Loci Communes

Editorial

Małgorzata Kądziela — 2021-12-31

Editorial, LC nr 1, author: Małgorzata Kądziela

The Nonvisual Legibility and the Coherence of Space: A New Theoretical Framework with Examples of Its Implementation in Empirical Research

Zuzanna Bogucka — 2021-12-30

The legibility and coherence of space are informative qualities as they facilitate the understanding and exploration of the environment. They also function as categories in architectural and urban design theory, as well as environmental psychology. The approaches of those disciplines, including their contemporary continuations, evolved from Lynch (1960) and are based solely on the visual qualities of the environment.
In this article, I argue that relying only on the visual scope of human-environment relations is insufficient for inferring the user’s perception of the environment as legible and coherent and evaluating design solutions from the users’ perspectives. The proposed revised theoretical framework combines architecture and urban
design perspectives with environmental psychology and broadens concepts of legibility and coherence. The revised framework combines the visual scope of the legibility and coherence with other aspects of human-environment relations by referring them to multisensory perspective, social and spatial functioning, levels
and characters of stimulation, and affective appraisal of the environment.
To show how we can address this broadened approach to legibility and coherence in empirical research, I present two examples of experimental research using bimodal research materials. They present how nonvisual qualities contribute to legibility and coherence and how they can be measured (tested) during the data-driven evidence-based design process. The first experiment investigates the relationship between the qualities of soundscapes and the social functioning of users. The second covers the tactile and haptic dimensions and their connections with blind and visually impaired users’ spatial functioning.

Biodiversity and Temporal Diversity in Archaeological Landscapes: Towards a New Perception

Tessa Matteini — 2021-12-22

Reflecting on several crucial issues regarding the protection, planning, and management of archaeological landscapes from the point of view of the Discipline of Landscape Architecture, the article focusses on the roles of the vegetal component and plant biodiversity in the landscaping of archaeological sites.
After outlining a background framework of the theoretical, cultural, and ecological relationships between vegetation and ruins adopting a landscape architecture approach, the article proposes a set of conceptual and operational tools to deal with active and inventive1 conservation of archaeological landscapes, striving to adopt the “strong forward-looking” attitude recommended by the European Landscape Convention (Florence 2000).
By re-reading the consolidated concept of biodiversity (CBD, 1992) according to a different research dimension, the concept of temporal diversity is explored and proposed as a key issue in the interpretation and planning of layered landscapes. Focusing in particular on design issues in the management of ruin and vegetation integration, an innovative approach is presented in regards to various greenery-related potentialities in the landscaping and management of archaeological sites.
The article’s concluding remarks aim to open new trans-disciplinary windows of research on active and inventive conservation of archaeological landscapes to foster further exploration of this potentially broad ambit of investigation.

Environments. Actions of Adaptation in Architecture

Marie Ulber — 2021-12-22

The 1960s Environments emerged as artistic practices to question our modern relationship to objects perceived as isolated entities and as products within a market logic; to context, initiative, authority, ethics, and aesthetics. As open, process-based situations, they should allow for a praxis of reappraising demarcations, roles, and concepts in the art, social, and natural world. Environments had an early, but only short influence. To this day, art and architecture continue to be widely shaped by objectifying and reifying processes, even though the limits of the systems they belong to have become obvious in confrontation with a global climate crisis.
In this article, the authors re-connect to the earlier artistic and architectural practices with the aim to develop a conceptual approach to adaptive architecture. This architecture is conceived as part of open “Environments", able to dynamically react with their users to social and environmental challenges, to mediate and reframe the relations between subjects, objects, and the natural world.

Architectural Space of Ideas in the Author’s Structures Presented at the Fire Painted Images Art Festival: A Case Study

Agnieszka Kurkowska — 2021-12-31

The article is aimed to discuss the place of architecture in the space of ideas. The present work discusses a specific place, the Zaspa housing estate in Gdańsk, and refers to a specific person, namely, the author of artistic installations temporarily exhibited in the Zaspa housing estate. Also, the wider context of the specific situations in which the exhibitions were displayed is presented. The article attempts to answer the question of the importance of the quality of dwelling in the context of the quality of life of city dwellers. The work focuses on the subjective quality of life, identified most often with the feeling of satisfaction with life in its various aspects and with mental well-being. The quality of living, in turn, may be defined as satisfaction with the structure and functioning of the house and its commonly shared surroundings that constitutes the context of such living. The installations exhibited in the Zaspa estate discussed in the following article represent a potential area for activities with which to change the landscape and/or architectural elements of housing estates that refer to the living space. The essence of the research lies in the analysis of the place architecture occupies in a wider context of the intangible spaces. Homes can be perceived in a phenomenological way. It this case, the spaces of the house are inside us, just as we are inside them (Bachelard, 1994).

Some Remarks on Daily Life as a Concept, Context, and Content for New Quality Standard in Architectural Design and Urbanism

Eva M. Alvarez Isidro — 2021-12-22

In this article, we point out the need to base the process of designing buildings and architectural and urban spaces on criteria that take into account the gender perspective. As a conceptual framework for developing such standards serves the methodology proposed by Bernard Tschumi,1 referring to “theory” as a “practice” and the concept of care and corresponding values derived from feminist ethics of care. In his text “Event-Cities 3” (Tschumi, 2005), Tschumi claims that “theory is a practice of concepts.” In the present text, this is particularly understood as a need and way to redefine/re-construct the content...

Women’s Embodied Experiences: Qualitative Tools for a Gender-Conscious Approach to the Territory

Acoyani Adame Castillo — 2021-12-22

The way we experience our cities is not neutral: women and men experience it differently, depending on factors such as where they live, the social group which they belong to, the gender roles assigned, and intersectionality. Urbanismo Mujeres y Ciudad en Latinoamérica is a platform that works with qualitative methodologies with gender and feminist perspective.
This article presents a methodological proposal to answer the central question: How is the urban experience of women in two Latin American cities: Mexico City and Santiago de Chile. As a way of answering it, the following were developed: the Multidimensional Model of Gender-Conscious Urbanism, the My Walk Travel Log, the Immobility Log and the Neighbourhood Satisfaction Survey. These are the tools of the urban analysis methodology proposed in order to understand the experience of women in the above-mentioned territory, including quantitative and qualitative variables, making perception the central element of the analysis.

Obituary Eugeniusz Jaworski, PhD (31 October 1933 – 30 December 2020)

Zdzisława Mokranowska — 2021-12-31

This text is an obituary dedicated to the prominent reasercher of culture, dr Eugeniusz Jaworski (1933-2020).