CREATIVITY GAME


Theory and Practice of Spatial Planning | Number 3 | Year 2015 | ISSN 2350-3637

Editorial

Alenka Fikfak1, Alma Zavodnik Lamovšek2: The 3rd issue  Read more ...

1 Editors-in-charge / UL FA, 2 Editors-in-charge / UL FGG
The third issue of the Creativity Game journal consists of three parts. The first part is thematic and relates to “Theory by Design Systems”. Learn more about the thematic part in a separate editorial. As in the previous issues, the various papers in the second part were submitted by young people who are yet to be tested in their field of research. They cover a wide range of topics and fields related to the built environment. Regardless of their diversity, what these topics seem to have in common is a new and fresh take on pursuing new methodological approaches, while testing the old ones.

The first two papers discuss various methodological approaches to planning (Jernej Vidmar and Janez Koželj: Adaptive Urbanism: A Parametric Maps Approach; and Jošt Berčič: The State of Public Participation in Spatial Planning in the European Union: Public Participation in Spatial Planning between Theory and Practice). They are followed by two papers dealing with the perennial topic of urban renewal, while the proposed solutions also discuss the potential financial instruments (Maurizio Bradaschia: The old port of Trieste: A Century of Projects and Proposals for an Unresolved Issue; Kristijan Lavtižar and Ilka Čerpes: John Nash - Regent Street - Urban Renewal with Royal Support). This is followed by a spatial planning topic of integrating bicycle traffic into the urban landscape (Polonca Andrejčič Mušič and Ilka Čerpes). The last two papers deal extensively with design solutions – the first one, at the level of buildings (Andrej Mahovič: Typology of Retractable Roof Structures in Stadiums and Sports Halls); while the second one, at the level of infrastructure facilities, assesses the condition of steel railway bridges and reviews the methodologies for assessing their remaining lifetime (Gašper Rus, Samo Saje, Gašper Šmid, Martin Klun, Jernej Nejc Lombar, Jan Ratej, Simon Weiss, Nejc Demšar, Gašper Cvenkel, and Anže Cvenkel).

This last paper is directly linked to the third part of this issue, which again explores competitions, workshops, and other project results; it originates in the student project assignment “Along the Creative Path to Practical Knowledge”. This part briefly presents a few other similar projects, financed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia. This is a range of interesting presentations, where students address a variety of spatial challenges through project work, guided by academic and industry mentors.

You are kindly invited to read this issue and submit new papers for the next, fourth issue of the IU_CG journal, whose focus will be on urbanism and spatial planning.

Cristian Suau1, Saja Kosanović2, Carmelo Zappulla3: THEORY BY DESIGN SYSTEMS  Read more ...

1 University of Strathclyde, Department of Architecture, UK, 2 University of Priština, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Department of Architecture, Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovo, 3 Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Spain
“All biological systems (organisms and social or ecological organizations of organisms) are capable of adaptive change. But adaptive change takes many forms, such as response, learning, ecological succession, biological evolution, cultural evolution, etc., according to the size and complexity of the system which we choose to consider. Whatever the system, adaptive change depends upon feedback loops, be it those provided by natural selection or those of individual reinforcement. In all cases, then, there must be a process of trial and error and a mechanism of comparison.” (Bateson, 1972)

Design has always been influenced by external conditions. Transformative context and its growing intricacy have constantly been expressed by design products. When the evolution of complexity arrives to its culmination, the designer leaves reductive and dysfunctional schemes, rigid mind-sets and fragmented way of thinking where everything is broken up into bits, and adopts new maps of knowledge and doing which enable abstract, sophisticated and randomized interpretations of context. The understanding of design thus extends beyond simplified, liner-based interpretations.



The wholeness is an attitude for understanding the world in its complexity of delicate interrelationships among parts. Design is the inseparable part of a whole. The paradigm shift is not anthropocentric; it doesn’t separate humankind from other species and nature but integrates it inside the natural system. Therefore it is necessary to think of design as part of the natural system and to establish a broader understanding of its relationship with the environment. The geometrical, spatial, artistic, technical and functional aspects altogether represent the groundwork of the design process. Moreover, this process is influenced by outer factors, such as the social-environmental-economic context. The production of design is always the outcome of an effort to make internal and external characters interacting with each other. Hence, if the design is a system of interrelated features, then we should accordingly acknowledge the importance of developing new design tools enabling us to deal with its complexity. Designing requires the ability to cope with social, environmental and economical issues. Are we really able to produce a project which successfully integrates aesthetic and technical characters with environmental and societal complexity? How does a single project adapt to non-linear dynamics of overall changes? How do we establish a balance between the necessity to last and overall accelerating transformations? Can a project simulate the complex evolution and refinement of a natural system? In this simulation, does vernacular mean more than a nostalgic remembrance?



WHY THIS SPECIAL ISSUE ON THEORY BY DESIGN SYSTEMS?

