THEMATIC GROUPS
- Details
- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Regional Design
The AESOP Thematic Group Regional Design invites to the online conference “Regional Design: A Transformative Approach to Planning”. The conference takes place on 2 October 2020 and brings together empirical research and theoretical reflections on spatial visioning and regional design-led planning practices. A related draft call for abstracts has been published on the Thematic Group’s website earlier onward. The slightly updated and final version of the call can be accessed via the link below. In case of questions on this call, please contact
- Details
- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Regional Design
Host of the conference
University of Florence, Department of Architecture
Organizing Committee
Valeria Lingua, University of Florence
Verena Elisabeth Balz, Delft University of Technology
Agnes Förster, RWTH Aachen University
Cristina Cavaco, Universidade de Lisboa
Co-organizers
Joao Pedro Costa, Universidade de Lisboa
Giuseppe de Luca, University of Florence
Carlo Pisano, University of Florence
Alain Thierstein, TU Munich
Wil Zonneveld, TU Delft
Objectives of the conference
- Understanding regional design in the context of transformative planning approaches Attention to critical issues such as urban sprawl, climate change, and growing socio-economic disparities – all affecting areas that comply with neither fixed administrative boundaries nor traditional government-led jurisdictions – has triggered demands for new, more transformative, soft and adaptive planning approaches. Spatial visioning and regional design-led planning practices have been gaining momentum world-wide in this context. Practices involve knowledge about spatial particularities to foster tailored place-based spatial solutions while also envisioning the position of places in wider, regional settings and mediating between views in often contested multi-actor settings. A first objective of the conference a more sophisticated understanding of the performance of regional design in the realm of emerging modes of regional spatial planning and of the processes that support their institutionalization.
- Spatial planning for resilience - learning from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemicThe advancement of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic renders regions as important planning arenas for the provision of basic needs, the organization of daily life, and the safeguarding of a resilient economic base. It also underlines that regional spatial development requires strategies that address social, economic, political and societal change coherently. The conference will raise questions concerning the pandemic’s assumed effects, and how these reinforced or disrupted prevailing regional spatial development, planning, and governance. Its second objective is to learn lessons on how planning for resilience can be supported by involving spatial knowledge, foresight and imagination.
- Preparing a special issue on “Regional Design: A Transformative Approach to Planning”
The AESOP Thematic Group Regional Design currently preparesa special issue on “Regional Design: A Transformative Approach to Planning” @ Planning Practice and Research. It asks participants of the conference to present extended abstracts which will be discussed during sessions of the conference. A third objective of the conference is the selection of contributions to this special edition. The guest editors of the issue will invite scholars to submit full papers subsequently. For more information, please see ‘call for abstracts’ below.
- Details
- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Regional Design
The AESOP thematic group Regional Design meets on 8 July 2020, 9.00 – 12.00. The online-meeting will prepare an online-conference in October 2020 and a special issue @ Planning Practice and Research on regional design. For more information on the conference and the special issue, please see our recent blogs below + this link. Our meeting on the 8th of July is intended to informally exchange ideas about the proceedings of the conference and to provide for an opportunity to inquire the scope of papers that fit our call for abstracts well. In case you are interested to participate in this meeting, please contact
- Details
- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Regional Design
Members of the Thematic Group Regional Design will soon launch a call for papers elaborating regional design. The more detailed scope of contributions is described below. Papers will be published in a special issue of the journal Planning Practice and Research. The selection procedure will involve an online-round table to be held around the original date of the 2020 annual AESOP conference in July 2020. We will soon provide you with more information. Please watch this webpage + the news on the AESOP website for this!
SPECIAL ISSUE @ PLANNING PRACTICE AND RESEARCH
REGIONAL DESIGN: a transformative approach to planning
Guest editors
- Valeria Lingua, University of Florence
- Verena Elisabeth Balz, Delft University of Technology
- Agnes Förster, RWTH Aachen University
- Cristina Cavaco, Universidade de Lisboa
Call for papers
Spatial planning approaches have changed over the last decade. Major shifts in the institutional architecture of planning schemes has occurred: planled planning approaches – characterized by fixed administrative boundaries, statutory frameworks, and paternalistic forms of government - have turned into development-led approaches, in which soft planning follows and facilitates development proposals by market actors and the civil society at large. Dilemmas that are triggered by an accumulation of competing spatial claims – often due to highly urgent climate mitigation and adaptation measures – and a coupling of structural social, economic and political change have resulted in a greater appreciation of adaptive spatial planning approaches. Such approaches involve knowledge about particular areas, place-based community-led initiatives, tailored temporary governance arrangements and more transformative perceptions of natural, metabolistic and evolutionary spatial change. In a context of uncertainty, contentiousness and complexity, they aim at unlocking greater and timelier societal responses to problems in the built environment while maintaining robust, long-term planning rationales at the same time.
