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Open House International
FORWARD PUBLISHING PLAN 2010-2013
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
Open Issue
No.4 December
REVITALISING BUILT ENVIRONMENTS: Requalifying Old Places for New Uses
Guest Editor: Dr. Hulya Turgut, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey, Prof.Dr. Rod Lawrence, University of Geneva, Swizterland and Dr.Peter Kellett, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
E-mails: space@itu.edu.tr and Roderick.Lawrence@unige.ch
2011 publishing year.
Vol.36 2011
No.1 March
OPEN AND SUSTAINABLE BUILDING
Guest Editor: Dr. Ing.Jose A.Chica, Labein Technalia,Bizkaia, Spain
E-mail: jachica@labein.es
Open Building Conference
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
AFFORDABLE HOUSING, Quality and Lifestyle Theories
Guest Editor: Prof. Ashraf M. Salama, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, College of Engineering, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar and Dr Urmi Sengupta, School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Queen's University, Belfast
E-mail: asalama@gmail.com and u.sengupta@qub.ac.uk
The issue of housing affordability is widespread worldwide. Governments have responded to this issue through ways of cost reductions in order to make homes available at a price that a user is able to pay. However, this area of concern has been a permanent preoccupation of housing technocrats consumed in the quality and location of the housing unit, often overlooking other socio-cultural and psychological dimensions adhered to it. Housing quality is a composite good with a variety of attributes, including: structural condition, standard of services, amenities, location, usable space and occupancy standards. It can, at the same time be laden with physical, economic and cultural dimensions. The user assigns a pattern of preferences (spatial, social and visual) to the housing unit that corresponds to the degree of acceptability which are set within the context of housing quality and life-style preferences. Houses are, thus not only art forms or machines to live in but also goods with immense economic and social value. People purposively (or un-purposively) use the externally defined meanings of ‘housing’ to situate themselves with others who share their values and life-styles in asserting their social status and identity. Understanding how these issues of affordability may relate to people’s preferences and lifestyles mandates an understanding of housing quality and lifestyle theories.
Traditionally, the terms affordable housing, design and the life-style preferences of the low income population have been seen at best, in isolation and at worst, contradicting each other. In essence, measures to provide affordable housing ignores the fundamental principle that housing comes with the standard bundle of services and under-appreciates the lifestyle and cultural values of the targeted population. Recognition of the impact of life style theories on housing quality and affordability is therefore an emerging phenomenon that deserves a considerable research and a critical conceptualisation. Increasingly in developing world, this has manifested in the suburban development in major cities through developers selling the ‘western dream’ that embodies a new set of housing quality, housing design and life-style preferences and albeit the cost. This rides on the notion that housing today signifies a unique expression of the chosen life-style, one’s pride and sensibilities. The advent of globalisation accompanied by expanding middle class has accentuated this form of ‘western-romanticism’ which is increasingly defining the new ‘cultural preferences’ of people that need not necessarily align with local preferences on spaces, materials and built-form or people’s affordability level. Such processes are altering the historical and semiotic way we viewed the issue of housing affordability. Affordability as a concept has thus become more complex now than ever and challenges the way affordability was seen and defined solely through quantifiable numbers or the cost cutting exercise. Perhaps ‘Affordability’ has to be seen more holistically combining housing production process, the product and the cultural adherence and expressions of the users. The worsening housing affordability problems over the years in tandem with failure of government policies makes it imperative that alternative approaches and possibilities are explored. It is a complex, interdisciplinary query that needs an interdisciplinary approach to answer.
No.4 December
Open Issue
2012 publishing year.
Vol.37 2012
No. 1 March
Open Issue
No.2 June
URBAN SPACE DIVERSITY, Paradoxes and Realities
Guest Editor: Prof. Ashraf M. Salama, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, College of Engineering, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar
E-mail: asalama@gmail.com
With their socio-physical, socio-economic, socio-cultural, and sociopolitical presence cities have always been highly differentiated spaces expressive of heterogeneity, diversity of activities, entertainment, excitement, and pleasure. They have been (and still are) melting pots for the formulation of and experimentation with new philosophies and social practices. They produce, reproduce, represent, and convey much of what counts today as culture, knowledge, and politics. Urban spaces within cities are no exception; they are places for the pursuit of freedom, un-oppressed activities and desires, but also ones characterized by systematic power, oppression, domination, exclusion, and segregation. In dealing with these polar qualities diversity has become one of the new doctrines of city planners, urban designers, and architects. It continues to be at the center of recent urban debates. Little is known, however, on how urban space diversity can be achieved.
In recent rhetoric, diversity denotes in generic terms a mosaic of people who bring a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, styles, perspectives, values and beliefs as assets to the groups and organizations with which they interact. However, in urban discourses it has been addressed as having multiple meanings that include mixing building types, mixing physical forms, and mixing people of different social classes, racial and ethnic backgrounds. While some theorists attribute diversity to the socio-physical aspects of homogeneity within heterogeneity, social differentiation without exclusion, variety, and publicity (Young, 1990), others associate it with socio-political aspects of assimilation, integration, and segregation (Grillo, 2005). While some of these meanings represent a concern for a specific group of professionals including architects and urban designers, urban planners, cultural analysts and abstract theorists, they all agree that each meaning or aspect of diversity is linked to the others; they all call for strategies for urban development that stimulate socio-physical heterogeneity.
This special issue of Open House International attempts to offer answers to these questions: Can planned public urban spaces produce social diversity? What are the aspects of genuine diversity that can be planned for and what are the others that can be attained only spontaneously? With the goal of unveiling lessons learned on urban diversity from the decision making processes and the resulting public urban spaces, the purpose of this issue encompasses several objectives. It aims at providing a conceptualization of urban diversity and elaborating its underlying contents and mechanisms by exploring the variety of meanings adopted in the urban literature. As well, it attempts to establish models for discerning urban space diversity while mapping such models on selected case studies.
No.3 September
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.
2013 publishing year.
Vol.38 2013
No.1 March
BUILT ENVIRONMENTS FOR SPECIAL POPULATIONS:
Guest Editor: Dr. Magda Mostafa, Department of Construction and Architectural Engineering,
The American University in Cairo, Egypt
E-mail: magda.h.mostafa@gmail.com
Architecture, at its very essence, is the process of providing physical space and place for human activity. Primarily concerned with responding to the specific needs of users and their societies, the built environment plays a tremendous role in shaping and facilitating the every day world we live in. Although being inextricably concerned with this man-environment dynamic, architecture however seems to limit its mainstream practices, education and standards to the conventional spectrum of “normal”. This leaves numerous user groups and victims of social circumstances largely excluded from the luxury of an architecture that deems itself specifically to serve them.
Such exclusion from the mainstream spectrum may be due to unique spatial needs and requirements of specific groups, or social phenomena which arise from particular transient or non-transient socio-political circumstances. Such marginalized groups include, but are not necessarily limited to, individuals with special needs and disabilities- particularly developmental disabilities with non-physical manifestations; displaced persons due to natural or socio-political circumstances such as refugees and the homeless; minority groups; the elderly; the poverty stricken; victims of natural disaster etc.
By encouraging research in this area we may create a much needed body of information and a number of methodologies and policies required to address the architectural and urban needs of such special populations. In this issue of Open House International authors are encouraged to submit research that helps bridge this informational gap through evidence based design research, case studies, policy evaluation and other forms of scientific research that address the relationship between special populations and their existing, and required, built environments.
not yet confirmed
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
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