“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
Jack Kerouac, On The Road, 1957

Joint Doctoral Research Seminar,  Barcelona, January 25-26 2016
Streetscape Territories Research Project
KU Leuven, Department of Architecture, Belgium
Research Group “Urban Projects, Collective Spaces and Local Identities”
UPC, ETSAB, Department of Urbanism and Regional Planning
Research group Barcelona Laboratory of Urbanism

ON THE ROAD

Urban transformation is directly related to the planning, design and use of a series of urban infrastructures: from streets to highways, from bus to train lines and their connecting transport hubs, from bicycle lanes to systems of pedestrian routes, from rivers, canals or other waterways to harbor facilities, they play an essential role in urban development and renewal as they guarantee mobility and connectivity. Planned strategies to transform or extend urbanised areas are mostly based on the making or remaking of infrastructures. However, the relationship between infrastructures and the surrounding urban fabric, more specifically the collective spaces it constitutes at the level of the urban landscape, is not always the starting point of providing these facilities. In many cases, the urban fabric is wrapped around or fragmented by these infrastructural projects, causing scale contrasts and struggle to integrate within, generating processes of misappropriation or misuse.

During the last decades, research on planning and design models related to the building or integrating of urban infrastructures have been developed and tested via specialized disciplinary fields. From traditional morphological research, analyzing urban growth schemes in a historical framework (de Sola-Morales, 1997: Serra, 2002) to studying syntax integration values (Hillier, 1996), both approaches allow to provide insights to the sociomorphological dynamics of space production. Mobility or transportation studies, mostly based on criteria of efficiency, capacity or performance (De Meulder, 2008) combine research methods focusing on how to densify the existing built environment (Zardini, Sherman and Ray, 1999) or intensify its program, both linked to infrastructural interventions (Shannon and De Meulder, 2009). Other study fields focus on centrality or multicentrality (Busquets, 1987) and the urban or peri-urban condition of areas in transformation (Secchi and Vigano, 2013), seeking to guarantee maximum connectivity (Graham and McFarlane, 2015). Linked to these research and design approaches, new planning models have been studied to update zoning or land use planning (Khan, Moulaert and Schreurs, 2013), relying on strategic plans with a highly structural dimension laid out in time and a strong focus on participation. At alternating scales, the level of formalization -that is the explicit or implicit delimitation of use of space- is studied (Lefebvre, 1996; Harvey, 2013) as available space is reducing and mobility requirements increase. Finally, the planning and design of urban infrastructure embodies models of social inclusion of exclusion (Smith, 1992; Sennett, 2013; Abdoumaliq, 2015), due to the resulting change of accessibility and living standards for the inhabitants.

Despite the un-doubtable necessity of the previously mentioned existing research approaches on the relation between infrastructures and the urban fabric, there is a high need to explore and unfold research approaches that focus specifically on the immediate impact or perception or experience of infrastructures on a neighborhood. From the visual perception to the level of accessibility or permeability, from their proximity to working or living environments or adjacency with other urban programs, the daily and close relation that inhabitants have with multiple urban infrastructures is quintessential to study the transformation of the urban fabric. This relationship is related to social and cultural factors (Rapoport, 1991; Reinders, 2014), as the reading and interpretation of the built environment depend on them (Hillier, 2004). Most often, the perception or close impact of infrastructures as part of the urban landscape is considered only a secondary level of research in urban design or planning research approaches.

This PhD research seminar is organized by the research project “Streetscape Territories” from the research group “Urban Projects, Collective Spaces and Local Identities” (KU Leuven, Department of Architecture) and the Laboratory of Urbanism of Barcelona (LUB, ETSAB, UPC).
This joint seminar will explore various approaches to study or design urban landscapes, focusing on infrastructures, specifically referring to streets, boulevards, highways, bridges, tunnels and their connections or intersections, all operating at the intermediate scale. This seminar seeks to pronounce critical discourses related to the making of collective spaces in a contemporary context.

