Entre o cartão-postal e a cidade real: um estudo sobre paisagem e produção imobiliária em Natal/RN

Recent studies concerning the landscape have investigated the most important activities that contribute for its modification and have tried to better understand the society through the marks left by its quotidian. It is understood that singular landscapes constitute the cultural patrimonies of the cities, once they are part of the daily life of the citizens and are present in their social representations. Some contemporary authors defend the preservation of the natural and urban landscape trying, specially, to keep its importance for the local population. Natal is a city where the ambient qualities are well defined and known by the beauty of the area where it is located. Situated just between a river and the sea, the city grew following its geographic characteristics. The Potengi River, the Atlantic Ocean and the vast dunes ecosystem represented natural limits to the urban expansion; at the same time they have favored the development of a landscape pattern marked by the dialectic between the natural elements and the human interventions. However, this relationship changed after the intensification of the high rising development process that took place since the 1960s. The urban legislation tried to preserve the features of the local landscape delimiting Areas for Controlling Building High , destined to protect the scenic value of some parts of the city. On the other hand, the civil construction sector has made constant pressure in sense to abolish or to modify this legal instrument, aiming profits that have increased, in the 1990s, because of the consumption and the qualification of the urban space for tourist activities. It is necessary the raising of new elements to stimulate the quarrel about the landscape preservation, the process of the urban space production and the best way for the legislation implementation. This work tries to raise elements about the subject at local level, in sense to use Natal City experience to contribute for the formulation of indicators to raise the question about the lack of measure for subjective values, for example the cultural and affective value of the landscape. The natural elements inserted in the urban profile, represent strong visual references and supply identity to the town; they are part of the collective imaginary and are detached in the social context of the city. Then, why the preservation of the landscape, that estimates the improvement in the quality of life, is not enough to justify the controlling building high already previewed as part of Natal City Legislation? These questions send us to the approach of the landscape, as a community patrimony, alerting that some of its significant esthetics attributes must be preserved as a legacy for the future generations

Natural Disasters and Comparative State-Formation and Nation-Building: Earthquakes in Argentina and Chile (1822-1939)

Natural disasters in Argentina and Chile played a significant role in the state-formation and nation-building process (1822-1939). This dissertation explores state and society responses to earthquakes by studying public and private relief efforts reconstruction plans, crime and disorder, religious interpretations of catastrophes, national and transnational cultures of disaster, science and technology, and popular politics. Although Argentina and Chile share a political border and geological boundary, the two countries provide contrasting examples of state formation. Most disaster relief and reconstruction efforts emanated from the centralized Chilean state in Santiago. In Argentina, provincial officials made the majority of decisions in a catastrophe’s aftermath. Patriotic citizens raised money and collected clothing for survivors that helped to weave divergent regions together into a nation. The shared experience of earthquakes in all regions of Chile created a national disaster culture. Similarly, common disaster experiences, reciprocal relief efforts, and aid commissions linked Chileans with Western Argentine societies and generated a transnational disaster culture. Political leaders viewed reconstruction as opportunities to implement their visions for the nation on the urban landscape. These rebuilding projects threatened existing social hierarchies and often failed to come to fruition. Rebuilding brought new technologies from Europe to the Southern Cone. New building materials and systems, however, had to be adapted to the South American economic and natural environment. In a catastrophe’s aftermath, newspapers projected images of disorder and the authorities feared lawlessness and social unrest. Judicial and criminal records, however, show that crime often decreased after a disaster. Finally, nineteenth-century earthquakes heightened antagonism and conflict between the Catholic Church and the state. Conservative clergy asserted that disasters were divine punishments for the state’s anti-clerical measures and later railed against scientific explanations of earthquakes.

