Adoption of Energy Design Strategies for Retrofitting Mass Housing Estates in Northern Cyprus

In the recent international debate about mass housing estates built during the decades of rapid urban growth after the World War II different approaches coexist. Many studies, including diagnosis about their current state, have been carried out, some of them from a social and economic standpoint; other offer architectural and historical approaches. It has only been in the last years, that urban planning and urban design perspectives have been considered in depth. In the case of Spain, some global visions complement more specific approaches, such as the ones focused on the obsolescence of dwelling typologies and urban forms. In addition to this, there are consolidated teams working on some cities, especially Madrid and Barcelona, which continue developing previous studies started some decades ago. Our starting point is that Spanish collective housing (polígonos) constitutes a huge legacy which needs accurate diagnosis. Our research has been developed from an urban design perspective, focusing on urban forms and free open spaces. The goal is to add some nuances to some excessively generic interpretations, trying to find ‘indicators’ (such as density, urban integration, diversity…) that allow a suitable evaluation of ‘each’ case, besides a qualitative approach. Although there are common factors that have led to a general loss of urban quality, it is necessary to take into account the specificities of each city, context, transformation processes, etc. In this way, future necessary interventions could provide more appropriate knowledge for the regeneration, recovery or reactivation of these estates. This paper addresses with a comparative perspective some case studies of Spanish polígonos built in Madrid, Barcelona and Zaragoza between 1950 and 1975. Contrasting the original situation at the time of their construction with their current state, the quality of the urban projects (classified in ‘Best’, ‘Good’, ‘Standard’, ‘Poor’) and the resilience or the obsolescence processes has been tested.

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Multi-Physics of Dynamic Elastic Metamaterials and Earthquake Systems

Frontiers in Materials ◽

10.3389/fmats.2020.620701 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

Author(s):

A. A. Yakovleva ◽

I. B. Movchan ◽

D. Misseroni ◽

N. M. Pugno ◽

A. B. Movchan

Keyword(s):

Seismic Event ◽

Real Life ◽

Design Strategies ◽

Recent Period ◽

Elastic Solids ◽

Structured Surfaces ◽

Wide Range ◽

Elastic Metamaterials ◽

Housing Estates

Microstructured materials, namely metamaterials, are one of the most relevant topics of the recent period due to their interdisciplinary nature. Driven by their wide range of applications, we provide an overview of a class of elastic solids which embed dynamic microstructures capable of trapping energy when subject to dynamic loads. Based on the recently developed modeling approaches, we show several applications related to wave cloaking, filtering and also multi-structured surfaces, often referred to as meta-surfaces. These culminate in the analysis of a practical example, based on a real-life recent seismic event induced by a hydrofracture exploration. The latter shows the viability of the vibration analysis in the assessment of the seismic response, and also the role of meta-surfaces as localisers of vibrations, e.g. suggesting non-periodic earthquake tolerant design strategies of housing estates.

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Spatial integration processes of mass housing estates. The case of Madrid.

Proceedings 24th ISUF 2017 - City and Territory in the Globalization Age ◽

10.4995/isuf2017.2017.5188 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sergio García-Pérez ◽

Borja Ruiz-Apilánez Corrochano

Keyword(s):

Urban Form ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Initial Conditions ◽

Space Syntax ◽

Urban Structure ◽

Spatial Integration ◽

Economic Dimension ◽

Mass Housing ◽

Improvement Strategies ◽

Housing Estates

Deprived urban areas regeneration is one of the most important challenges of our cities, which interest is recognised by International Urban Guidelines (ONU), as well as Leipzig Charter and Toledo Declaration (European Union). At this respect, systematic analysis of built city obsolescence is crucial to propose improvement strategies. In particular, mass housing estates, characteristic urban form from modern urbanism, have been detected by several studies as one of the most vulnerable urban forms. Moreover, several studies had determined the systemic nature of problems that this urban form has develop, where physical, social, and economic dimension are strongly related. The low level of spatial integration of the housing estate in the city urban structure could be one of the problems and, in part, responsible of that urban obsolescence. In addition, fifty years after its construction, the continued growth of cities sometimes has modified initial conditions and consequently study the integration evolution of mass housing estates is needed. At this sense, it has been shown that Space Syntax methodology could be a useful tool. The aim of this study is, on the one hand, study criteria to apply Space Syntax methodology to the integration evolution study, and on the other hand, know the integration processes of mass housing estates to propose improvement strategies. Methodology includes, data collection and definition of analysis scenarios adapted to Spanish dataset, Space Syntax methodology in a evolutive approach in two stages: 1970s and 2010s, and interpretation of evolution results. The methodology is tested for Madrid mass housing estates.

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