Scientific Committee:
Prof. Dr. Kris Scheerlinck, KU Leuven, Prof. Dr. Yves Schoonjans, KU Leuven, Dr. Erik Van Daele, KU Leuven , Dr. Burak Pak, KU Leuven, Prof. Dr. Carles Crosas, LUB ETSAB UPC, Arch. Drs. Jorge Perea, LUB ETSAB UPC

http://architectuur.kuleuven.be/?lang=en
http://www.collectivespaces-kuleuven.be/
https://streetscapeterritories.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/about-street-scape-territories/
http://lub.upc.edu

Monday Jan 25 2016
(@LUB, ETSAB, UPC, Avinguda Diagonal, Barcelona)

10h-12h30: PhD initial presentation doctoral candidate Patricia Tamayo, KU Leuven
supervisor: Prof. Kris Scheerlinck, KU Leuven
co-supervisor: Prof. Yves Schoonjans, KU Leuven
committee: Prof. Pascal De Decker, KU Leuven, Prof. Leeke Reinders, TU Delft, Prof. Carles Crosas, UPC

14h-18h: On The Road research seminar
contributing: members of research group “Urban Projects, Collective Spaces and Local Identities” and  LUB ETSAB UPC
attending: via registration (1)

4x 20 min presentations of KU Leuven and LUB ETSAB Barcelona doctoral candidates and following discussion

KU Leuven: Drs. Cecillia Chiappini
KU Leuven: Drs. Hannes Van Damme
UPC, ETSAB, LUB: Drs. Álvaro Clua.
UPC, ETSAB, LUB: Dr. Eulàlia Gómez

18h: keynote lecture by Francesc Muñoz, UAB

Tuesday Jan 26 2016

10h-12h30: PhD initial presentation/work session doctoral candidate Ferran Massip, KU Leuven (to be confirmed)
supervisor: Prof. Kris Scheerlinck, KU Leuven
co-supervisor: Prof. Yves Schoonjans, KU Leuven
committee: Prof. Erik Van Daele, KU Leuven, Prof. Francesc Munoz, UAB, Prof. Daniela Colafranceschi, UNIRC (Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria)

14h-18h: On The Road research seminar (PhD presentations of KU Leuven and LUB ETSAB Barcelona) and keynote lecture
contributing: members of research group “Urban Projects, Collective Spaces and Local Identities” and  LUB ETSAB UPC
attending: via registration (1)

4x 20 min presentations of KU Leuven and LUB-ETSAB Barcelona doctoral candidates and following discussion

KU Leuven: Drs. Vincent Chukwuemeka
KU Leuven: Drs. Asiya Sadiq
UPC, ETSAB, LUB: Drs. Omid Onrani
UPC, ETSAB, LUB: Drs. Manuel Julià

18h: keynote lecture by Daniela Colafranceschi, UNIRC (Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria)

Wednesday Jan 27 – Thursday Jan 28 2016

10h-12h: presentation and discussion about Streetscape Territories Research Project: Touch-Down Infrastructures
12h-18h: On site research: Streetscape Territories Research Project: Touch-Down Infrastructures, Barcelona chapter
participating: collaborators of Streetscape Territories research project, KU Leuven (Prof. Kris Scheerlinck, Prof. Dr. Yves Schoonjans, Hannes Van Damme, Ferran Massip, Patricia Tamayo, Cecilia Chiappini and Asiya Sadiq)

Thursday Jan 28 – Monday Feb 1 2016

On site Research Workshop: Rethinking Collective Spaces: Urban Spaces Regenerated by Commercial Programs: the case of Barcelona.
participating: 8 Master of Architecture students KU Leuven (call and selection in December)
coordination: Ferran Massip, Hannes Van Damme and Kris Scheerlinck

Thursday Jan 28 15h-17h: info session to students

Thursday Jan 28- Monday Feb 1: working sessions and intermediate crit sessions

(1) To attend the research seminar on Monday or Tuesday, please send email to janne.reynders@kuleuven.be with a 2 page research curriculum (pdf format). Section is based on relevance of research expertise.