2010 Urban change : The prospect of transformation

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14235/1789

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Open Access
Borderlands : Changes for peripheries
(AESOP, 2010) Cimadomo, Guido
The first known concept of land goes back to the time of the Egyptians, who believed it to be flat and floating on water. Later on, other civilisations raised similar concepts. In Babylon the priests described the universe as an oyster with water above and below, the whole sustained by a solid sky like a closed and round room. The Mesopotamian concept foresaw an ocean that surrounded flat land; it was forbidden for navigation and punishment for those who ignored this was to fall into the abyss. Later still, around the 8th century B.C. the Greeks imagined land as a flat and round disk held up by columns. Anaximander of Miletus saw the world in the form of a cylindrical column surrounded by air that floated at the core of the universe without support and couldn’t fall because it was right in the centre. What is clear is the absence of fear of early civilisations to raise some abysmal edges – very difficult to justify – but with a persuasive and frightening force, highlighting the predominance of specific interests over rationality.
Open Access
City centre regeneration : Оld town east
(AESOP, 2010) Barranco, Ricardo; Egyud, Reka; Maeiyat, Mohammad; Murseli, Rizah; Swistun, Deborah; Triantis, Loukas
The area is located in Wrocław’s historic city centre, close to the central market, in the most touristic part of the city near the Odra river. Replacing second world war destruction the area was regenerated mainly with blocks of flats and public open spaces following the principles of modern urban planning and architecture. Not well connected with its adjacent historic core, the main city market, commercial activities and educationalcultural buildings on the river bank, it has valuable permeable internal spaces between buildings. We have identified several problems which impede the material value of the area and needs redressing. The immaterial value is represented by the modernist style of the housing blocks, their layout and the associated open spaces, together with historic events still present in the collective memory. Interaction with local inhabitants informed our SWOT analysis.
Open Access
Concepts and issues of the european urban summer school in Wrocław
(AESOP, 2010) Mironowicz, Izabela; Ryser, Judith
Urbanisation is a global process, yet it has left a particular legacy in European cities which constituted the content of the 2010 UN-Habitat European Urban Summer School. Young professionals and tutors with diverse backgrounds congregated from all over Europe and beyond in a central European city to gain a better understanding of urban change. Reconciling heritage with development was the challenge to achieve a more sustainable urban future. ‘Sustainability’ was conceived here as a balance between historic legacy, regeneration and citywide urban transformation. Wrocław, the host city generously provided the empirical setting to test these assumptions, to verify their validity through international comparisons, and to offer young professionals the opportunity to elaborate interventi
Open Access
Conditions of selfregulated urbanity
(AESOP, 2010) Kucina, Ivan
Urban structures are material artefacts reflecting the history of the societies that had been creating them, as well as today’s social relations. Post socialist cities are the physical witnesses of the communist ideologies that have gone and the capitalist ambitions that have loudly taken their place. Socialist society projected the high ideals of universal humanity, such as equality, solidarity and unity onto urban development by adopting modernism and following the most progressive concepts of modern architecture and urban planning. Collective values were represented by hierarchical urban structures composed of functionally organised parts which were celebrating social order and a healthy environment.
Open Access
Creation of city vision preparation of urban development plans and regulations for the city of Kamza
(AESOP, 2010) Dollani, Petrit
Since the fall of communism in Albania, the country has undergone profound changes, almost without equal among the transition economies. The effects of such a transformation, both good and bad, have become very visible – in physical and spatial patterns, and in the living condition of the people – in urban areas and especially those which are growing rapidly and are situated on or near the Adriatic coast with easy communication access to EU countries. This urbanisation process has undergone three distinct phases. The first phase was dominated by the development of the informal sector. The second phase consisted of the consolidation of the informal sector and the emergence of a formal sector. In its third current phase Albania is continuing steady urban growth, further development of the formal sector and rapid regularisation of informal developments (ALUIZNI) alongside new formal developments. Simultaneously, the contribution of the private sector to the growth of the GDP has increased dramatically from 10% in 1992 to 75% by 1996 and is still increasing. As the previous barriers to population movements do not exist anymore, the Albanian workforce has entered regional as well as extra regional economic areas and began to invest their remittances from foreign earnings especially in housing and other real estate sectors. This has provoked an overall rural exodus to urban areas. Between 1990 and 1994, Tirana and its peripheral communes, as well as other provincial cities grew four times more than during the previous 40 years.
