scholarly journals The role of vertical farming in re-thinking and re-designing cities within a circular perspective

Rivista Tema ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol Vol.6 (2020) (N. 1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Dal Ri ◽  
Sara Favargiotti ◽  
Rossano Albatici

One of the key issues of the contemporary city is “urban voids”, characterized by disused buildings. Such spaces can be the starting point for a new urban setting, where the city reconnects to the rural environment. Vertical farming can be a new paradigm connecting these often-opposed concepts, bringing several advantages. This paper presents an experimental case study about a typical situation in a peripheral context of the city of Trento. An industrial building under decommissioning is restored as a vertical farm through a circular economy perspective, combining natural resources with ICT, consumption, and reuse processes. , ,

Author(s):  
Alessandro Portelli

This article centers around the case study of Rome's House of Memory and History to understand the politics of memory and public institutions. This case study is about the organization and politics of public memory: the House of Memory and History, established by the city of Rome in 2006, in the framework of an ambitious program of cultural policy. It summarizes the history of the House's conception and founding, describes its activities and the role of oral history in them, and discusses some of the problems it faces. The idea of a House of Memory and History grew in this cultural and political context. This article traces several political events that led to the culmination of the politics of memory and its effect on public institutions. It says that the House of Memory and History can be considered a success. A discussion on a cultural future winds up this article.


Author(s):  
Timothy Gibbs

This article focuses on M15 organization and Klaus Fuchs, a German-born physicist and Soviet “Atom Spy” who was arrested in 1950 and served fourteen years for offences related to atomic espionage. It examines how Fuchs was identified as an “Atom Spy” in 1949 and describes the MI5's investigation, which ended in the early 1950 with the successful arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of this highly significant Cold War figure. Key issues discussed in this article include the difficulties encountered by MI5 and the budding British atomic program in the sphere of security. It also discusses the role of Signals intelligence (SIGINT) in the investigation of Fuchs, and the high-risk but ultimately successful approach taken by MI5's key interrogator, William Skardon. This case study highlights both the unparalleled level of international intelligence cooperation between the British agencies and their American counterparts, which made the resolution of this case possible, and some of the frailties in the Anglo-American alliance that were brought to the fore by the exposure of Fuchs as an Atom Spy.


Author(s):  
Lisa Bode

On July 14, 2019, a 3-minute 36-second video titled “Keanu Reeves Stops A ROBBERY!” was released on YouTube visual effects (VFX) channel, Corridor. The video’s click-bait title ensured it was quickly shared by users across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Comments on the video suggest that the vast majority of viewers categorised it as fiction. What seemed less universally recognised, though, was that the performer in the clip was not Keanu Reeves himself. It was voice actor and stuntman Reuben Langdon, and his face was digitally replaced with that of Reeves, through the use of an AI generated deepfake, an open access application, Faceswap, and compositing in Adobe After Effects. This article uses Corridor’s deepfake Keanu video (hereafter shorted to CDFK) as a case study which allows the fleshing out of an, as yet, under-researched area of deepfakes: the role of framing contexts in shaping how viewers evaluate, categorise, make sense of and discuss these images. This research draws on visual effects scholarship, celebrity studies, cognitive film studies, social media theory, digital rhetoric, and discourse analysis. It is intended to serve as a starting point of a larger study that will eventually map types of online manipulated media creation on a continuum from the professional to the vernacular, across different platforms, and attending to their aesthetic, ethical, cultural and reception dimensions. The focus on context (platform, creator channel, and comments) also reveals the emergence of an industrial and aesthetic category of visual effects, which I call here “platform VFX,” a key term that provides us with more nuanced frames for illuminating and analysing a range of manipulated media practices as VFX software becomes ever more accessible and lends itself to more vernacular uses, such as we see with various face swap apps


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 2509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uroš Radosavljević ◽  
Aleksandra Đorđević ◽  
Kseniјa Lalović ◽  
Jelena Živković ◽  
Zoran Đukanović

Using heritage as a cultural artifact in city development is not new, but little has been explored about how urban heritage can be utilized as new generative value and a new planning instrument for the revival of cities. The purpose of this paper is to show the creative and the generative use of urban heritage, both for the extension of cultural and tourist offer of the city and for the improvement of the quality of life in physical, social and economic terms for the community. The case study method was used for the adaptive reuse of projects for heritage buildings and urban revival in Kikinda. We argue that urban heritage has to be used, bearing in mind its spatial, economic and social sustainability aspects, and become a generator of urban revival. We go beyond recognition of the value of heritage as a cultural artifact that should solely be preserved and used as a static element in urban development, and view it more as a dynamic asset for city revival processes. We found that for the heritage nodes to be utilized as the new generative value for the revival of cities, they have to be perceived from the network perspective, thus influencing the urban environment in a sustainable way.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 83-104
Author(s):  
Pedro Jiménez-Pacheco

This article is based on the premise that it is possible to apply Henri Lefebvre’s critical-theoretical apparatus to complex urban processes as a pedagogical case study. From previous knowledge of Lefebvrian thought, the article provides an overview of what Lefebvre called “the science of the use of social space”, supported by a transdisciplinary methodological plurality. The starting point is that neoliberal social space is produced, prepared, and led to the imminent urban post-neoliberalism, in the midst of this movement, a sophisticated planning system appears, with the old promise of service tradition, egalitarian ethics and pragmatic orientation. But in practice, it only reproduces the impotence of being inside a wave of localized surplus-benefits that expels human residues, avoiding any reaction. The Lefebvrian apparatus and a part of its theoretical tradition guide the research on Barcelona as a paradigm of global real-estate violence. This urban phenomenon is examined in central Barcelona, in order to rescue it from the pessimism of its own inhabitants, from the harsh perception that urban centrality no longer reproduces life. In this way, the article puts into operation an analytical tool designed to sabotage the real-estate circuit through a renewed right to the production of radical social space.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gholam Reza Mirie ◽  
Mohsen Sadeghi

