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Open House International
FORWARD PUBLISHING PLAN 2008-2012
The Previous Subscription Year, 2008.
2008 publishing year.
Vol. 33 2008
No.1 March
No.2 June
THE ARCHITECTURE OF RAPID CHANGE AND SCARCE RESOURCES
Guest Editor: Maurice Mitchell, Department of Architecture and Spatial Design
London Metropolitan University, Great Britain
E-mail : Maurice@mmasskm.demon.co.uk
Is an architectural training relevant in the current climate of global warming, the explosion of urban populations, natural disaster, ethnic cleansing and war? Can groups of people caught up in these events act meaningfully at community level to engage with change and move on? If so what shelter technologies are most useful and how can they best mobilize and make use of the limited resources available?
At a time when there is a resurgence of interest by architectural students in developing a career working with communities in transition, the papers in this issue are grouped around three related themes. The first questions the scale of appropriate technical and cultural intervention where resources are scarce and permanence of settlement is not always established. The second reviews the use of 'loose fit' everyday technologies in enabling communities to respond effectively to perceived threats of natural disaster especially at times of rapid change. The third looks at the growing role of architectural studios in raising community awareness in changing their environment in such situations and at such times.
No.3 September
THE QUEST FOR ZERO CARBON HOUSING SOLUTIONS
Guest Editor: Dr. Masa Noguchi, Mackintosh Environmental Architecture Research Unit, (MEARU), Mackintosh School of Architecture, the Glasgow School of Art, UK
E-mail: M.Noguchi@gsa.ac.uk
Homes are responsible for a great deal of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that contribute considerably to global warming when being built and come into operation. How on earth can the CO2 emissions in housing be reduced or eliminated over the life cycle? Undoubtedly, the mass marketing of ‘zero carbon housing’ is the key to resolving the societal pressure. However, the notion and performance of the house itself are still not coherent and the logical sequence of the housing delivery process is so far little discussed. Accordingly, this special issue takes the initiative in packaging the dispersed knowledge of potential zero carbon housing solutions. International experts in eco-housing were invited to this MEARU edition. Inevitably, the scope of the discourses became diverse in subjects ranging from the analyses of existing low-energy housing and solar community developments, energy-efficient building materials, passive energy and environmental systems, renewable energy technologies to the investigations of design, production and marketing strategies for the delivery of marketable and replicable zero energy housing and the community development.
No.4 December
HIV / AIDS and SETTLEMENT DEVELOPMENT PLANNING
Guest Editor: Christine Wamsler, Housing Development & Management (HDM)
Lund University, Sweden
E-mail : christine.wamsler@hdm.lth.se
During recent years, HIV/Aids has become part of the every-day life in urban settlements in the developing world, being one of today’s most serious and disastrous urban challenges. Since HIV/Aids began in the early 1980s, the pandemic has killed more than 20 million people worldwide. Today, around 42 million people are living with the virus. Out of these, over 95 per cent come from developing countries.
HIV/Aids and human settlement development are directly inter-linked: At the municipal and national level, HIV/Aids is weakening the ability of urban institutions to deliver social housing, infrastructure and services due to loss of staff, related lack of capacities, decrease in municipal revenues (e.g. from taxes and service charges) and increasing costs (e.g. for replacement, care and death benefits). The construction sector also has suffered from the reduction of labour force, with their employees partly being considered as vectors for HIV/Aids. At the local level, inadequate housing and settlements place poor populations at heightened risk of HIV infection. Reasons relate to their exclusion from basic health and education services, lack of formal work, and insecure land tenure or property rights. Other critical factors for the spread and impact of HIV/Aids which relate to the built environment are high population densities, crowdedness, frequency of interaction, and lack of safe spaces, social cohesion and safety networks. In addition, inadequate housing and settlements complicate access to health care for persons already living with HIV/Aids, resulting in improper and infrequent access to therapy drugs, even when they are supplied at no cost. Left behind are worldwide more than 13 million Aids orphans as well as Aids widows that¾together with the other mentioned problems¾confront urban institutions with new demands and challenges. However, while cities present incubators of HIV/Aids, at the same time they also offer great opportunities for combating the disease.
