Urban Parks

Australian cities exhibit a quality of life arguably among the best in the world, but rapidly expanding populations may soon threaten this status. The burgeoning conurbation of South East Queensland (SEQ) is an example. Recent growth management policies and plans (e.g. South East Queensland Regional Plan and local authority growth management strategies) have sought to curtail urban sprawl through urban footprints, growth management boundaries, urban consolidation, and other measures. The ‘density imperative’ presented by these collective urban policies affects the sourcing, provision and management of open space in inner-city locales in SEQ which may soon run out of land for parks and urban greenspace. This paper presents results from recent research into the environmental equity dimensions of providing urban greenspace in SEQ. Critiquing the long-entrenched parks-standards approach, the paper offers a ‘needs-based’ alternative, and considers its utility for SEQ and other fast-growing Australian urban areas. Questioning orthodox planning perspectives about who lives in higher density areas, we argue that local and state governments should look towards a variety of new types of green and open space to meet the needs of existing and future residents living in denser built environments.

شهر آکنده از دلالت‌های معنایی است که هم به‌واسطه‌ طراحان آن و هم شهروندان رمزگذاری و توسط شهروندان، رمزگشایی می‌شود. بنابراین شهر را می‌توان به‌عنوان یک «متن» خواند. ازاین‌رو نشانه‌شناسی شهری روشی است برای بررسی زبان‌شناسانه‌ فضای شهری که به واکاوی معنای فضای شهر می‌پردازد. این پژوهش در پی یافتن فنون و روش‌هایی است که می‌تواند منجر به فضاهای شاعرانه در شهر شود. ازاین‌رو با روش نشانه‌شناسی به واکاوی یک نمونه فضای شهری که دارای این ویژگی بوده پرداخته‌شده است. درنهایت پژوهش به بررسی مفاهیم نشانه‌شناختی مانند برجسته‌سازی ادبی، هنجار‌گریزی، خودکارشدگی و قاعده افزایی در یک نمونه موردی فضای شهری، باغ بلند شیراز، اثر مهرداد ایروانیان پرداخته است. در پایان پژوهش به روش‌هایی که وی برای ایجاد فضای شاعرانه به کار بسته است مانند
آشنایی‌زدایی به‌واسطه‌ انحراف از زبان معیار، ایجاد تعلیق و ایهام از طریق تصرف در محور هم‌نشینی دست‌یافته است.
According to Aristotle, poetics and art, were considered an imitation of reality but according to Bachelard, they were phenomenology of the imagination. Bachelard showed how houses are receptive to human characteristics and complexities, a house and its occupants usually match the architectural space, and residential space gives excellence to geometric space. House, in his opinion is a sheltered nest of dreams and imagination. Poetic imagination is always "text" and thus be interpreted and in reading the meaning of architecture and the city, both are studied as text. Thus poetics of urban space and architecture can be investigated from phenomenological, ethnographic and semiotics (Semio-logical) methods. Urban spaces in a semiotics approach, usually emphasize on the aspects of semantic systems. The city is filled with semantic significations which is encoded by both designers and citizens and then is decoded by the citizens. The city can be understood as a text by considering varying semiotics natures of the urban space. The question is, How to create a poetic urban space.
The aim of this research is to find techniques that can lead to poetical features in urban spaces. The urban semiology is a method to linguistic analysis meaning of urban space. The article analysed a case study of urban space that has this features by semiology approach. The case study is Bagh-e Boland (Chamran Park) in Shiraz city, designed by Mehrdad Iravanian (b. 1957). Bagh-e Boland is an urban space which allows its audience to interpret and explore the meanings. After an introduction to urban and architectural semiotics, a sociosemiotic analysis is carried out to uncover the meaning system of this built environment. In this case, the park is viewed as structured by poetical characteristics and as a text. The park has been investigated by syntagmatic and paradigmatic, synchronic analysis.
At the level of the design strategy, Iravanian has used three strategies to create a poetic space: intertextuality, defamiliarization, and metaphor. For intertextuality he linked his text with non-architectural texts such as sculptures or history of site. He has deviated from the standard language, has changed automatized meaning of the space and thereby has defamiliarized space. He has done this by increasing the scale forms, creating synchronicity spatial elements, and change in composition of the constructions. In addition, multiple meanings have been added to the space by using the architectural metaphor, amphiboly and metonymy. He suspended architectural elements and applied familiar construction and building materials in another way. He has provided metaphor by naming spaces, captured in the axis of the syntagmatic of spaces and usage of dual oppositions. Urban spaces are highlighted by exaggerating the textures used in floor, walls and furniture. It should be noted at the end that this spaces can be analyzed with other approaches, however looking at the language of this article is merely an urban space. Also intertextuality vision to text can disclose techniques of createing new meaning in space. Thus, an urban space, can help in motivation of thought, the audience, and the pleasure of discovery.