Design Systems identify obstacles, constrains and potentiality by exploring either endangered or visionary environments, low or smart technologies, and challenging spatial game plans. Characterised by systemic thinking, adaptability and playability, Design Systems are able to explore new capacities of spatial systems to invent and fabricate alternative scenarios for dwelling through political drifts, ecological repairs, environmental synergies and structural manoeuvres. Being based on experimentalism, and rather prospective than retrospective, Design Systems continuously face the indeterminacy.



AIMS AND SCOPES

The papers contributing to this special issue of the journal Creativity Game aim to: reflect on manifestations of design (re)making in the built environment; underpin the design process over outcomes within the context of practices versus academia; bridge the gap between radical oeuvre, interfacing and design systems; discover and define new spatial concepts in the process of (re)making; augment the awareness of universal design, 'we-all-are-designers' approach, open source architecture and systemic thinking; elevate attributes of insights, understanding and knowing of total design as process-driven radical production; and to explore the dialogues between cognitive and sensorial experiences of design systems in open design studios.

OVERVIEW OF PAPERS

The discussion on benefits of a contemporary pedagogical synergic format involving both online and in class learning, picturesquely supported with findings of experimental course Architectural Design Methodology, implemented last spring at the National Technical University of Athens, is presented by Olga Ioannou. The author demonstrates the need to reconceptualise architectural design courses by introducing new learning variables and renegotiating the existing ones accordingly.

Author Velimir Stojanović explores in his manuscript the causes and consequences of the cycle of changes of urban morphology in urban theory and practice. Cycles of change in urban morphology have a historical dimension effecting the change of both the last and current morphological conditions. In doing so, the author explains the alienation of historical flows trends.

Minas Bakalčev and co-authors Saša Tasić, Violeta Baklačev and Mitko Hadzi Pulja analyze the phenomenon of Urban Lines as systems that create inter-dependences, inter-conditionalities and suppressions, experiencing in their traces certain logic of control. All in all, the paper proposes project strategies from the studio ‘Residential Transformations’, as academic answer to the topic.

This special edition called “Theory by design systems” culminates with a review in which the author Maurizio Bradaschia presents the interaction between project and theory in the perspectives that characterize great movements of thought of historical period; these paradigms are useful to guide the scientific and every other type of research.
 
Literature and sources:
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind.San Francisco: Chandler Pub. Co.

"Theory by Design" Articles

Minas Bakalchev, Sasha Tasic, Violeta Bakalchev, Mitko Hadzi Pulja:
Lines
Creative Commons License IU/CG, 3/2015, 24-29. https://dx.doi.org/10.15292/IU-CG.2015.03.024-029

Papers

Jernej Vidmar, Janez Koželj:
Adaptive urbanism: a parametric maps approach
Creative Commons License IU/CG, 3/2015, 44-52. https://dx.doi.org/10.15292/IU-CG.2015.03.044-052

Andrej Mahovič:
Typology of Retractable Roof Structures in Stadiums and Sports Halls
Creative Commons License IU/CG, 3/2015, 90-99. https://dx.doi.org/10.15292/IU-CG.2015.03.090-099

"Theory by Design" Articles

Cristian Suau:
The Mobileland© garden: A radical landscape game
Creative Commons License IU/CG, 3/2015, 106-114. https://dx.doi.org/10.15292/IU-CG.2015.03.106-114

Workshops, Presentations and Projects

WORKSHOPS Urban Design, Urban-Architectural and Spatial Planning Workshops
Fences and Fence Elements page 108
Renovation of the entrance hall of the Faculty of electrical engineering, UL page 110
SEOUL Studio Statement - Urban Ecology page 112
Development potentials of rural areas and settlement reconstruction – Istra 2015 page 114
Stanford, AEC Global Teamwork Course 2015 page 116
Collaborative Studio Slovenia – Puerto Rico 2015 page 118
Log pod Mangrtom Student Workshop 2014 page 120
PRESENTATIONS
2nd International Academic Conference Places and Technologies 2015: Keeping up with technologies to make healthy places page 127
PROJECTS
PKP2 Project – Management process research: marketing potential of sustainable tourism in Ljubljana page 130
PKP2 Project – Planning of bicycle and pedestrian path in the Municipality of Šentrupert page 132
PKP2 Project – Innovative approaches to space presentations and analysis of their comprehension by children. page 134
PKP2 Project – Assessment of steel railway bridges condition and review of methodologies for assessment of remaining lifetime. page 136
PKP2 Project – Potentials, opportunities and transformation of urban areas in transformation - creating development scenarios page 138
PKP2 Project – Super microclimate in the living environment page 140
PKP2 Project – Pilot Study for Location and Design of a Bike Counter page 142


FULL VOLUME
PDF (4.22M) DOI: 10.15292/IU-CG.2015.03