Water sensitive urban design : landscape planning and design to improve water quality in Shijiazhaung and Yueyang

Water quality issues are heavily dependent on land development and management decisions within river and lake catchments or watersheds. Economic benefits of urbanisation may be short‐ lived without cleaner environmental outcomes. However, whole‐of‐catchment thinking is not, as yet, as frequent a consideration in urban planning and development in China as it is in many other countries. Water is predominantly seen as a resource to be ‘owned’ by different jurisdictions and allocated to numerous users, both within a catchment and between catchments. An alternative to this approach is to think of water in the same way as other commodities that must be kept moving through a complex transport system. Water must ultimately arrive at particular destinations in the biosphere, although it travels across a broad landscape and may be held up temporarily at certain places along the way. While water extraction can be heavily controlled, water pollution is far more difficult to regulate. Both have significant impacts on water availability and flows both now and in the future. As Chinese cities strive to improve economic conditions for their citizens, new centres are being rebuilt and environmental valued

Water sensitive urban design in landscape projects in Shijiazhuang and Yueyang in China [水敏性城市设计 (WSUD) 策略及景观项目中的应用 (中国石家莊和中國岳陽)]

With the rapid urbanization progress, water resources protection and water pollution control have become key problems of human environment construction and social sustainable development. Many countries, especially Australia, have mature experiences. Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) is one of the successful strategies that is put forward under this global situation and helps releasing heavy environmental pressure from urbanization. The paper discussed main principles of WSUD and then took Shijiazhuang, Heibei and Yueng, Hunan for examples trying to apply WSUD in river landscape projects in China's new urban area, thus doing contributions to more sustainable water management in new urban areas in China.

Stage 1 of the Yueyang Urban Water System Project: Landscape planning and design of Wangjia River

Chinese landscape architects are largely focused on objective practical solutions to environmental problems. In the West, theoretical landscape knowledge is largely conceptual and abstract. This research debated how Australian ecological concepts could or should be transposed to Chinese landscapes. This project responded to severe water and soil pollution issues in the estuarine and riparian zones of rivers flowing into Dongting Lake, in Yueyang City, Hunan Province. This work proposed a range of waterfront design innovations that challenged the notion of corridor as habitat, filter, barrier and conduit in a Chinese riparian context.

Methodology for evaluating the landscape character of Malaysian heritage urban river corridors

The effects of rapid development have increased pressures on these places exacerbated by the competition between two key industry sectors, commercial base and tourism development. This, in supplement with urbanisation and industrialisation, has posted a high demand for the uses of these spaces. The political scenario and lack of adaptation on ecological principles and public participations in its design approach have sparked stiff environmental, historical and cultural constraint towards its landscape character as well as the ecological system. Therefore, a holistic approach towards improving the landscape design process is extremely necessary to protect human well being, cultural, environmental and historical values of these places. Limited research also has been carried out to overcome this situation. This further has created an urgent need to explore better ways to improve the landscape design process of Malaysian heritage urban river corridor developments that encompass the needs and aspirations of the Malaysian multi-ethnic society without making any drastic changes to the landscape character of the rivers. This paper presents a methodology to develop an advanced Landscape Character Assessment (aLCA) framework for evaluating the landscape character of the places, derived from the perception of two keys yet oppositional stakeholders: urban design team and special interest public. The triangulation of subjectivist paradigm methodologies: the psychophysical approach; the psychological approach; and, the phenomenological approach will be employed. The outcome will be used to improve the present landscape design process for future development of these places. Unless a range of perspectives can be brought to bear on enhancing the form and function of their future development and management, urban river corridors in the Malaysian context will continue to decline.

Insights to urban dynamics through landscape spatial pattern analysis

Urbanisation is a dynamic complex phenomenon involving large scale changes in the land uses at local levels. Analyses of changes in land uses in urban environments provide a historical perspective of land use and give an opportunity to assess the spatial patterns, correlation, trends, rate and impacts of the change, which would help in better regional planning and good governance of the region. Main objective of this research is to quantify the urban dynamics using temporal remote sensing data with the help of well-established landscape metrics. Bangalore being one of the rapidly urbanising landscapes in India has been chosen for this investigation. Complex process of urban sprawl was modelled using spatio temporal analysis. Land use analyses show 584% growth in built-up area during the last four decades with the decline of vegetation by 66% and water bodies by 74%. Analyses of the temporal data reveals an increase in urban built up area of 342.83% (during 1973-1992), 129.56% (during 1992-1999), 106.7% (1999-2002), 114.51% (2002-2006) and 126.19% from 2006 to 2010. The Study area was divided into four zones and each zone is further divided into 17 concentric circles of 1 km incrementing radius to understand the patterns and extent of the urbanisation at local levels. The urban density gradient illustrates radial pattern of urbanisation for the period 1973-2010. Bangalore grew radially from 1973 to 2010 indicating that the urbanisation is intensifying from the central core and has reached the periphery of the Greater Bangalore. Shannon's entropy, alpha and beta population densities were computed to understand the level of urbanisation at local levels. Shannon's entropy values of recent time confirms dispersed haphazard urban growth in the city, particularly in the outskirts of the city. This also illustrates the extent of influence of drivers of urbanisation in various directions. Landscape metrics provided in depth knowledge about the sprawl. Principal component analysis helped in prioritizing the metrics for detailed analyses. The results clearly indicates that whole landscape is aggregating to a large patch in 2010 as compared to earlier years which was dominated by several small patches. The large scale conversion of small patches to large single patch can be seen from 2006 to 2010. In the year 2010 patches are maximally aggregated indicating that the city is becoming more compact and more urbanised in recent years. Bangalore was the most sought after destination for its climatic condition and the availability of various facilities (land availability, economy, political factors) compared to other cities. The growth into a single urban patch can be attributed to rapid urbanisation coupled with the industrialisation. Monitoring of growth through landscape metrics helps to maintain and manage the natural resources. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In search of common grounds: Stitching the divided landscape of urban parks in Belfast's interface zones

