A More-Than-Urban Architecture

The querelle between modern and traditional urban design has alimented in the past decades diverging phenomena such as the new urbanism, the so-called vernacular architecture and the landscape urbanism on one hand, and the extreme radical neo or ultra-modernist approaches on the other side, each establishing clearly a different and diverging position within the international debate. The urban morphology approach, as developed in time by the Italian school of Saverio Muratori and Gianfranco Caniggia and their followers, has developed a methodology for architectural and urban design, which is neither the radical reproposal of the ultra-modernist style, nor the nostalgic reference to vernacular forms. The Italian school of Urban Morphology proposes a methodology for urban and architectural design based on the reconstruction of the formation process of the built organism, the types, the aggregates, and the territorial cycles. Upon the full understanding of these multi scalar processes, it is then possible to develop the project as the last phase of an ongoing process. A last phase, conceived as contemporary on one hand, but not opposing itself to history on the other, deriving its vitality from the understanding of the formation process of building types and urban tissues so to be the continuation of the past into the future. The paper illustrates briefly the formation process of palaces and public squares through some well-known examples, and proposes a project that applied the same methodology in the design.

The interactions between public and private, people and environment , open and closed ' inside and outside , and part and whole are important design criteria in traditional environments. This interaction and indissoluble whole of the fabric , transitional space , which is described as the overlapping of indoor and outdoor spaces , has great importance. In different cultures, transitional spaces have different names: arcade , engawa, vestibule, eiwan, and hayat. It is commonly named sündürme in Cyprus. Sündürme is the essential component that determines the spatial patterns and formal configurations in the traditional architecture of Cyprus. At the same time, it is the forthcoming transition device between traditional and contemporary environments of Cyprus. Through open and renewed interpretations, sündürme has the potential to be a cultural transition that can achieve continuity of traditional values and maintain physically and socially satisfying environments. Furthermore, any planning and designing strategy that considers the potential of sündürme in new housing developments as a shared image of all communities living on the island could contribute to the sociopolitical process. Under this scope, this study points out the cultural and architectural role of sündürme and describes its spatial, functional, and climatic characteristics by referring to the formal analysis results of 154 houses.1 The study aims to draw attention to the importance of sündürme in the development of living environments towards achieving better living conditions and a higher quality of living environments, while maintaining the spirit of the social and cultural lifestyles of the past and possibly integrating them with the requirements of our time.

Studi di estetica, anno XLIV, IV serie, 2/2016, ISSN 0585-4733 Recensioni, rassegne, autopresentazioni, note Recensione Andrea Allerkamp, Dagmar Mirbach (a cura di), Schönes Denken. A.G. Baumgarten im Spannungsfeld zwischen Ästhetik, Logik und Ethik, fascicolo speciale n. 15 della "Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft", Hamburg, Felix Meiner Verlag, 2016

Scenari 12, 2020

This paper wants to focus the main topics of inhabiting in three dimensions concerning the relationship between Aesthetics and Architecture: 1) The intimate space of the house, 2) The shared space of the city and 3) The felt space of Atmospheres. In this way we would like to introduce the concept of lived space as an important field of the Architecture project and, at the same time, we would like to illustrate how Architecture approaches the world of phenomenological and aesthetically sensitive inhabiting space.

Urbanism. Arhitectura. Constructii, 2019

10 years after the foundation of NIRD URBAN-INCERC and its journal, this Editorial attempts to draw a line and make a balance of the achievements and failures of "Urbanism Architecture Constructions", and outline its future prospects.

The Journal of Architecture, 2016

2007

Salama, A. M. (2007). Book Review: Nikos A. Salingaros: A New Vitruvius for 21st Century Architecture and Urbanism. Archnet-IJAR-International Journal of Architectural Research, Volume 1, Issue 2, PP. 114-131. ISSN # 1938 7806. ______________________________________ This article adopts the premise that the work of Nikos A. Salingaros marks a true beginning for seriously regaining what cultures and societies have lost throughout the years through the work of many architects, urbanists, and decision makers. It explores the three monographs he has written and views them as a new “De Architectura” for 21st century architecture and urbanism. The article reflects on Vitruvius’s De Architectura and sheds light on selected evolutionary aspects of architecture and the anti-vitruvian practices that continued for hundreds of years, but intensified over the last century. It reviews the attitudes of anti-vitruvian architects that contributed to severe socio-cultural and contextual problematics. The views adopted in this article are based on the conviction that the theories and writings of Salingaros are a reaction and a conscious positive response to these practices, and that these theories will invigorate the creation of humane and livable environments.