Despite the described situation, in practice little has been done to give consideration to specific urban HIV/Aids matters, and ¾when it comes to settlement development planning¾ hardly any projects/programmes have been carried out. This is alarming as, in fact, housing, adequate living conditions and urban governance are critical in the success of HIV/Aids prevention (decreased transmission), impact reduction, and support and care of those affected.
The interest of Open House International and its special issue on “HIV/Aids and human settlement development” lies in raising the awareness for the described situation and in disseminating existing or potential responses to HIV/Aids from the viewpoint of human settlements, which can combat the pandemic through appropriate shelter, urban planning and governance. Articles should discuss questions regarding the dynamic relationship between human settlement development and the HIV/Aids pandemic, and/or present concrete solutions that help(ed) to prevent its spread, reduce its impact, and/or support and care for those affected. Christine Wamsler
2009 publishing year.
Vol. 34 2009
No.1 March
SHAPING THE FUTURE OF LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS: Emerging Paradigms and Best Practices
Guest Editor: Dr. Ashraf Salama, Architectural Engineering Programme, Qatar University, Doha
E-mail: asalama@gmail.com
Whether in school buildings or university campuses the educational process involves many activities that include knowledge acquisition and assimilation, testing students’ motivation and academic performance, and faculty and teachers’ productivity. The way in which we approach the planning, design, and our overall perception of learning environments makes powerful statements about how we view education; how educational buildings are designed tells us much about how teaching and learning activities occur. Concomitantly, how these activities are accommodated in a responsive educational environment is a critical issue that deserves special attention. While it was said a number of decades ago that a good teacher can teach anywhere, a growing body of literature derived from research suggests a direct correlation between the physical aspects of the learning environment, teaching processes, and learning outcomes.
Current views on planning and designing learning environments place emphasis on the development of standards and specifications that address what needs to be considered in a school building, but rarely address why and how! In essence, they address the final product—the learning environment itself— without giving enough attention to the process that leads to a good product. Design practices on the other hand do not address pedagogical objectives, teaching methods, or the needs of learners in a clear manner. Behavioral issues such as privacy, personal space, small group behavior, crowding and density are typically oversimplified. Therefore, it is paramount to examine a number of critical issues in school planning and design that foster the creation of learning environments conducive to learning. Duke’s statement—a prominent contemporary educator—corresponds with this argument. He states and rightly so “to build or rebuild our schools without thinking the experiences that take place in them seems unwise. These experiences create opportunities to re-design both schools and schooling"
This issue of OHI explores qualities and characteristics of learning environments in both developed and developing contexts ranging from the micro, to meso and macro levels, from classroom typologies to campus outdoor spaces. It places emphasis on emerging paradigms in learning environments that involve a number of underlying issues including the academic house clustering, the school as heart of the community, the rising interest in new classroom spaces and forms, the users centered processes, and utilizing the learning environment as an open textbook. While some papers will place emphasis on how these concepts are articulated in specific cases, others may cover best process practices of planning and designing learning environments, or explore the impact of the physical aspects of the learning environment on academic achievement, students' behavior, and faculty and teachers' productivity.
No.2 June
DESIGNING EDIBLE LANDSCAPES (DEL)
Guest editor: Vikram Bhatt and Ms Leila Marie Farah, McGill University, Minimum Cost Housing Group, School of Architecture, Montreal, Canada.
E-mail : vikram.bhatt@mcgill.ca
In response to the Millennium Development Goals and Agenda 21 objectives, a growing number of international research initiatives are gaining preeminence in an emerging field which links development, food security, city planning, and housing design through urban agriculture. Urban agriculture (UA) was identified as a key actionable idea following the 2005 Habitat JAM and as a key descriptor for the UN-HABITAT World Urban Forum III held in Vancouver in June 2006, where more than 700 delegates attended UA networking events presented by potential contributors of the proposed Open House International special issue. Urban agriculture contributes to exploring local solutions, in both the North and the South, particularly related to the sustainability of cities and climate change, one of the most pressuring challenges of the 21st century.