Political and spatial contestation in divided cities contributes to strategies of self-defense that utilize physical and spatial settings to enable the constitution of social boundaries, borders and territories.
Urban parks that are designed to ease division through an open transitional landscape can instead facilitate further segregation through their spatial order and facility layout. This paper investigates the role of the spatial design and material landscape of integrated parks in Belfast interface areas as instruments of engagement or division. It does so by analyzing the spatial organization of the parks’ facilities and the resultant ‘social voids.’ Space, time and distance were found to be effective tools for the negotiation of privacy, the manifestation of power, and the interplay of dominance and self-confidence. In the context of a divided city, strong community-culture tends to reproduce new boundaries and territories within the shared landscape. Through user interviews and spatial analysis, this paper outlines the design principles that influence spatial behavior in the urban parks of contested urban landscapes. It argues that despite granting equal access to shared public facilities, social voids and physical gaps can instill practices of division that deepen territorial barriers, both psychologically and spatially.

Chase over the Nile: The Social Evolution of Riverine Landscape in Urban Egypt

Throughout its history, Cairo evolved as a regional metropolis that sprawls along the banks of the Nile accumulating narratives of evolving social landscape. Overlooking the Nile reflected a privileged social position and place for the urban elite. In spatial terms, the urban bourgeoisie tend to develop living havens in enclaves that are distant from the populace’s everyday life. Ironically, exclusive settlements only attract urban growth further in their direction. This chapter offers an analytical reading of the socio-spatial structure of Cairo following the emergence and decline of a series bourgeoisie quarters along the shores of the Nile. It reports urban narratives based on archival records, documents and investigation of historical texts and travelers’ accounts. This essay argues that cities are essentially social constructs in which hierarchy and connectivity are fundamental aspects of its economic and spatial logic. Through social ambition and desire for upgrade, middle class infiltrate into bourgeoisie havens and sometimes encircle it, seeking better living condition inscribed by social mobility and connectivity to centres of wealth and power. Being both natural barrier and cohesive spine, the Nile helped Cairo to develop successive nucleuses of highly crafted urban experiences that have left their imprints on the contemporary urban scene.

Attitudes of landscape professionals towards naturalistic versus formal urban landscapes in the UK

The last 30 years have seen a tide of interest sweeping across Europe in the development of nature in cities, and an increasing amount of landscape development in urban areas has involved the use of 'naturalistic' styles. This is an increasing attempt to find ways for urbanism and nature to co-exist. However, there have been considerable discussions among professionals regarding the advantages and disadvantages of 'naturalistic' styles in urban areas. This research examines professional attitudes to 'naturalistic' landscape styles in Britain, in contrast to more traditional, formal landscape styles, and aims to find out whether the interest in natural landscapes is really a fashion among landscape professionals. A self-administered postal survey was carried out using both quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques and analysis. The survey included 500 professionals from parks and recreation departments of local authorities, private landscape practices and conservation trusts, and resulted in a satisfactory response rate of 53 %. The results of this study suggested that professionals recognise most of the values attached to naturalistic landscapes in urban areas. However, possible benefits that natural areas may have for urban people are not attached to naturalistic landscapes alone. The study also revealed that the naturalistic style is highly popular among conservation trusts but is less so among professionals from local authorities and private landscape practices who seem to appreciate both styles and believe that these styles are not separable from each other and should co-exist in an urban environment. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Jerash: The landscape, urban space, and architecture