Observations of the emerging softer, more adaptive or flexible modes of spatial planning indicate that they give a more important role to spatial visioning and spatial design. The changes described above seem to have inspired more iterative and reflexive planning processes that are characterized by normative and persuasive agenda-setting approaches, often involving a variety of knowledge repertoires and many actors. Spatial analysis, the imagination of spatial metaphors and the 'art' of making spatial representations have emerged as respected tools in capacity and consensus building in the deliberative, interactive multi-actor settings that flexible planning modes imply. In various countries, design-led approaches became more intimately related to regional spatial planning. Regional design - as an explorative search for spatial solutions to problems at high levels of scale, emerged as a distinctive discipline that contributes to uncovering the mechanisms of regional spatial development, mediating the divisions and conflicting rationales that are caused by mismatches between spatial ranges and administrative boundaries, and encouraging local action while also supporting the coordination of such action across multiple and multi-scalar territories. Also, last but not least, it enhances the legitimacy and accountability of planning, linking the very different types of societal and civil actions that occur at different scales. However, while expectations of the performance of design-led approaches rise, their role in planning remains under-defined and the evaluation of their performance lacks empirical evidence.
The proposed special issue intends to gather contributions that critically discuss the impact that regional design has on regional governance and spatial planning at the regional and metropolitan level. Editors of the issue will in particular appreciate investigations of design-led approaches in a context of ‘soft’, ‘adaptive’ or ‘flexible’ spatial planning. Such investigations elaborate how design-led approaches challenge spatial planning policies and practices that are anchored in rigid administrative boundaries, and on how spatial visioning and design contribute to defining and redefining territorial entities and actor networks. The main aim of the special issue is a more sophisticated understanding of the performance of regional design in the realm of emerging modes of regional spatial planning and of the processes that support their institutionalization. We invite proposals that take-up this broad intellectual and practical challenge while also considering more than one of the more detailed points below:
- Regional spatial planning in a context of social, economic, political and societal change: (re-) conceptualisations of regional spatial planning with particular attention to theoretical notions of ‘soft’, ‘adaptive’ and ‘flexible’ modes of planning; the relation with contemporary dynamics of social, economic, political and societal change.
- Roles of spatial design and visioning in regional spatial planning: theoretically founded and/or empirically observed relations between design-led approaches and regional spatial planning, with particular attention to the position of design in planning procedures, governance and actor constellations, and/or wider spatial and institutional settings. Considerations emphasize on design thinking as an approach to the resolution of wicked problems that occur in complex spatial settings and territories while acknowledging disparities in e.g. the distribution of spatial resources or power.
- Performance of spatial design and visioning in regional spatial planning: evidence of the impact of design-led approaches on regional spatial planning, expressed in for instance new allocations of resources, actor constellations, frames of reference, and/or fields of action; with particular attention to the role of spatial design in mediating between statutory and soft planning modes and frameworks, processes of governance rescaling and new territorial arrangements.
- Tools and instruments in design-led approaches to regional spatial planning: new tools and instruments in regional spatial analysis, for instance concerning use of (big) data, and real-time modelling; elaboration of visualisation and communication techniques in design-led approaches; ways to involve spatial design and visioning in regional spatial planning processes such as design studios, international exhibitions, and design competitions.
- Teaching regional spatial planning and design: elaborations of transdisciplinary educational formats that involve learning about design and regional spatial planning.
- Regional spatial planning and design in the context of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: as the recent coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic spreads across cities, regions and countries, it highlights the very misalignment between political-administrative jurisdictions and the real geographies of spatial development patterns. The fall-out of the pandemic seems to support localism on the one hand; it raises questions about the necessity for commuting, or the reliance of regional economies on global supply-chains for instance. Fall-out illustrates a need for coordination across administrations on the other hand. Emerging mechanisms in the distribution of health equipment or economic support render the costs of non-coordination on a daily basis. The team of editors recognizes that a deep and thorough analysis of recent development is barely achievable within the time frame set for the special issue. It however welcomes contributions that use evidence triggered by the crisis to reflect on the roles of spatial planning, regional design and visioning in an alignment between jurisdictions and geographies.
