Current Challenges in Architecture and Urbanism in Albania

Current Challenges in Architecture and Urbanism in Albania
Author: Anna Yunitsyna
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2021-08-21
Genre: Art
ISBN: 3030819191

This book aims to provide a cross-sectorial assessment in a multidisciplinary and trans-cultural context onto the innovations in urban and architectural approaches in designing next human environments within the Albanian context. The continuous concentration of the world population in the urban areas and their consequent densification require even more quantity of quality spaces and places, integrated resources and energies, alternative modalities of mobility and transports, demand of social inclusion and need for a circular economy. These have become the major challenges for this 21st Century and some of the greatest problems facing humanity in most of current vision for the future. The main objective is to feed a debate about the emerging trans-cultural (and trans-national) approaches in the whole designing field, from Albanian context and its current good practices, attempts and faults, both formal and informal. Thus, the Albanian experience may represent an opportunity through which we all may reflect about how designing is evolving in the Mediterranean arena of “praxis and experiments” aimed to a better quality of life at the human scale and in expanding the concepts of “place and space” such as it has improved by the effects in designing innovations. This book represents a useful read of theories, experiences and case studies, which can help in enlarging reflection on how the designing practice is evolving in the arena of forthcoming development strategies and tactics, all addressed to improve the quality of life, places and spaces. Additionally, it provides a range of architecture and urban design rationales and strategies for reinforcing identities and creating memorable places within the quality of contemporary architecture and urbanism. It addresses the unique needs of architects and planners to deal with topics that cut across social, economic and environmental issues and shows readers how to explore methods, theoretical frameworks and techniques to address the complex needs of architecture, urban and cultural development.

Ecovillages and Ecocities

Ecovillages and Ecocities
Author: Klodjan Xhexhi
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2023-01-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3031209591

Ecological and livable cities need an objective method to be examined. This book is in search of a method to determine the level of livability, ecology and energy efficiency. Ecological and sustainable cities need to properly make up for the existent weakness of the city's construction under fine ecological environment. The intention of this comparative study is an attempt to improve life quality in Tirana, Albania. It gives examples of successful strategies, e.g. bioclimatic solution through passive solar systems and the use of underground tunnels. This book is aimed at researches, professionals, architects and city planners.

Tirana Modern

Tirana Modern
Author: Matthew Rosen
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2022-08-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0826504833

Guided by the thesis that literature can transform social reality, Tirana Modern draws on ethnographic and historical material to examine the public culture of reading in modern Albania. As its starting point, this book asks: How has Albanian literature and literary translation shaped social action during the longue durée of Albanian modernity? Drawing on material collected through fieldwork with a community of readers, writers, and translators attached to the independent Albanian publisher Pika pa sipërfaqe (Point without Surface), Tirana Modern provides a tightly focused ethnography of literary culture in Albania that brings into relief the more general dialectic between social imagination and social reality as mediated by reading and literature.

New Metropolitan Perspectives

New Metropolitan Perspectives
Author: Francesco Calabrò
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 2873
Release: 2022-08-24
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3031068254

The book aims to face the challenge of post-COVID-19 dynamics toward green and digital transition, between metropolitan and return to villages’ perspectives. It presents a multi-disciplinary scientific debate on the new frontiers of strategic and spatial planning, economic programs and decision support tools, within the urban–rural areas networks and the metropolitan cities. The book focuses on six topics: inner and marginalized areas local development to re-balance territorial inequalities; knowledge and innovation ecosystem for urban regeneration and resilience; metropolitan cities and territorial dynamics; rules, governance, economy, society; green buildings, post-carbon city and ecosystem services; infrastructures and spatial information systems; cultural heritage: conservation, enhancement and management. In addition, the book hosts a Special Section: Rhegion United Nations 2020-2030. The book will benefit all researchers, practitioners and policymakers interested in the issues applied to metropolitan cities and marginal areas.

Urban Planning after War, Disaster and Disintegration

Urban Planning after War, Disaster and Disintegration
Author: John Yarwood
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2010-07-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1443823562