The peculiarities of Roman architecture, town planning, and landscape architecture are visible in many of the empire's remaining cities. However, evaluation of the landscapes; and analysis of the urban fabric, spatial compositions, and the concepts and characteristics of its open spaces are missing for Jerash (Gerasa in antiquity) in Jordan. Those missing elements will be discussed in this work, as an example of an urban arrangement that survived through different civilizations in history.^ To address the characteristics of the exterior spaces in Jerash, a study of the major concepts of planning in Classical Antiquity will be conducted, followed by a comparative analysis of the quality of space and architectural composition in Jerash. Through intensive investigation of data available for the area under study, the historical method used in this paper illustrates the uniqueness of the site's urban morphology and architectural disposition.^ An analysis will be performed to compare the design composition of the landscape, urban fabric, and open space of Jerash as a provincial Roman city with its existing excavated remains. Such an analysis will provide new information about the roles these factors and their relationships played in determining the design layout of the city. Information, such as the relationship between void and solid, space shaping, the ground and ceiling, the composition of city elements, the ancient landscapes, and the relationship between the land and architecture, will be acquired.^ A computer simulation for a portion of the city will be developed to enable researchers, students and citizens interested in Jordan's past to visualize more clearly what the city looked like in its prime. Such a simulation could result in the revival of the old city of Jerash and help promote its tourism. ^

Urban public policies: towards the improvement of landscape ecological system. The case-study of the city of Évora, Portugal.

The Charter of European Planning 2013 presents a Vision for the future of European cities and regions, highlighting the sustainability of cities and the preservation of urban ecosystems, integrating the man-made environment with the natural ecosystems and contribute to the well-being and quality of life of their inhabitants and other stakeholders. Thus, urban public policies are crucial to the improvement of the landscape ecological system, achievable by city planning and design. The paper aims to analyse if public urban policies in Portugal have been integrating strategies and/or guidelines to enhance the ecological system of the landscape. Then, which new perspectives are possible, framed by the recently approved law Bases of Public Policy of Soils, Land Management and Urban Planning (2014). This new law, in contrast with the previous ones, don’t allow reserving land to urbanize, in municipal master plans. Moreover, it is possible to revert land classified for urban purposes in those plans into rustic soils (when it is not yet infra-structured or built). It allows creating new planning and design dynamics, convert several areas and including them in the urban ecological structure, essential to the enhancement of landscape ecological system. This is a filed of work where landscape architecture has huge responsibilities, by associating and harmonize man-made environment with natural systems, enlightening sustainability consistent with conservation and improvement of Nature while contributing to the well-being and quality of life of Man. A sustainability that is ethical, aesthetic, ecological and cultural. The study is supported by a case study – the city of Évora. The ultimate goal is to propose measures to promote larger and better integration of ecological component in urban public policies, framed by the new territorial management law, taking into account and highlighting the specificities of the landscape system – Man and Nature – at the local level.

Urban expansion and tha environmental problem: a landscape approach in Rio de Janeiro City, Brazil.

2008

Encounters and content sharing in an urban village : reading texts through an archaeological lens

Archaeology provides a framework of analysis and interpretation that is useful for disentangling the textual layers of a contemporary lived-in urban space. The producers and readers of texts may include those who planned and developed the site and those who now live, visit and work there. Some of the social encounters and content sharing between these people may be artificially produced or manufactured in the hope that certain social situations will occur. Others may be serendipitous. With archaeology’s original focus on places that are no longer inhabited it is often only the remaining artefacts and features of the built environment that form the basis for interpreting the social relationships of past people. Our analysis however, is framed within a contemporary notion of archaeological artefacts in an urban setting. Unlike an excavation, where the past is revealed through digging into the landscape, the application of landscape archaeology within a present day urban context is necessarily more experiential, visual and based on recording and analysing the physical traces of social encounters and relationships between residents and visitors. These physical traces are present within the creative content, and the built and natural elements of the environment. This chapter explores notions of social encounters and content sharing in an urban village by analysing three different types of texts: the design of the built environment; content produced by residents through a geospatial web application; and, print and online media produced in digital storytelling workshops.