Open Access
Dreams and reality quick review of ideas case study of Wrocław
(AESOP, 2010) Ossowicz, Tomasz
This paper is about ideas, dreams of Wrocław planners and municipal managers and about what happened as a result of these dreams. It is not a complete review of planning and planning policy implementation in Wrocław, but only of selected ideas. Thus the paper is divided into dreams rather than chapters. Analysing the existing Wrocław city structure, one can see something like a series of strips, most of them parallel to the Odra River (Fig.1). Some of them are dominated by housing, others by various economic activities. The housing areas are alternating with the strips of economic activities. The city structure is similar to the composition of a Big Mac with its many layers of bread and meet. Such a spatial arrangement is very efficient for the functioning of the transportation system. During the rush hour the majority of roads and lanes in both directions are used equally by car traffic. Also tramways going in opposite directions are equally full of passengers. Both empirical research and traffic computer simulations give evidence of this transportation system ‘behaviour’.
Open Access
DSR : Access over speed
(AESOP, 2010) Has, Yaprak; Marchesi, Silvia; Ostatek, Izabela; Reis, Jose; Romanyk, Monica; Sofge, Michelle
The aim of the ring road on the edge of the inner city is to reduce pressure from car traffic in the city centre. Building a road with high car capacity seems to defeat this purpose, as It has been welldocumented that increasing motor capacity leads eventually to an increase in car use. Besides congestion, a car-oriented route carries many other negative factors, noise, air pollution, ugliness and the creation of unpleasant, unsafe surroundings. The road itself would present a huge obstacle to pedestrians and would divide the city further. The challenge is to provide a link between the two ends of the city, in such a way that traffic is actually reduced in the long term and that the route serves as a link rather than a barrier. The central location of this link in an area with relatively high density and close to the city’s inner core, led us to design this link not as a high capacity motor road, but as a multi-modal ‘urban avenue’.
Open Access
DSR : Sound and space
(AESOP, 2010) Durate, Rui; Gubic, Ilija; Jankovic, Natasha; Moritz, Suzanne; Tusinski, Olivia; Wolff, Manuel
‘What? What did you say? I can’t hear you. Please repeat!’ Wrocław’s downtown road is an example for such a statement. The city planned the new ring road (DSR) to remove traffic from the inner city and connect the eastern inner city with the west, partly on existing congested roads, partly on new segments which will increase noise levels. How do people deal with noise in daily life? How does traffic noise influence the use of adjoining spaces? Our proposal concentrates on noise and how to treat sound as a positive feature of spatial strategies. Will the ring road become an insuperable divide of the urban fabric and communities, including through noise, or could it become an opportunity to improve the quality of spaces alongside? Traffic noise is disturbing older housing along the road in the east and travels through neglected open spaces between tower blocks to affect low rise housing in the west. Traffic noise is overpowering many different sounds: conversations between people, church bells, rock music from garages along the road. Conversely, green spaces further apart are rather calm where voices of people can be heard and even animals.
Open Access
DSR : Using mobility to restructure urban fabric
(AESOP, 2010) Silva Barbosa, Adrianna; Janowski, Konrad; Jurecka, Agnieszka; Mo, Aaron; Muccio, Giordano; Stagova, Sami
One of the great challenges in planning is the integration of policy set out in development plans, with the implementation mechanisms that achieve the goals. It is indeed a paradox of planning that after years of intensive work and consultation, we hand the physical realisation of that plan over to others to achieve. This is particularly the case in the traditional centres of towns and cities. They are complex, multi-layered places; physically, socially, economically and politically; a rich tapestry of culture, heritage, architecture, activity and business that is so characteristic of ‘real’ urbanism. However, it is this diversity and legacy that makes urban cores challenging and often undesirable locations for simplistic planning, development and investment models1. Comprehensive redevelopment and regeneration inevitably changes urban character because it must reconstruct and densify to enhance values. This paper considers some alternative bottom-up public-private partnership mechanisms that support the investment and renewal of the urban fabric to enhance value through multiple minor interventions and initiatives: Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and Landlord-led renewal.
Open Access
EU urban tools and urban regeneration
(AESOP, 2010) Elisei, Pietro
Under the expression of ‘Urban Regeneration’ it is possible to find many and different kinds of strategies, policies and programmes. Since the end of the 1960s policies of urban regeneration have been designed and implemented on the European continent. These urban policies, at least the first examples, are an attempt to manage urban transformations especially of highly industrialised Western European cities. After the end of post war growth, in the 70s and in the 80s, traditional industrial structure changed rapidly all over Western Europe (Couch, Fraser, Percy, 2003). Urban renewal, Urban revitalisation, Urban redevelopment, Urban requalification, Stadterneuerung, Stadtsanierung, Rénovation urbaine, Réhabilitation urbaine, Renouvellement urbain, Assainissement urbain, Byfornyels, Bysanering, Rinnovamento urbano, Recupero urbano, Riqualificazione urbana are a set of different ways to identify the main urban regeneration and urban renewal policies across Europe in the last 40 years. This set can be easily widened with many other terms. All these expressions represent roughly policies and models for the neighbourhood scale (ABIs, Area Based Initiatives). They are based on partnership building principles, promoting participatory planning, with little relevant financial public investment, and limited in time (Elisei, 2004).
