cruz, Assistant Professor, Senior Researcher of CITTA, Spatial Planning and Environment Division, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal

Ceren Sezer, Research Associate, Faculty of Architecture, Chair of Urban Design,  Institute for Urban Design and European Urbanism RWTH, Aachen University, Germany

Dimitra Siatitsa, Adjunct Lecturer, School of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Socrates Stratis. Associate Professor, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

Burcu Yigit Turan, Senior Lecturer, Department of Urban and Rural Development, Division of Landscape Architecture, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

Tihomir Viderman, Research Associate, Chair of Urban Management, Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Urban Planning, BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany

Athina Vitopoulou, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Athena Yiannakou, Professor of Urban Planning and Development, School of Spatial Planning and Development, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece