Targeting and measuring housing problems in developing countries through urban texture analysis

Latin-american countries passed from predominantely rural to predominantely urban within few decades. The level of urbanisation in Brazil progressed from 36% in 1950, 50% in 1970, and scalating to 85% in 2005. This rapid transformation resulted in many social problems, as cities were not able to provide appropriate housing and infrastructure for the growing population. As a response, the Brazilian Ministry for Cities, in 2005, created the National System for Social Housing, with the goal to establish guidelines in the Federal level, and build capacity and fund social housing projects in the State and Local levels. This paper presents a research developed in Gramado city, Brazil, as part of the Local Social Housing Plan process, with the goal to produce innovative tools to help social housing planning and management. It proposes and test a methodology to locate and characterise/rank housing defficiencies across the city combining GIS and fractal geometry analysis. Fractal measurements, such as fractal dimension and lacunarity, are able to differentiate urban morphology, and integrated to infrastructure and socio-economical spatial indicators, they can be used to estimate housing problems and help to target, classify and schedule actions to improve housing in cities and regions. Gramado city was divided in a grid with 1,000 cells. For each cell, the following indicators were measured: average income of households, % of roads length which are paved (as a proxy for availability of infrastructures as water and sewage), fractal dimension and lacunarity of the dwellings spatial distribution. A statistical model combining those measurements was produced using a sample of 10% of the cells divided in five housing standards (from high income/low density dwellings to slum's dwellings). The estimation of the location and level of social housing deficiencies in the whole region using the model, compared to the real situation, achived high correlations. Simple and based on easily accessible and inexpensive data, the method also helped to overcome limitations of lack of information and fragmented knowledge of the area related to housing conditions by local professionals.

The intriguing and forgotten international exchanges in the master plan for the reconstruction of Skopje

At 5:17AM on Friday 26 July 1963, Skopje was struck by an earthquake, which in 17 seconds destroyed approximately 75% of the urban fabric, and changed the course of its history from an unknown town to a city of international focus. Immediate actions and a formidable level of local organization; an unprecedented pouring in of aid from the other Yugoslav republics and from individual nations and organisations; and a monumental role for the United Nations in the co-ordination of international , architectural and urban planning expertise for the city's large-scale and long-term reconstruction, laid the foundation for what has been called 'a precise Marxist revolutionary situation' .1 The detail of the paper concerns Stage 4, Replanning 1963 to 1966 of the planning strategy that was organised into five stages, and has a major interest in the invited United Nations (UN) international competition ~o redesign approximately two square kilometres of the city centre.2 Action is associated with activity as productivity, but in Skopje added to this were symbolic human acts and heroic action such that its inhabitants regained their city and importantly a new position as city in the world.

Indigenous climate change adaptation perspectives : understanding urban and peri‐urban indigenous people’s vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change

The National Climate change Adaptation Research Plan: Indigenous Communities (2011) highlighted that research on Indigenous communities and climate change, including the variables of impacts, vulnerability and adaptive capacity and adaptation has been limited. While most research has focused on identifying the biophysical impacts of climate change, a minority of studies have considered the Indigenous knowledge and peoples whom continue to reside in Australia and care for; ‘country’;. The report concluded that “there is a need for research that expands knowledge about these and other dimensions of Indigenous adaptation to climate change.“ This paper reviews work in progress on a NCCARF funded research project that is seeking to investigate select coastal urban and per-urban Indigenous community vulnerability to, and capacity for climate change adaptation. Working collaboratively with Indigenous communities resident in Adelaide, Heywood/Portland, Mornington Peninsula, Stradbroke Island and Brisbane, it seeks to explore and articulate strategies that enhance Indigenous capacity to climate change including possible protocols, frameworks, processes and procedures that may lead directly to a more informed appreciation of what is transpiring around Australia’s coastal per-urban regions for their Indigenous communities who still hold strong bonds and responsibilities to their ‘country’.

Kenzo Tange's forgotten master plan for the reconstruction of Skopje

After the 1963 earthquake, which is said to have destroyed seventy-five per cent of the urban fabric, Skopje, capital city of the Republic of Macedonia (then in Yugoslavia) became a centre of architectural activity. The United Nations held a limited competition for the reconstruction of Skopje, inviting four foreign firms and four Yugoslavian firms to participate. Tange's submission received sixty per cent of the first prize, co-operating with Yugoslav architects to develop the design idea. What can this project tell us about modernism re-inscribed in Japan, and the kinds of internationalism that the United Nations constructed? Japanese Metabolism, of which Tange was a pioneer, heralded Japan as a new centre for innovation in architecture; a new nationalism re-oriented the suffering after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tange developed and realised in Skopje the striking planning ideas he began in his Tokyo Bay proposal. This article examines Tange's master plan for Skopje. It argues that his key elements, the City Wall and the City Gate, exemplify Tange's drive for a new vision in the context of destruction, and that these remain definitive elements today even in the context of a messy transition from a communist to a capitalist society.

Modelling urban growth futures within inner metropolitan Melbourne

In the light of the Victorian State Government's move towards the development of 'Plan Melbourne' - a new metropolitan planning strategy currently being prepared to take Melbourne forward to 2050 - the following paper attempts to address the issue of how an inner city target of 90,000 new dwellings (Inner Metropolitan Action Plan - IMAP Strategy 5) will impact on existing inner Melbourne activity centres. Working with the prospect of establishing a more compact city within the inner Melbourne region, the paper will focus on key suburbs within the Port Phillip area. Working with a 'Housing Variance Model' based on household structure and dwelling type, the paper will attempt to assess the impact on urban morphology as capacity is progressively altered through a range of built form permutations.

Opportunistic destinations : transforming railway stations into sustainable urban centres

All over the world stations are changing to become new urban centres and destinations. Some flagship projects, like Atocha in Madrid or Grand Central in Manhattan, make great destinations with shops, restaurants, museums and exhibition spaces. The urban spaces around them have been redesigned to provide excellent public areas and rationalise functional needs. Suburban stations also have the potential to follow the same trend. After all, stations are places of high symbolic value, they are central to the life of many people and include all sections of society, while generating high footfall and stimulating the economy. For this reason, Station Master Planning must focus on 'place' as well as 'product' to respond to the multiple opportunities. Considering the need that designs of stations need to be sustainable and preserve and value the public spaces, this paper reflects on the case study of the station master plan of the Tottenham Hale Station in London where SKM Colin Buchanan applied opportunistic urban design principles and created a new, significant urban square for north London and a local destination for leisure and investment. The design methodology are transferred to the local context of Melbourne where the unique spatial circumstances of suburban stations along the New Regional Rail Link line are reviewed, highlighting how these stations possesses specific opportunistic and sustainable urban design answers.

Working with 'housing variance' to model urban growth futures with inner metropolitan Melbourne

Continued population growth in Melbourne over the past decade has led to the development of a range of strategies and policies by State and Local levels of government to set an agenda for a more sustainable form of urban development. As the Victorian State government moves towards the development of 'Plan Melbourne', a new metropolitan planning strategy currently being prepared to take Melbourne forward to 2050, the following paper addresses the issue of how new residential built form will impact on and be accommodated in existing Inner Melbourne activity centres. Working with the prospect of establishing a more compact city in order to meet an inner city target of 90,000 new dwellings (Inner Metropolitan Action Plan - IMAP Strategy 5), the paper presents a 'Housing Variance Model' based on household structure and dwelling type. As capacity is progressively altered through a range of built form permutations, the research attempts to assess the impact on the urban morphology of a case study of four Major Activity Centres in the municipality of Port Phillip.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow : attempting to plan for coastal change in South West Victoria

Learn from yesterday, live for today hope for tomorrow. When Albert Einstein penned these opening words, the realm of planning was least on his mind despite the aptness of the thoughts. This paper, having regard to this quotation, questions whether demographic change in one coastal area is occurring at a faster rate than in non–coastal areas? The South West coastal area of Victoria, from 1981 onwards, has witnessed a dramatic increase in population and also major shifts in the social and economic characteristics of the region. What have been the historic demographic and employment characteristics of the area and has there been a shift in these characteristics leading to the rapid population growth? These questions are considered using the City of Warrnambool, the largest urban centre in South West Victoria, as a study vehicle. The impact of a growing population on the municipal landscape can be demanding in terms of land use planning, land supply and the urban design. This paper will review the population growth using a shift share analysis method compared against overall growth patterns in the Victorian state population and Australia overall. It will then examine government population forecasts for the City of Warrnambool and suggest those impacts upon the current City of Warrnambool landscape.

Urban growth and pedestrian thermal comfort

Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia, and its population is anticipated to reach 6.5 million by 2050. In October 2013, Plan Melbourne was released by Victorian government, aiming to intensify several districts to protect the suburbs from urban sprawl. The City of Melbourne’s draft municipal strategic statement identified City North as a great urban renewal area which can accommodate a significant part of the growth. Given the previous heat-related incidence in Melbourne in 2009, the potential threat to human health and pedestrian comfort will be exacerbated, if planning professionals exclude climatic conscious urban design in their practices. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of the future structural plans on the microclimate and pedestrian thermal comfort in City North through numerical simulations. A three dimensional numerical modelling system, ENVI-met was used for the simulation. Field measurements were conducted across the study area to validate the simulated outputs. A clear reduction was reported in the average daytime mean radiant temperature, surface temperature and PMV values after implementing “Plan Melbourne” strategies. The outcomes of this study will assist urban planners in developing the policies which can effectively decrease the vulnerability to the heat stress at pedestrian level.