Open Access
Foreword
(AESOP, 2010) Dziekoński, Olgierd
Dear organizers, lecturers and participants of the european urban summer schools, I would like to thank you for inviting me to attend the European Urban Summer School in Wrocław, which is co-organised by the UN-Habitat, the Faculty of Architecture of the Wrocław University of Technology and the Assosciation of European Schools of Planning. I do welcome the fact that that this interesting event will bring together young urban planners from all across Europe. I very much regret that I will not be able to take part at this meeting but I would like to seize this opportunity and get some of my comments across to all those who are involved in this event. The challenges regarding urbanisation in Europe and in the world as a whole require an international discussion. The activitities and good practices, attained by local communities which thanks to decentralisation of powers can get actively involved in spatial planning and management processes, are worthy and need to be disseminated. Urbanisation in countries which are subjected to rapid social and economic changes creates new opportunities. Urban sprawl is not an adverse phenomena in itself. It is an inevitable trend in transition countries where people are eager to afford appropriate housing standards. So it can serve as an opportunity to build new towns, new urbanisation with high
Open Access
Foreword
(AESOP, 2010) Mironowicz, Izabela
One day in December 2009 I was sitting working on a book we produced after the International Urban Workshop, ‘Gardens of Art’… The morning was bright and a little bit misty and through the window I saw the tower of St George’s church in Kidderminster, in the UK. I was thinking that I was a little bit tired with urban workshops, summer schools and all these activities which cost a lot of efforts and I was wondering whether I should rather focus on something more quiet. That day I have got an email from Krzysztof Mularczyk, Head of UN Habitat Warsaw Office:
Open Access
Foreword
(AESOP, 2010) Nilsson, Kristina L.
It is a pleasure to write an introduction to this fruitful summer school arranged by the Faculty of Architecture at Wrocław University of Technology. It was an honour for AESOP, Association of European Schools of Planning, to have been co-organiser with support from the UN-Habitat, especially its Warsaw Office. A group of planning practitioners and experienced academics have exchanged knowledge and experiences and skilled researchers from AESOP member schools all around Europe have acted as tutors. The summer school has focused on current planning challenges in European cities, where there are often conflicts between urban development and conservation of built-up areas and buildings. New building development is frequently stronger than historic preservation. The summer school has collected a number of interesting papers concerning the management of heritage values in urban regeneration. There are original examples of integration between heritage and development.
Open Access
Foreword
(AESOP, 2010) Clos, Joan
I am pleased to be able to introduce to you a very welcome publication on the European Urban Summer School which took place in Wrocław in September of 2010 thanks to the hard work of the Wrocław University of Technology’s School of Architecture with the support of our UN-HABITAT office in Warsaw. I also want to thank the partner institutions in this project: our main partner Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) ISOCARP and EURA, as well as the Lower Silesia Marshall Office and the City of Wrocław local authorities for their cooperation and support. As a result, at a 10 day summer school over 20 lecturers and 50 students from all over Europe had a chance to meet and look at practical cases of how to create a balance between heritage and development. It is published at a time when many countries in Europe are re-defining urban planning. That redefinition has to take place because urban Europe is contending with challenges of depopulation of cities, urban sprawl and the need for revitalisation of inner city areas. It is increasingly difficult to deny that the downgrading of planning has contributed to the problems being experienced. Not only does that lead to development which does not include adequate provision for public space or infrastructure but it can also contribute to exacerbating environmental problems.
Open Access
Foreword
(AESOP, 2010) Mularczyk, Krzysztof
On a spring day in April 2008 I sat in an airport lounge with Olgierd Dziekoński, then a minister in the Ministry of Infrastructure now a minister in the Presidential Chancellery, and Anna Tibaijuka, then the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT and Undersecretary General of the United Nations (today the Minister for Housing and Member of Parliament in Tanzania). As we were waiting for Anna Tibaijuka’s flight to be called for departure we got round to discussing what UN-HABITAT could do for young people starting their career in urban planning and development. Olgierd Dziekonski gave us the idea of an annual summer school that could be used not only to exchange ideas and transmit knowledge and experience but also to build a network of such young planners. The idea of the European Urban Summer School was born.