- Details
- Parent Category: THEMATIC GROUPS
- Category: Public Spaces and Urban Cultures
Annual Report for 2019
Organized by Christine Mady and Ceren Sezer, in collaboration with further TG PSUC members
Introduction
Public Spaces and Urban Cultures (PSUC) is a thematic group established in April 2010 with the initiative of Sabine Knierbein (Associate Professor, TU Vienna, Austria), Ceren Sezer (Architect and urban planner, TU Delft) and Chiara Tornaghi (Reader, Coventry University, United Kingdom). The main aim of the group is to generate an international and interdisciplinary exchange between the research and practices on public spaces and urban cultures. By doing so, it aims to support research, planning and a design agenda within the AESOP community, and beyond.
In 2019, the Group continued its endeavors to involve practitioners, academics, governmental and non-governmental professionals, and further interest groups into the TG’s activities and exchange of knowledge across disciplines and domains of action through meetings, workshops, conferences and roundtables. During 2019, the group’s membership rose to over 100 professionals working with public space, including practitioners and researchers, from both Europe and beyond.
Internal organization of the group
A collective made up of group members organizes the activities of the PSUC. Some of the tasks of the core group are: to establish the Group’s agenda (working topics, calls, meetings); to manage communication via various media (homepage, blog, Facebook, mailing list, newsletter) among the Group’s members; to prepare meeting and annual reports; to disseminate scientific results; to promote a strong involvement into research and publication affairs; as well as towards a broader audience and the AESOP Secretary General.
The internal organization of the group is structured as follows:
Group Coordination: 2019-2021 Ceren Sezer (Main Coordinator, The Netherlands), Christine Mady (Second Coordinator, Lebanon); 2017-2019 Gabriella Esposito De Vita (Main Coordinator), Ceren Sezer (Second Coordinator, The Netherlands).
Active members: Katarzyna Bartoszewicz (Poland), (Nadia Charalambous (UK), Gabriella Esposito De Vita (Italy), Sabine Knierbein (Austria), Elina Kranzle (Austria), Christine Mady (Lebanon), Veronika Mazurkiewicz (Poland), Matej Niksic (Slovenia), Stefania Ragozino (Italy), Nikolai Roskamm (Germany), Mohamed Saleh (The Netherlands), Sara Santos Cruz (Portugal), Ceren Sezer (The Netherlands), Socrates Stratis (Cyprus), Tihomir Viderman (Germany), Burcu Yigit Turan (Sweden).
Advisory Board: Ali Madanipour (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK); Sophie Watson (Open University, UK); Sabine Knierbein (TU Vienna, Austria); Gabriella Esposito De Vita (CNR-IRISS National Research Council of Italy, since July 2019).
The list of members who (co-)organized meetings in 2019
Patricia Aelbrecht (UK), Ceren Sezer (The Netherlands), Workshop of Knowledge Exchange between Research and Practice on ‘Public Space Design with Social Cohesion and Intercultural Dialogue in mind’, 15 May 2019, Cardiff University.
Ceren Sezer (The Netherlands), Gabriella Esposito DeVita (Italy), Stefania Ragozino (Italy), Track #15, Tourism, public spaces and urban cultures during the AESOP 2019 Annual Meeting in Venice “Planning for Transition”, 9-13 July 2019, Venice (Italy)
Group’s activities in 2019
This year was dedicated to conclude the working theme Unstable Geographies – Dislocated Publics and start the new one Public Spaces: Knowledge transition between Research, Policy and Practice.
Developing the umbrella topic “Public Spaces: Knowledge transition between Research, Policy and Practice”
Public space has received increasing attention in urban research, policy and public debate. This is evident in the growing academic literature on the themes related to public space, including accessibility, healthy living, inclusiveness, democracy, urban justice, self-organization, social movements and other. The 2016 UN Habitat Conference, Habitat III, adopted what is called The New Urban Agenda, which focused on public space as a promoter of ‘inclusive, connected, safe and accessible’ cities (UN Habitat, 2016). UN Habitat’s public space programme operates in various countries to promote the design and management of public spaces through participatory approaches engaging different stakeholders. Other initiatives include the Project for Public Space (PPS) Placemaking approach, which has been adopted in several cities. The contributors to public space provision go beyond state actors to include panoply of residents, activists and different combinations of interest groups.
Within this context, one realises the shifting boundaries and roles of public spaces that include: self-organization in reclaiming public spaces on the one hand and market-led celebration for economic attractiveness as well as political manipulation of the public realm for undemocratic purposes on the other hand, with several shades in the middle. This complexity requires relational perspectives to analyse these spaces as well as further proposals for transdisciplinary methods, which are very much needed to engage knowledge, concepts and theories from various disciplines, allowing them to permeate policy-making and practice processes in different contexts.