This book concerns the relationship between urban planning (and similar things) on the one hand, and war, natural disaster and societal or political disintegration on the other. The supposition is that one may mitigate the other. The book recounts the author’s professional experience of specific cases of disaster (earthquake and flood) in the Philippines, war in Bosnia, Afghanistan and South Sudan, and disintegration in Albania and Ireland. He identifies the key themes in urban and regional planning which these case studies illustrate. The themes include (a) the delivery of building land with site preparation, infrastructure and property rights; (b) the size and amount of plots able to match both demographic projections and wealth distribution; (c) the creation of a property market able to deliver affordable land and buildings to match demand, encourage investment and further the development of the economy; (d) the spatial or geographic adjustment of institutional patterns to reflect the components of identity—making for ‘fuzzy’ sovereignty; (e) a form of organisation which leads to effective project management and implementation, and so on. The view is taken that lack of suitable development land supply, a land market unable to deliver affordable property to the people and unable to support economic growth, and a spatial-institutional pattern unable to match key aspects of identity, are all causes of war as well as societal or political decline. The book contains many drawings prepared by the author, including plans of urban projects described in the text. It will be of interest particularly to architects, town planners, municipal engineers and civil engineers, urban administrators, urban economists, politicians, diplomats, soldiers, and staff of NGOs and international agencies.

Urban Informality and the Built Environment

Urban Informality and the Built Environment
Author: Nerea Amorós Elorduy
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2024-03-12
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1800086261

Urban Informality and the Built Environment demonstrates the value of greater and more diverse forms of engagement of built environment disciplines in what constitutes urban informality and its politics. It brings a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of informality and the built environment in diverse contexts, drawing on recent research by architects, planners, political scientists, geographers and urban theorists. The book presents different case studies from multiple geographies, drawing attention to the need for studying urban informality in the Global North and Global South. The cases promote a cross-fertilization between disciplines, lenses, geographies and methodologies. They range from the creative place-making of street artists in Accra, to the morphological evolution of urban Tirana, urban agriculture in la Habana and social reproduction in Greece. Additional contributions highlight the cross-cutting themes of infrastructure, exchange and image. Urban Informality and the Built Environment introduces built environment disciplines to its constitutive roles in producing urban informality. It also tests a range of new methodologies to the study of urban informality, demonstrating the possibilities for new insights when building on the relational understanding of urban informality.

Advanced Studies in Efficient Environmental Design and City Planning

Advanced Studies in Efficient Environmental Design and City Planning
Author: Ferdinando Trapani
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 635
Release: 2021-09-24
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030651819

This book explains how learning from past mistakes in urban design can help to enhance sustainable cities and how the principles of Green Urbanism can yield more resilient urban settlements. Environmental design is a fundamental principle in shaping cities. However, environmental challenges like increased resource consumption, water degradation and waste-related issues are among the greatest problems now facing humanity – which is why these issues need to be considered with regard to “smart cities,” either for the development of new urban centers or for the transformation of existing cities. The book not only discusses the importance of integrating sustainability principles in the urban design process, but also demonstrates their application to the development of sustainable cities. As such, the book offers essential information and a source of inspiration for all those who want to build more sustainable cities.

New Metropolitan Perspectives

New Metropolitan Perspectives
Author: Carmelina Bevilacqua
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 2196
Release: 2020-08-31
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3030482790

​This book presents the outcomes of the symposium “NEW METROPOLITAN PERSPECTIVES,” held at Mediterranea University, Reggio Calabria, Italy on May 26–28, 2020. Addressing the challenge of Knowledge Dynamics and Innovation-driven Policies Towards Urban and Regional Transition, the book presents a multi-disciplinary debate on the new frontiers of strategic and spatial planning, economic programs and decision support tools in connection with urban–rural area networks and metropolitan centers. The respective papers focus on six major tracks: Innovation dynamics, smart cities and ICT; Urban regeneration, community-led practices and PPP; Local development, inland and urban areas in territorial cohesion strategies; Mobility, accessibility and infrastructures; Heritage, landscape and identity;and Risk management,environment and energy. The book also includes a Special Section on Rhegion United Nations 2020-2030. Given its scope, the book will benefit all researchers, practitioners and policymakers interested in issues concerning metropolitan and marginal areas.

"Invisible Cities" and the Urban Imagination

Author: Benjamin Linder
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2022-11-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3031130480

In 1972, Italo Calvino published Invisible Cities, a literary book that masterfully combines philosophy and poetry, rigid structure and free play, theoretical insight and glittering prose. The text is an extended meditation on urban life, and it continues to resonate not only among literary scholars, but among social scientists, architects, and urban planners as well. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Invisible Cities, this collection of essays serves as both an appreciation and a critical engagement. Drawing from a wide array of disciplinary perspectives and geographical contexts, this volume grapples with the theoretical, pedagogical, and political legacies of Calvino’s work. Each chapter approaches Invisible Cities not only as a novel but as a work of evocative ethnography, place-writing, and urban theory. Fifty years on, what can Calvino’s dreamlike text offer to scholars and practitioners interested in actually existing urban life?