Designing Edible Landscapes will explore ways to integrate productive planting as a permanent feature of the planning and design of cities. To achieve this, landscapes have to be well designed. The driving force of this proposed issue is to show how and why Edible Landscapes can and have been included as a strategic, sustainable and multifunctional component in municipal land-use schemes and master plans for neighborhood development and housing design.
No. 3 September
HOME, MIGRATION AND THE CITY: Spatial Forms& Everyday Practices in a Globalizing World
Guest Editor: Dr Ayona Datta, Cities Programme, London School of Economics,UK
Email: a.datta2@lse.ac.uk
The study of globalisation as the increasing interconnectedness between all aspects of social, cultural, economic, and political space has seen an unprecedented interest across social and political sciences, humanities, and urban studies. Seen as the direct result of globalisation, migration is now at the forefront of this investigation of cross-border connections, but this interest has predominately focussed on poor migrants’ experiences in their host countries. Studies of globalisation have been silent on the connections between migration and built environments. On the one hand, it is argued that the unprecedented movement of people in a globalising world will put particular emphasis on cities (in ways that they seek to attract particular types of people); and on the other hand it is argued that such movement has led to a death of ‘home’ as a fixed place. Can cities be understood as dense agglomerations of built forms, which are also ‘home’ to those who live there? If so, what does the death of ‘home’ in a globalising world mean for the future of place, of built forms, and of cities?
In this call for papers, we would like to invite a range of interdisciplinary explorations from academics and practitioners alike, who can offer new perspectives and new insights, explore alternative theoretical models, and offer proposals that construct new meanings of ‘home’, migration, and the city in a globalising world. For this special issue, we lay particular emphasis on globalising cities of the South that are undergoing rapid social, cultural, and economic changes and can no longer be seen simply as the ‘lands of origin’ of migrants but increasingly as destinations. Similarly, there are those elite transnationals in the global South, whose mobilities challenge migration as a linear movement, and whose presence is increasingly felt in cities through the rise in luxury housing. On the other hand, the recent expansion of the European Union has meant the increased presence of post-socialist subjects in the global North, which has led to changes in the geographies and identities of public space in Northern cities. We want to ask how the everyday lives and subjectivities of such migrant subjects are represented in the cities through built forms. How are places and built forms re-appropriated, re-negotiated, and transgressed through such diverse forms of mobility? How does mobility produce spatialised struggles for migrant identities in cities? What are the various ways that built forms and spatial practices become new markers of a globalising world?
We are interested in fostering dialogue between academics and practitioners and in spatialising the notion of home and migration in both the North and the South. Our goal is to contribute to a new articulation of theory, practice, and ethics that help us better understand and deal with the conditions of globalisation and mobility through an examination of place, built forms, and spatial practice in cities across the world. The Special Issue guest editor is Dr Ayona Datta, Lecturer, London School of Economics, UK. Please submit a 1000 word abstract and a 150 word author bio by 31st July 2007 by email to a.datta2@lse.ac.uk.
No.4 December
Open Issue
2010 publishing year.
Vol.35 2010
No.1 March
Open Issue
No.2 June
PERSPECTIVES IN SUSTAINABLE AND HEALTHY HOUSING
Guest Editors: Prof. Dr. Ir. Ing. Henk Visscher, Dr. Ir.Evert Hasselaar & Ir.Laure Itard
OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
E-mail: H.J. Visscher@tudelft.nl
Housing contributes a great deal to the global environmental burden. Policies focus on the ecological definition mainly: reduction of carbon dioxide emissions through energy savings and proper treatment and use of materials. Sustainability, however, includes quality of life of which healthy outdoor and indoor environments are major issues. Sustainable building quality can be designed, but depends on occupant perception and behaviour as well. There is much concern for global developments that threaten the quality of life, but at the same time great examples are available that show how ambitious strategies lead to practical results with good quality for the planet and the people living here and now, in comfortable environments.