Journal of Comparative Cultural Studies in Architecture, 2018

The extraordinary human invention of the city has developed and implemented some of the elements already present in the embryonic form in primi- tive residential mode: the road, the square, the market. The void as a public space, represented by places designated for sociability and collective activities, becomes the main character of the city. In parallel to that, residences were developed in different typological and formal evolutions. The introduction of the window produces a singular phenomenon, reversing the interpretation of the relationship between the private and public space in favor of the second. Street and square became the places of the highest urban expression and identity. Around these “voids” develop the social, commercial, philosophical and political activities, which have made the Mediterranean culture the essence of the Western civilization for centuries. Squares, streets and markets were “adopted” even in the walled cities of the Middle Ages, superb urban synthesis of previous cultures, but here they are thought as a unit, a continuous flow of public places able of interacting with the private ones like never before. In the urban context, the houses and their adjacent areas are the natural completion of the medieval public space, which is in fact a place to meet and socialize, a ceremonial and institutional space, a work and activity space. Widely unchanged during the following centuries, the street and the square are now subject to a strong identity and functional decline, largely replaced by other “aggre- gating” forms and by other means of data exchange, services and sociability. If during the first decades of the twentieth century new housing models were elaborated, inspired by the utopian ones of the pre- vious century – residential solutions born from the potential of new building techniques and from a social interpretation of great charm – today things have deeply changed. The great collective housing designed by Le Corbusier (the Immeuble Villas be- fore and then the Unite d’Habitation) represented the highest point of these experimental housing types: these were large collectors of services and different human realities, capable of generating public and shared spaces, relations between the people and cities, new relationships between the communities and neighborhoods. In a different context that severely reduced the utopian eupho- ria of the Modern Movement, today new housing models are conceived, renouncing the public space in favor of a private one. Among them, cohous- ing is widely supported and is spreading even in contexts unrelated to its origins, particularly in the Mediterranean. These models, however, aim to develop an autonomous community, where every social relationship is circumscribed, addressed to other members of the community in an exclusivist way: a “return” to the primordial origins that could be very dangerous in the fragmented and not very cohesive context in which they are coming into existence.

The pressing economic, environmental and social crises underline the need for a redefi nition of the dominant views, perspectives and values in the fi eld of architecture. The intellectual production of the last two decades has witnessed an impressive number of new design techniques and conceptual displacements refl ecting the dynamic and fl uid relation between man and his dwelling space. However, the contemporary market forces are favouring the growth of a star system in architectural production based on technological innovation, spectacular imagery and formal acrobatics, and are neglecting the social, environmental and moral implications of spatial design. Perhaps the time has come to think anew about the possible critical intersections between space and ethos, not only as an answer to the negative consequences of Modernity, but also as a remedy to the negative aspects of globalisation. The aim of the present collective volume is to enliven the ethical dimensions and dilemmas of architecture as they are shaped within the complexity of our times on two levels: the level of critical and refl ective discourse and the level of social and cultural reality occasioned by post-industrial modes of production and new technologies. Thirteen distinguished academics and researchers investigate the complex relations between architecture, space and ethics from divergent and interdisciplinary perspectives: philosophy, sociology, the humanities, the arts, landscape design, environmental design, urban design and architectural history and theory.