The purpose of the present study was to determine the performance of responsible organizations in urban affairs administration as an important factor in the development of the city of Pars Abad. The statistical population of this research includes inhabitants of Parasabad city and managers and experts of urban affairs in 1396. The method of this study is descriptive-practical study. For data collection, library and field method is used for urban data and questionnaire. These data are analyzed using SPSS software and also used to test the hypothesis of T-test. The results of this study show that the performance of the responsible unit in the affairs of the city has a significant relationship with the management and organization of the physical-space development process, equipping the service space and organizing facilities and facilities in the city of Parsabad. While the responsibility of the responsible authority in affairs of the city is not significantly related to the development of the employment and business environment and the establishment of effective communication channels with citizens and the development of popular participation


2021 ◽  
Vol 236 ◽  
pp. 05059
Author(s):  
Xian Li ◽  
Eakachat Joneurairatana ◽  
Veerawat Sirivesmas

Architects and designers realize that new buildings cannot completely replace old buildings in the process of urbanization in the world. To establish a method of the new building and the old building coexist and to create the new paradigm of the new building construction in the old district is the responsibility faced by the contemporary architects. This paper first analyzes the old building renovation projects in Berlin and Paris in the 1980s and puts forward the symbiotic relationship between the old and the new buildings in the new era, thus obtaining the research objectives, trying to redefine new buildings and old districts, and creating the new paradigm of contemporary building construction in old districts. Using workshop as an exploration method, this paper conducts data research and sampling analyses on the Chinatown area in Bangkok, and explores the combination mode and paradigm transformation of new buildings and old districts in the city, aiming to seek solutions utilizing art exploration.


Author(s):  
V Shinju ◽  
Aswathi Prasad

The natural resources are repository for the survival of all of us, so they must be used efficiently to meet the present needs while conserving them for future generations. An action to develop capacities from global to household levels for their sustainable management and regulation is required henceforth. Of these natural resources, water resources are most precious. If there is no water; there would be no life on earth. Since ‘water is the elixir of life’, water resource management has been considered as one of the most relevant areas of intervention. Understanding the gender dimensions of water resource management is a starting point for reversing the degradation of water resources. Women play an important role here since they have to access the water resources for almost all the activities on a daily basis. As the women are the strong social agents, effective and improved water preservation techniques could be achieved through their empowerment that may eventually lead to the well-being of the households in particular and of the community in general. Therefore, the major research question posed in this study is to analyze the role of women in the preservation and management of water, an inevitable, precious but diminishing natural resource. The study also intends to describe the relationship between the three ‘W's-Women, Water & Well-being. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are essential here as it is a contingent issue in the present scenario. Psychological dimensions were also explored since the issue is affecting the routine life of the community. The case study of women belonging to the Kuttadampadam region was done to explain the role of women in preserving water resources in the areas affecting severe water scarcity.


Author(s):  
Annie Crane

The purpose of this study was to analyze guerrilla gardening’s relationship to urban space and contemporary notions of sustainability. To achieve this two case studies of urban agriculture, one of guerrilla gardening and one of community gardening were developed. Through this comparison, guerrilla gardening was framed as a method of spatial intervention, drawing in notions of spatial justice and the right to the city as initially theorized by Henri Lefebvre. The guerrilla gardening case study focuses on Dig Kingston, a project started by the researcher in June of 2010, and the community gardening case study will use the Oak Street Garden, the longest standing community garden in Kingston. The community gardening case study used content analysis and semi-structured long format interviews with relevant actors. The guerrilla gardening case study consisted primarily of action based research as well as content analysis and semi-structured long format interviews. By contributing to the small, but growing, number of accounts and research on guerrilla gardening this study can be used as a starting point to look into other forms of spatial intervention and how they relate to urban space and social relations. Furthermore, through the discussion of guerrilla gardening in an academic manner more legitimacy and weight will be given to it as a method of urban agriculture and interventionist tactic. On a wider scale, perhaps it could even contribute to answering the question of how we (as a society) can transform our cities and reengage in urban space.


ICR Journal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-472
Author(s):  
Maszlee Malik

In 2015, a group of sidelined and outcast progressive leaders and other activists from Parti Islam SeMalaysia (the Islamic Party of Malaysia, also known as PAS) decided to leave that organisation and form Parti Amanah Negara (AMANAH). The establishment of this new party was linked to efforts at saving the moderate form of Islamic political thought once embraced by PAS; the founders of AMANAH claimed that the new PAS leadership, elected during the 2015 Muktamar (Annual General Assembly), were too conservative and threatened the continuation of this moderate heritage. According to its founders, AMANAH has therefore been established to bring Islamic political activism into a new paradigm, with the hope of shaping a future Islamic discourse in Malaysia that is more inclusive, moderate, democratic and progressive. This article is an attempt to understand the party’s ideology, supposedly a new discourse in political Islam, and evaluate the level of adherence it enjoys amongst AMANAH members. This is done through a qualitative study conducted with 100 party members from different levels.


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