The paper investigates the places of an urban region inside a Biosphere Reserve in southern Brazil and explores the potentialities for synergies between their biological and sociocultural systems. It assumes: (i) t...The paper investigates the places of an urban region inside a Biosphere Reserve in southern Brazil and explores the potentialities for synergies between their biological and sociocultural systems. It assumes: (i) the perception of their regional rootedness works beneficially for enhancing sustainability; (ii) current progress in place's conceptualization helps in the quest for sustainability, since the core factors of the concept deal precisely with the relationships between people and environment. The paper works both with the perception of existing, as invented places, analysing the perception they stimulate. Real places are seen as socially constructed; invented places, as economically promoted. Selection of empirical regional cases is based on their: perception (real and invented places); scale (urban and ex-urban); management (public or private). In the area of Architecture-Urbanism, place is a created environmental form, imbued with symbolic significance to its users. In the present shift of paradigms from modernism to postmodernism, the discipline evolves towards a more thorough concern with the philosophical implications of places on phenomenological grounds. Also, the making and marketing of new places become increasingly accepted as influential tools to foster prosperity and well-being, by means of the economic development attributed to the creation of places. The concerted private and public management of the region's places and the restrained design they presently employ are providing grounds for an affluent development, showing a wise use of the regional resources. Altogether, it seems inhabitants have learned how to work in conjunction with the environment. This hints at a clear manifestation of sustainable development, worth investigating. Presumably, the concept of place, positioned as it is at the very interface of physical, social, economic and behavioural disciplines, seems to provide a likely means for tackling the challenges for a sustained regional development planning.展开更多
Cities' urban morphology is the result of historic, cultural, political and social processes. The historical cores in Mexican cities have high cultural diversity, which also intermingle pre-Hispanic cultures with col...Cities' urban morphology is the result of historic, cultural, political and social processes. The historical cores in Mexican cities have high cultural diversity, which also intermingle pre-Hispanic cultures with colonial forms, as well with modernity and post-modernity irruption. The case study is Santa Barbara's neighborhood in Toluca City, which was founded in 1524, and the case study was the first neighborhood in Toluca's historical core. At present time, this neighborhood is considered as one of the most dangerous places in the city's historical core, therefore, it has been abandoned. This paper will display the changes in urban morphology of the neighborhood through the years from 1877 to 2010. For site evaluation, the methodologies of Ashihara (1982) and Lynch's (1961) were used in order to analyze positive and negative spaces, as well as main street visual features, street and avenue directions, street circulation and street circulation path configuration. The results show that the focal nodes are a key factor for economic and social reactivation, with which, through urban activation of vacant lots and the traditional use of the streets as public space, is possible to generate centripetal development to restructure the neighborhood.展开更多
文摘The paper investigates the places of an urban region inside a Biosphere Reserve in southern Brazil and explores the potentialities for synergies between their biological and sociocultural systems. It assumes: (i) the perception of their regional rootedness works beneficially for enhancing sustainability; (ii) current progress in place's conceptualization helps in the quest for sustainability, since the core factors of the concept deal precisely with the relationships between people and environment. The paper works both with the perception of existing, as invented places, analysing the perception they stimulate. Real places are seen as socially constructed; invented places, as economically promoted. Selection of empirical regional cases is based on their: perception (real and invented places); scale (urban and ex-urban); management (public or private). In the area of Architecture-Urbanism, place is a created environmental form, imbued with symbolic significance to its users. In the present shift of paradigms from modernism to postmodernism, the discipline evolves towards a more thorough concern with the philosophical implications of places on phenomenological grounds. Also, the making and marketing of new places become increasingly accepted as influential tools to foster prosperity and well-being, by means of the economic development attributed to the creation of places. The concerted private and public management of the region's places and the restrained design they presently employ are providing grounds for an affluent development, showing a wise use of the regional resources. Altogether, it seems inhabitants have learned how to work in conjunction with the environment. This hints at a clear manifestation of sustainable development, worth investigating. Presumably, the concept of place, positioned as it is at the very interface of physical, social, economic and behavioural disciplines, seems to provide a likely means for tackling the challenges for a sustained regional development planning.
文摘Cities' urban morphology is the result of historic, cultural, political and social processes. The historical cores in Mexican cities have high cultural diversity, which also intermingle pre-Hispanic cultures with colonial forms, as well with modernity and post-modernity irruption. The case study is Santa Barbara's neighborhood in Toluca City, which was founded in 1524, and the case study was the first neighborhood in Toluca's historical core. At present time, this neighborhood is considered as one of the most dangerous places in the city's historical core, therefore, it has been abandoned. This paper will display the changes in urban morphology of the neighborhood through the years from 1877 to 2010. For site evaluation, the methodologies of Ashihara (1982) and Lynch's (1961) were used in order to analyze positive and negative spaces, as well as main street visual features, street and avenue directions, street circulation and street circulation path configuration. The results show that the focal nodes are a key factor for economic and social reactivation, with which, through urban activation of vacant lots and the traditional use of the streets as public space, is possible to generate centripetal development to restructure the neighborhood.