Archnet-IJAR International Journal of Architectural Research , 2015

Starting from Italy and from the book Manifesto del Nuovo Realismo (2012) by the philosopher Maurizio Ferraris, a new paradigm was created: a critical return to "strong thought" opposite to the previous post-modern paradigm. What about Architecture? The paper studies the reflection developed through a series of conferences and exhibitions, held over last three years, inviting architects and philosophers-Italian and foreign-to think over "Architecture and Realism". Starting from an initial assessment of these initiatives, the need to improve tie of our discipline-Architecture-with reality emerged; a reality that we have to properly understand with the aim-remembering Lukács-of building «a real and adequate space, able to visually evoke adequacy» and, in this way, counteracting the senselessness of contemporary architecture as 'reductio ad imaginem' and the amorphous growth of globalized post-metropolis. As the authors believe that circularity between Theory and Practice exists in Architecture, some projects at the urban scale are given to clarify theoretical affirmations in the text. Keywords: new realism; architecture of the city; architecture and philosophy; contemporary city INTRODUCTION Architecture, city, reality are three words-central in the reasoning of this essay-that are apparently not subject to interpretation, nevertheless it is useful to try to define them, from a specific and explicit point of view. Architecture is, as in Gregotti's definition, a practice of art with the ultimate aim of the construction of spaces for human habitation: an inhabiting intended not in individual sense but collectively. Architecture establishes a circular process with society, through the architect: society requires architecture and accepts (or rejects) the answers. In this, Architecture is equidistant from both pure art and mere technique; it exists to answer to collective rather than to individual requirements and to build real and adequate spaces for people; in this sense it does not develop through subsequent overruns but through progressive accumulation. The city is the concrete evidence of this; it is the place where all our history becomes the critical and living scenery that occurs in order that architecture may be an expression of its time but also of dialectic continuity with the past. A city that should always be, for the architects, a reality of forms, measures, materials, colours. From this disciplinary point of view-recalling its autonomy-the project is responsible for the knowledge of reality-of forms, measures, materials and colours-for its critical interpretation and positive modification. On the other hand, if Architecture is unavoidably linked to reality, there is Philosophy: a field of study able to ask more than answer. Nevertheless, Architecture and Philosophy have had frequent opportunities to meet, with different results and today we are reasoning about the relationship between New Realism and Architecture of the City.

Article, 2025

According to the UN-Habitat 2020 Population Data Booklet, the world population living in the existing 1934 large metropolises is 2.6 billion people: one-third of the world's population. By the year 2050 will be 66% of the world population living in cities. There are 8936 intermediate cities in the world and urban agglomerations today occupy 7.6% of land mass of the planet. These data are alarming due to the density of construction, the consumption of resources, emissions into the atmosphere, the amount of waste and a long etcetera that they imply. However, beyond all those factors that today are "integrated" into the "planning" of the city, there is the failure of architecture and urban planning, which around the world is evident in the daily lives of people, every time that, in contemporary urban conglomerates, the intersubjective relationship of their inhabitants, with the environment and among themselves, is almost impossible for the exercise of a truly free, fraternal, fair, equitable and happy life. Therefore, I call for a deep reflection on what I consider should be a return to the Architecture of the City and on the possible extinction of urbanism.