Open Access
Garden city regeneration sępolno
(AESOP, 2010) Has, Yaprak; Marchesi, Silvia; Ostatek, Izabela; Reis, Jose; Romanyk, Monica; Sofge, Michelle
The garden city Sępolno was built between 1919 and 1935 with small housing for workers east of the Wrocław city centre around a central open space with public facilities and surrounded by allotments. It got gradually gentrified, sometimes with unauthorised modifications. Its labyrinthine street pattern in the shape of a Silesian Eagle is now cluttered with parked cars and lacks legibility. Despite its turbulent history, Wrocław managed to preserve its urban structure, together with many unique buildings, besides neglected and mismanaged areas. Sępolno’s historic urban texture and social pattern give this neighbourhood its identity, but participative management could improve its sustainability and prepare it towards becoming European Capital of Culture in 2016.
Open Access
Identity and authenticity in urban regeneration
(AESOP, 2010) Lorens, Piotr
Present urban development processes – both in cities aspiring to become metropolitan centres and in smaller ones having different functions in the settlement network – are increasingly related to the concept of regeneration. This concept – frequently mistaken for restoration and modernisation of city structures – has become a part of the urban development cycle, defined by Klaassen already decades ago, and has become common practice since then in many cities around the globe. The urban regeneration concept is frequently associated with problems of preservation and rehabilitation of heritage areas, which are often in need of serious actions to regain their original values and functions. But this process – happening within the circumstances of the liberal development paradigm, globalisation trends and other associated phenomena – has to be associated not only with a proper assessment of the historic importance of the site, but also with its commercial value and possible ways of increasing it. This approach demands to take into account issues such as site identity and the value of the authentic elements of heritage structures. Both can have a certain value, not only symbolic but also economic, thus both of these have to be a part of comprehensive regeneration and development policies.
Open Access
Industrial heritage: Hutmen
(AESOP, 2010) Durate, Rui; Gubic, Ilija; Jankovic, Natasha; Moritz, Suzanne; Tusinski, Olivia; Wolff, Manuel
Hutmen is a large industrial site of 39,2 hectares located 1,5 km south-west of Wrocław city centre. Established in the early 20th century, the site has been constructed to create better working conditions, health care and amenities for workers. The steel foundry forms the traditional core of industrial activity, accompanied by additional small businesses (manufacturers, radio stations, car services and light industrial). Hutmen’s distinctive industrialism with its central location, distinctive architecture, excellent transport connections to the city centre, city bypass, and airport, public transport infrastructure has become a heritage interest. Preserving industrial and light industrial functions, the relocation of the steel foundry has become a priority for both the company and the city ranging from high rise to detached housing and services of Wrocław. The site is surrounded by vast garden landscapes (allotments) and Grabiszyn neighbourhood with 14.000 residents.
Open Access
Integrating the city
(AESOP, 2010) López Galdeano, Josefina
Cities entered a transformative logic since the nineteeneighties. The main reason for this transformation was the industrial crisis that took place between the late seventies and early eighties. The current economic crisis is also altering the context of cities dramatically and will provoke a great impact on their future. Cities are going through a profound metamorphosis, a transformation of their productive systems, crystallised in physical and symbolic space. In the logic of competitiveness and economic growth, understood as a synonym of social progress, this metamorphosis is often led by the implementation of urban strategic plans. Here strategic plans are understood as defined by Borja and Castells (1998) as ‘a city project that unifies diagnoses, specifies public and private actions and establishes a coherent framework mobilising the cooperation of urban social actors’.
Open Access
Introduction : Downtown Southern Route (DSR)
(AESOP, 2010) Mironowicz, Izabela; Ryser, Judith
The City of Wrocław has been facing heavy traffic problems, especially in the inner city and on the inner city ring. Not only it is a problem of everyday commuting, but also for transit that uses the downtown street system. Therefore, the municipality planned to build a southern downtown ring that connects Plac Społeczny in the east to the new development area in the west. This road is believed to change the existing situation, to release the city centre from transit traffic, and to reduce congestion and pollution in the old town. The current proposal for the Downtown Southern Route (DSR) consists of a high-capacity six-eight lane ring road, which will be made up from existing and readapted streets, as well as completely new road connections. The proposed route is to run south of the Old Town, connecting Kazimierza Pułaskiego with Poznańska and thereby creating a high-capacity on the edge of the inner city. It is important to note that the proposed planning area is one of the most congested in the city where traffic flows at an average speed 20-30 km/h and are often interrupted.