Week 13 Readings: Public Space and Urban/Rural Health

In response to Frampton;


In this article Frampton talks about not only what critical regionalism is, but also he suggests ideas on how to improve modern architecture with regionalism in mind. Frampton basically defines critical regionalism as a response to the lack of focus on site and meaning within modern architecture. He says that modern architecture should still be seen as a progression into the future, but still hold qualities of previous styles that often focused on such ideas as site context, light, climate/microclimate etc. Critical regionalism relates to the ideas of megaform that were previously discussed in class in a sense that critical regionalism focuses on the region as a whole, rather than a very specific point of interest much like the difference between megaform and mega structure. The Bagsvaerd Church mentioned in the reading stood out to me, primarily because of its modernistic style and how even though the style is such, that it brings back ideas of the cultures past into the nave. The expression of the vaulted roof really emphasizes that in section, as seen in the reading as well. After reading this article I'm beginning to think more about perhaps bringing more of a focus on regionalism and more specific critical regionalism into my own work because of the positive benefits of bringing people together and using the site to create a "universal" space.

In response to Waldheim;


After this reading by Waldheim I have gained a general understanding of how landscape can effect urbanism and the planning behind urban areas. It was stated in the article that "landscape is merging as a model for urbanism." This to me makes a lot of sense because creating spaces with landscape, particularly green spaces in urban environments can be critical to the success of not only public space but buildings themselves. With the right amount of focus towards the landscape, a building can really become "complete" if you will by establishing a connection between the two. The "Freshkills" projject in the reading tells us how difficult it is to create such a place where the cultural and social aspects work in a positive way with the infrastructure of the area itself.

Week 11 Readings: Creating Public Space: Ritual/Practice and Event Spaces

In response to Roach's "Cities of the Dead"


Overall I found this reading to be very confusing and there was too many "back and forth" moments throughout. Mainly it was figuring out what time period he was talking about and what new or old laws pertained to them. As for the basic ideas behind a parade, I do have my own personal opinion about them. Parades are for the public, or a particular group within the public to express themselves whether it be for political reasons or for protest, or for at least primarily what I have seen in life, for fun or celebration. The role of tradition does come into play for certain things however I feel as though if a tradition involves something such as racial discrimination than that tradition should be altered to follow some of the social orders and well, US laws that are instated. In my opinion a tradition should still be able to be had, just to a certain extent. For example, say a group has a historic tradition to drink alcohol in the public square of town. Now it is technically against the law to do so in a lot of places because it is illegal to drink, or be drunk in the open public. However, I feel as though if the group does not disturb the peace of the public than their tradition should still be able to be had. This creates grey areas for what is right and what is wrong, this I know, but there is always going to be grey areas when it a subject is dealing with both law and tradition and what is "right."

Week 10 Readings: Public Space and Participation/Public Space and Management

In response to Kiefer's "The Social Functions of NIMBYism,"

Nimbyism aka "Not in my backyard", is essentially a term for the people who are against certain proposals of construction in or close to their own neighborhood. In my own opinion I would say I have no problem with people who do this. Even if say I were to design a building in an area and it were to be reacted to in a negative way by the public, I would accept this and potentially find out what exactly is the concern. I feel as though a public interaction with the architect and or construction company is key to success in a project. Especially of that in a city or urban environment, primarily because the number of people affected is most likely going to be increased in said situation. I have actually experienced something along the lines of a "protest" against a project in my own life. When I was in 5th grade, we were told our playground was going to be removed for good, due to a recent accident in which a person broke their arm on the monkey bars. The reason for the proposal of the removal was that the parents suggested a more supervised group activity based recess instead to prevent injuries. Us kids of course were in an uproar... how could they take away our playground we loved so much, just because of one accident. We had just learned about the judicial system in class and a group of friends suggested we have a trial to our teacher against the people trying to remove our playground. Upon which our teacher suggested a petition, which of course was a new idea we had never heard of before, and were eager to try. So our fifth grade class created a "Stop the Playground Removal" petition around school, as allowed by my teacher. Unfortunately the process continued forward and our playground was removed within a month of the incident. However all was not lost for us kids. They installed new, much more safe equipment for us to use, all because they saw how distraught we were to see our playground go. Even at such a young age, and in a sense tiny community, we were able to convince the people otherwise.


In response to "Public Space: The Management Dimension,

In the reading they talked about four main topics and they were as follows, aspirations for public space, public space management structures and coordination, stakeholder involvement in public space management, and lastly challenges facing local authorities. The first topic basically talked about public space and its accessibility. The authorities were arguing that some public spaces do not benefit from 24/7 access, such examples were provided such as, urban parks and places that were framed by academic institutions. I can see why they could argue about that because the safety of the community that which the space is involving could be in jeopardy. The basic behind the second topic was that there was an intention to improve the coordination between different public space management processes and to overcome largely historic rationales for fragmentation. The stakeholder involvement in public space management portion discussed how the community itself and the stakeholders communicate within the project so that the public space being created can be exactly what is needed and what is envisioned. Also so that there are no discrepancies. The final topic, the challenges of facing the local authorities talked about all the issues of a public space such as who will manage and maintain the space, how will it stay successful in the future etc.