International Journal of Civil & Environmental Engineering IJCEE-IJENS, 2013

Considering architecture as a spatial art, the paper examines the nature of ongoing change in the design of architectural spaces, in accordance with the profound conversion in the nature of social existence on Earth. The study aims to tackle the issue mainly from a morphological standpoint with cross-references to sociological dimension of space. Recently, some started to believe that virtues of modernity were not capable of coping with the emerging diversity and complexity brought by new bodies, who were gradually introduced into the urban scene through democratisation. Therefore, the de(con)struction of the canons of the modernism was the only solution in order to achieve a new phase in the material evolution of humankind. Spatial reflection of such an ongoing social transformation, that is to say, a major shift from „an ideal society centrally controlled by corporate groups‟ to a much more pragmatic one with „flexibility of control systems‟ is of prime concern in this study. In other words, a paradigm shift from „rational and sensible‟ state to a „chaotic, yet, perverse‟ state of human condition, in the name of freedom, is central to the discussion of the evolution of space design. In brief, newly emerging social and corresponding spatial phenomena seem to have took over, our cultural landscape via guerrilla war tactics, and was supported by scholars, who advocated the „death of architecture‟ for the sake of proliferation of low culture. Albeit, an initiative with good intentions of integrating all parties of the community, turned out to be working against the sense of community. Hence, the very same issues of social concerns seem to have shifted from socialist rhetoric towards the hands of a more capitalist rhetoric. Therefore, the new power and her weapons should be disguised in a seducing new skin... Fluid architecture of late 90‟s was the ideal new mediatic solution... In result, values characterised by grace, coherence, consensus, durability, order, have been replaced by pride, unquestioned wealth, corruption, falsification, distortion, humour, irony, nihilism, and „in-your-face-attitude‟ of the new generation of Murat Cetin is with the Kadir Has University, Dept. of Int. Architecture, Central Campus, Cibali, 34083, Istanbul, Turkey (phone: +90-533-344-9003; fax: +90-212-533-5853; e-mail: [email protected]). citizens. Masochistic experience of contemporary urban life, grotesque images of environment, the parasitic and violent character of architecture, yet seductive outlook of their figures have fascinated the minds of the new (yet perverted) urban population. Hence, a fluid, vague, indeterminate archi-tectonic language was becoming politically correct decor for a rapidly eroding society. In fact, this new architecture should be evaluated within the web of concepts like otherness, utopia, fantasy, media, Post-Modern popular culture, consumption, marketability, pluralism, as well as the shift in the conception of “reality and simulation”. In this study, it is argued whether architects, as spatial artists, should shift their focus from the timeless qualities, tectonic virtues and ethical principles of modernism towards transient, ephemeral imagery of this fashionable formalism, simply because, capital is shifting hand from the former-elite towards neo-elite (formerly accepted as underground, grunge, illegal, disapproved, etc.). The decision obviously constitutes a fine line between architecture and prostitution in an age of social hysteria, schizophrenia, fetish, frenzy, disintegration, fragmentation, and thus, perversion. The argument is primarily based on the question of whether new vocabulary of fantastic images is an avant-garde formal jamborine, recurrent trend or fashion-like movement, or alternatively a major breakthrough in the sociological, epistemological, hence architectural frameworks.

Journal of Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism, 2020

Its aim, firstly, is to promote the creation of sites and buildings which harmonize with the culture and the tradition of each place, which pursue a greater respect for the environment and its natural resources, and which respond, in general, to the main challenges we face in our time, such as the progressive disappearance of quality job opportunities, the growing generation of waste and toxic environments, the dissolution of the kind of public spaces which are designed to favor interchange and coexistence, neglected in the majority of the new urban developments, the unbalance the rural areas are suffering, which leads to their depopulation, or the persistence of planning practices which lead to a serious dependence on private transport. Su objetivo principal es promover la creación de lugares y edificios que armonicen con la cultura y la tradición de cada lugar, que persigan un mayor respeto por el medio ambiente y por sus recursos naturales, y que respondan, en general, a los principales retos que enfrentamos en nuestro tiempo, tales como la desaparición progresiva de las oportunidades de empleo de calidad, la creciente generación de residuos y de ambientes tóxicos, la disolución de las estructuras urbanas socialmente cohesivas y de los espacios públicos diseñados para el intercambio y la convivencia, olvidados en la mayoría de los nuevos desarrollos urbanos, el desequilibrio que sufre el medio rural y la consiguiente despoblación del mismo, o persistencia de las prácticas de planeamiento que conducen a una mayor dependencia de los medios de transporte privados. García Hermida, Alejandro. 2020. “Timeless Building, Architecture and Urbanism for the 21st Century”. Journal of Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism, 1. Toledo, España: 10 - 21

Inventories: Documentation as Design Project, 2019

In Architectural design space is defined as a "place" that includes social, cultural and time dimension, consists of a system that defines the spatial gap which is not a solid formation there are cases in which a solid geometry of space is merely a tool for the architect of the space formatting. The meaning is reserved within the space. In other words, meaning is added from the important components of experience and neighborhood. Within Architecture environment, each period of every age has a special understanding of space, with principles of lifestyle, shape, space, political, ethical, and aesthetic and faith. Undoubtedly, these values also have a direct impact on neighborly relations.