For this special issue of Open House International we invite authors to submit research papers that show good examples, including evaluations and research papers that reflect on the relationship between housing, health and sustainability as well as on the impact of occupant behaviour on sustainable performance. Papers that explore future solutions and how to promote sustainable housing through policies, instruments and education are welcome.
No.3 September
HOUSING AND SETTLEMENT AFTER DISASTER
Guest Editors: K.A Jayaratne, Urban Resource Centre, Sri Lanka, Prof. Nabeel Hamdi, Emeritus Prof. Oxford Brookes University and Hans Skotte, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
E-mail: jaya_kananke@yahoo.com
No.4 December
URBAN CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION
Guest Editor: Dr. Christine Wamsler, Global Urban Research Centre, IDPM, University of Manchester, UK and Recovery and Risk Reduction, Lund University, Centre for Risk Analysis and Management (LUCRAM), Sweden.
E-mail: Christine.wamsler@manchester.ac.uk and christine.wamsler@brand.lth.se
Climate change and urban development are closely interlinked and often adversely affect one another. Urbanisation – both planned and unplanned – can cause climatic changes. Moreover, urbanisation itself is affected by climate change and also influences the way climate change impacts entire urban populations. Urban development is thus capable not only of counteracting climate change and its impacts, but also of strongly reinforcing them. The current negative feedback loop between climate change and urban development is seen in the resulting increase in weather-borne disasters, diseases and shortages of freshwater, energy and food, which have the greatest effects on the urban poor in developing countries.
While current climate change debates and policy at the international level focus mainly on how to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, urban development actors also need to find ways of adapting to climate change and of placing the urban poor at the centre of their debates and activities. This is crucial so that cities can become able to resist and counteract increasing climate change impacts – rather than inadvertently reinforcing them. So far, however, urban development actors have shown little understanding of how their actions can constrain effective local adaptation to climate change on the part of urban slum dwellers, too often with disastrous outcomes.
The Open House International special issue on ‘Urban Climate Change Adaptation’ aims at counteracting the situation described, by disseminating current applied urban research, practices, case studies, programmes and frameworks on cities and climate change that have the potential to bridging the current knowledge gaps that exist between the fields of urban development, disaster risk reduction, and climate change adaptation.
2011 publishing year.
Vol.36 2011
No.1 March
OPEN AND SUSTAINABLE BUILDING
Dr. Ing.Jose A.Chica,
No.2 June
TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE CITY: Piecemeal vs Grand Planning.
Guest Editor:Prof. Yurdanur Dulgeroglu-Yuksel, School of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey.
E-mail: yukselyu@itu.edu.tr
Inquiry into Piecemeal vs. Grand planning approaches; Third World Cıty development in the post-post modern age; a critique of existing housing policies in the face of natural development dynamics in the developing metropoles; new ideas on the ecology to be clashed with technology in the context of sustainability; sustainability as an old concept and as a new solution criterion for generating “good” housing solutions; natural dynamics of urbanization requiring piecemeal approach into planning in LDC vs. governments’ tendency to adopt Grand policies of DC s; problems of large wipe-outs in the city, social disintegration of the neighborhoods after replacement of existing settlements; use of high-tech to serve as an “end” rather than as a means in the prestigious city in a developing country; an update into the sustainable characateristics of the people; community-oriented approaches and small scale projects; slowly growing settlements; physical and social integrity and neighborhood design projects.
No. 3 September
URBAN SPACE DIVERSITY, Paradoxes and Realities
Guest Editor:Dr. Ashraf Salama, Queen’s University, Bekfast, Northern Ireland, UK
E-mail: asalama@gmail.com
No.4 December
Open Issue
2012 publishing year.
Vol.37 2012
No. 1 March
AFFORDABLE HOUSING, Quality and Lifestyle Theories
Guest Editor:
No.2 June
BUILT ENVIRONMENTS FOR SPECIAL POPULATIONS
Guest Editor:
No.3 September
No.4 December
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