Abstract: The formerly industrially or militarily used Urban Waterfront is a potential area for urban development. Extensive interventions in the urban space come along with the development of these previously inaccessible areas in the city. The development of the Urban Waterfront in the European City is not subject to any recognizable urban paradigm. In this study, the development of the Urban Waterfront as a new urban space typology is analyzed by case studies of Urban Waterfront developments in European Cities. For humans, perceptible spatial conditions are categorized and it is identified whether the themed Urban Waterfront Developments are congruent or incongruent urban design interventions and which deviations the Urban Waterfront itself induce. As congruent urban design, a design is understood, which fits in the urban fabric regarding its similar spatial conditions to the surrounding. Incongruent urban design, however, shows significantly different conditions in its shape. Finally, the spatial relationship of the themed Urban Waterfront developments and their associated environment are compared in order to identify contrasts between new and old urban space. In this way, conclusions about urban design paradigms of the new urban space typology are tried to be drawn.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the questions raised through the
work of Unit 5: ‘In/Out Crisis, emergent and adaptive’; an
architectural research-based studio at [ARC] University of Nicosia. Students were asked to delve into state of Art Technologies in
order to propose sustainable Emergent and Adaptive Architectures
and Urbanities, the resulting unprecedented spatial conditions and
atmospheres of the emergent new ways of living are deemed to be the
ultimate aim of the investigation. Students explored a variety of sites
and crisis conditions seen through their primary ingredient identified
as soil, water and air and their paired combination. Within this
methodology, crisis is seen as a mechanism for allowing an
emergence of new and fascinating ultimate sustainable future cultures
and cities by taking advantage of the primary materiality of the sites.
Abstract: The paper will focus on the strategic development
deriving from the evolution of the traditional courtyard spatial
organization towards a new, contemporary sustainable way of living.
New sustainable approaches that engulf the social issues, the notion
of place, the understanding of weather architecture blended together
with the bioclimatic behavior will be seen through a series of
experimental case studies in the island of Cyprus, inspired and
originated from its traditional wisdom, ranging from small scale of
living to urban interventions. Weather and nature will be seen as co-architectural authors with
architects. Furthermore, the building will be seen not as an object but
rather as a vessel of human activities. This will further enhance the
notion of merging the material and immaterial, the built and unbuilt,
subject-human, and the object-building. This eventually will enable
to generate the discussion of the understanding of the building in
relation to the place and its inhabitants, where the human topography
is more important than the material topography. The specificities of
the divided island and the dealing with sites that are in vicinity with
the diving Green Line will further trigger explorations dealing with
the regeneration issues and the social sustainability offering
unprecedented opportunities for innovative sustainable ways of
living. Opening up a discourse with premises of weather-nature, materialimmaterial,
human-material topographies in relation to the contested
sites of the borders will lead us to develop innovative strategies for a
profound, both technical and social sustainability, which fruitfully
yields to innovative living built environments, responding to the ever
changing environmental and social needs. As a starting point, a case study in Kaimakli in Nicosia, a
refurbishment with an extension of a traditional house, already
engulfs all the traditional/ vernacular wisdom of the bioclimatic
architecture. The project focusses on the direct and quite obvious
bioclimatic features such as south orientation and cross ventilation.
Furthermore, it tries to reinvent the adaptation of these parameters in
order to turn the whole house to a contemporary living environment.
In order to succeed this, evolutions of traditional architectural
elements and spatial conditions are integrated in a way that does not
only respond to some certain weather conditions, but they integrate
and blend the weather within the built environment. A series of
innovations aiming at maximum flexibility is proposed. The house
can finally be transformed into a winter enclosure, while for the most
part of the year it turns into a ‘camping’ living environment. Parallel to experimental interventions in existing traditional units,
we will proceed examining the implementation of the same
developed methodology in designing living units and complexes.
Malleable courtyard organizations that attempt to blend the
traditional wisdom with the contemporary needs for living, the
weather and nature with the built environment will be seen tested in
both horizontal and vertical developments. Social activities are seen as directly affected and forged by the
weather conditions thus generating a new social identity of people where people are directly involved and interacting with the weather.
The human actions and interaction with the built, material
environment in order to respond to weather will be seen as the result
of balancing the social with the technological sustainability, the
immaterial, and the material aspects of the living environment.