Novel Nano-Filled Coatings for the Protection of Built Heritage Stone Surfaces

An experimental nano-filled coating, based on a fluorine resin containing SiO2 nano-particles, was applied on calcareous stones, representative of materials used in buildings and monuments of the Mediterranean basin; for comparison purposes, two commercial products were applied on the same substrates. The efficacy of the protective treatments was assessed by analyzing different characteristics of the three experimental/commercial products, i.e., color changes and permeability to water vapor to evaluate the treatments’ harmlessness; capillary water absorption and water stone contact angle to evaluate the protection against water ingress; oleophobicity of the treated surfaces and the behavior under staining by acrylic blue-colored spray paint and felt-tip marker to verify the anti-graffiti action. Finally, the properties of the treated stone surfaces were analyzed also after the application of pancreatin, used to simulate bird excreta (guano). The protective coatings were found to promote graffiti removal, reducing also the detrimental effects due to simulated guano. The experimental nano-filled product, in addition, was able to provide outstanding performance but using smaller amounts of product in comparison to commercial systems.

Sounding Out the Symptoms of Gentrification in Berlin

Scholars of gentrification often study the visual results of socioeconomic structural change in urban environments, including graffiti removal and historical reconstructions of façades, turning “ugly” factory ruins into charming residential loft spaces, etc. This article examines the gentrification of Berlin’s former working-class neighborhood Prenzlauer Berg in terms of sound. We present the Knaack Klub as a sonic case study symbolizing the erasure of the voices and culture of Berlin’s long-term residents and argue that contestations over sound, brought on by West German migrants in what can be considered a “hostile takeover” of parts of East Berlin, are a key driver of gentrification. Mining visual material including photographs, police reports, court verdicts, real estate advertisements, and street maps for acoustic clues, we are able to synthesize sight and sound, ultimately allowing us to move beyond the surface—in this case, building façades—to study the visual and sonic penetration of a gentrifying neighborhood’s intersecting public and private spaces. The study of the sonic heritage of neighborhoods or even single buildings helps us to move beyond Wilhelmine façades and the surface of courtyard living to reevaluate the relationship between urban space and community, between architectural history and policy.

Maintenance epistemology and public order: Removing graffiti in Paris

Taking part in the growing concern for repair and maintenance in STS, this article investigates epistemic dimensions of maintenance. Drawing on an ethnographic study of graffiti removal in Paris, it highlights the different objects of knowledge involved in this specific setting of urban maintenance and documents their relationships. It shows that, inspired by the ‘broken windows’ thesis, the anti-graffiti program that emerged in Paris at the turn of 2000 articulates three objects of knowledge – public order, graffiti and the city – whose intertwined definitions root a restorative maintenance epistemology. Such epistemology unfolds in an assemblage of policy documents, regulatory texts, contracts, technical specifications and procedures, information infrastructures and categories, removal techniques, tools and situated gestures, which take place in municipality’s offices, contractors’ workshops and during each intervention in the streets. The Paris graffiti removal program instantiates a preservationist approach which focuses on recurrent visual signs of disruption occurring on the façades and rests on both a distributed attention and a particular pace for interventions. It involves three main operations: measuring surfaces, identifying public expressions and composing with materials. None of these operations are neutral. Aimed at preserving a specific order, they also participate in the daily transformation of urban reality. The heterogeneous knowledge at play in maintenance practices intricately takes part in the becoming of the things whose stability it strives to ensure.

Keeping it clean: Graffiti and the commodification of a moral panic

Whereas subcultures such as punk, metal, skate, goth and emo have all been the target of moral panics in the past, the conditions that sparked these moral panics have since become banal and normalized, in line with Stanley Cohen’s claim that moral panics per definition tend to be short-lived. The moral panic about subcultural graffiti in Sweden, however, has proved remarkably consistent. Drawing from contemporary work on moral panics as extreme forms of more mundane moral regulations, this article deals with graffiti as mal placé in relation to both urban space and romanticized conceptions of youth resistance, rendering it not only a suitable enemy for moral entrepreneurs but also a reliable source of income for surveillance and graffiti-removal firms. Whereas the previous subcultural research has discussed moral panics as a first step of the commodification of the subcultural (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="CIT0037">Williams 2011</xref>), the authors use the example of graffiti in Stockholm to point to a commodification, not so much of subcultural style, but of the moral panic itself.

URBAN FORAGING: INDIVIDUAL VARIATION IN INNER-CITY GRAFFITI WRITERS’ TARGET PREFERENCES AND SPECIALIZATION

Objectives: Drawing upon optimal foraging theory, we examine graffiti writers’ individual target preferences to establish the diversity in their target choices (henceforth called “target specialization”). Ecological research implies that the total population of writers can consist of target specialists, generalists, or both. Target preferences are either similar or dissimilar among individuals.Methods: One year of graffiti removal data relating to 1,904 incidents committed by 263 individuals were extracted for a medium-sized city in Belgium. Individual target specialization and preferences were analyzed using ecological network methods.Results: The total diversity in target choices at the aggregate level is primarily the result of substantial between-individual variation. The results indicate that the total population of graffiti writers largely consists of target specialists, and can be divided into subgroups that share similar target preferences. Aggregate patterns of target selection do not accurately reflect individual variation in target choice specialization, at least for graffiti writing.Conclusions: We recommend future research to account for individual differences in target specialization. The patterns observed here are similar to those observed in animal ecology studies supporting the idea that crime patterns might correspond to common behavioral ecological patterns.

Dirty work, masculinity and giving voice through innovative qualitative methods

Purpose This paper aims to recount the author’s personal and professional experiences of working with Professor Ruth Simpson on two interconnected projects: the exploration of meanings that butchers attach to their jobs and the research on the experiences of those involved in such occupations as street cleaning, refuse collection and graffiti removal. Design/methodology/approach The paper offers a discussion on how the turn to multiple research methods such as ethnography, photo elicitation and collaborative documentary could provide voice to participants and generate richer data sets. Findings Drawing on Ruth Simpson’s work on how gender is experienced by men in different occupations, the paper highlights how responses to stigma associated with dirty work cannot be understood by attending to just one aspect of difference, as they are formed at the intersection of class, gender, ethnicity and occupation. Originality/value The paper provides insights into how manual work can open up meanings integral to an enduring gendered, working class habitus and how exploring one axis of difference (for example, just gender) might fail to address the complexity and ambiguity of the negotiation of many categories that shape identities and experiences of workers in these occupations.