To this end, the working theme poses the question: which actors and which transdisciplinary methods can engage knowledge on public spaces in a transformative manner that directly influences public space policy and practice processes towards meeting the role of promoter of ‘inclusive, connected, safe and accessible’ cities?
The AESOP Thematic Group Public Spaces and Urban Cultures develop this working theme addressing the following topics:
- Changing typologies and roles of players and actors: multiplicity of publics and public space cultures, arenas for rebuilding participation
- Public spaces and changes: climate change, social movements, circular economy
- Changing needs and roles: homelessness, refugees, immigrants and integration, age, gender, social, cultural, ethnic and religious considerations and urban justice
- Questioning the global north-south divide and public space dynamics
- Changing environmental awareness: public space as a buffer zone, contribution to public health (mental and physical well-being)
- Changing intangible cultural heritage: adapting the genius loci to multiple and dynamic cultural identities
Productive steps in 2019
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15th May 2019 AESOP TG PSUC Workshop, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK |
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Workshop of Knowledge Exchange between Research and Practice on ‘Public Space Design with Social Cohesion and Intercultural Dialogue in mind’ |
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Over the last two decades, societies worldwide are facing serious challenges to achieve social cohesion. A context of rising diversity, austerity and a series of ethnic conflicts and terrorist attacks have brought about a culture of fear, intolerance and distrust of strangers in our everyday public spaces. This context has led to a series of top-down and bottom-up experiments in public space design and management seeking to promote social cohesion and intercultural dialogue. To date there have been few efforts to evaluate the outcomes of these experiments and to understand if and how social cohesion and intercultural dialogue have been realized. This workshop brings together academics, practitioners and policy-makers to share their knowledge and experience around this subject, and identify where new knowledge is needed in terms of public space theory, practice and policy. It seeks to develop an international network of expertise to support and expand future collaborations in intercultural public space research, practice and policy. The workshop begins with a series of short presentations by the invited speakers outlining their varied research and practice insights on the subject, followed by a discussion. Invited Speaker: Jane Dann, Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design, London Ceren Sezer, TU Delft & AESOP Public Spaces and Urban Cultures Thematic Group Melissa Meyer, Regeneration & Economic Development, Greater London Authority Noha Nasser, MELA, London Anna Mansfield, Publica, London |
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9th-13th July 2019 AESOP Annual Congress Venice 2019 |
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Track #15, Tourism, public spaces and urban cultures |
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The track #15, Tourism, public spaces and urban cultures was co-chaired by Ceren Sezer (The Netherlands), Gabriella Esposito De Vita (Italy), and Stefania Ragozino (Italy) and included 73 papers that were presented in the following sessions: opening session, public space focus 1&2, public space inclusivity, urban creativity, historic cities, place-based approaches, focus on streets, tourism focus, urban regeneration, communities, urban forms. Theme Over the last decade, public spaces have received an attention more than ever in urban research, policy and public debates as a facilitator of diverse, equal and democratic urban cultures. These debates are underlined by the decline of welfare state model and a rise in the neo-liberal approach to urban development to promote city’s position in global competitiveness in order to achieve its economic success and prosperity. Among others, tourism has been seen as one of the key drivers of economic success. This implies that investments are not evenly distributed at the city level but concentrated in some selected parts of the city, such as historical city parts, waterfronts, business hubs for finance and high-tech industries, and neighbourhoods for creative industries. Some of the consequences of these developments are: social and spatial segregation, lack of public participation in the urban planning and design processes, gentrification in the central neighbourhoods, privatisation and control of urban space, marginalization of some social groups based on their gender, race and religion, dislocation of neighbourhood residents, and lack of accessibility and distribution of amenities. This track welcomes theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions addressing the role of public spaces in promoting a diverse, equal and democratic urban cultures, including, but not limited to the following aspects:
Keywords public spaces, urban culture, tourism, touristification, economy of tourism, place-making, self-organization, environmental resources, place-branding, aging society, youth unemployment |
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- Roundtable: City, diversity and social inclusion: a myth or reality?
- Call for abstracts / Special issue / Spatial Justice in Urban Studies and Planning Education / Planning Practice and Research (Routledge) / Deadline: May 4, 2020
- Planning, Law and Property Rights Thematic Group Annual Report 2019
- Annual Report for 2019