Man's innate association to the context is being lost with increasing urbanization. This paper aims to explore the possibilities of reviving this relationship by creating plant-based totems. The identity of any land is defined by its image, active memory and the ordinary rituals that people engage in. These aspects are invariably governed, firstly, by the context which in the earlier times comprised only of the first and second nature-forests and farmlands; and secondly, by their mythology and folklore. Urbanization imposes a vastly different identity that is dually destructive: erasing the physical constructs as well as existing societies and replacing them with universally similar, hence placeless, organization. This paper proposes to insert locally relevant identities into the urban construct. The identity of land is explored through physical mapping and recording memories of local people. These narratives are further probed into, to express their intangible values physically and help evoke a cultural rootedness. Simulations of programming these values into a design framework are carried out. Neighbourhood parks are chosen as application fields considering their frequent interaction with the new and old settlers alike. The sample site is selected in an upcoming neighbourhood in suburban Pune. Once a village rich with farmlands and forests deeply interwoven with local culture, the area is being taken over by placeless development. Design simulations provide directions to apply the inferred programmatic values to an urban framework such that they are an intrinsic experience of the place and not an exotic imposition. It allows existing and future settlers to associate with the land, respect its history and physicality, gaining from the maintenance of ecological continuity. The paper explores these mechanisms and simulates a sample design outcome for demonstration.

This paper challenges the norm of accepting planting design as an aesthetic arrangement of plants, determining the potential and beauty of wild vegetation in an urban setting by generating processes that make it acceptable and valuable to people and the local ecosystem. Wilderness constitutes highly adaptive plants that can survive extremes, shape the land by self-propagation and can provide critical structural support to local ecosystem. However, they are despised and neglected by people majorly due to change in the definition of beauty with urbanism, preconceived notions and fear of the unknowns. The future of wilderness depends on their acknowledgment and appreciation by the people. In order to weave these extremes, kinds of wilderness present in an urban setting is identified to understand its socio-ecological constructs and the negative shift of present identity. The case selected is a vacant neighborhood pocket where wilderness thrives unattended and unnoticed. The study observes neighboring residents' perception. Thereafter, it develops a framework that decodes the structural construct and establishes a degree of interaction to derive spatial programs demonstrating intangible, experiential, and functional aspects of wilderness through the process of self-propagation, growth, diurnal cycles, involvement of local biodiversity and insinuates that beauty is not just visual aesthetic but the entire process, evolution and existence of wilderness ecology. Outcomes of these are used to develop a design for interaction by providing thoroughfares and social spaces that generate opportunities for accidental observations of wild species throughout the year. Implementations of this study will help in promoting beauty through landscape ecology and reclaiming the local character of vegetation, giving benefit to the overall urban ecology. Acceptance of wilderness as a part of urban nature will allow people to visualize dynamism of landscape program, which can provide chances of wonderment, change and contrast, while supplying ecological services to an urban environment.

In many cities, urban parks have emerged as an important environmental justice issue. Parks in predominantly lower-income and minority areas are frequently smaller, with fewer amenities, and they are often beset by neglect or problems with crime or perceptions of crime. As public funding for parks has declined, urban park systems are increasingly turning to volunteers and volunteer organizations to perform important functions. Consequently, the achievement and preservation of environmental justice may depend on ensuring that parks in neglected areas are served by active volunteers. We analyze the distribution of Friends of the Parks volunteer groups in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. We find that most parks in the County lack Friends groups, regardless of demographic characteristics in the surrounding neighborhood, and we find that parks in all parts of this highly segregated county have Friends groups. However, our findings indicate that Friends groups are more likely to remain active at larger parks more common within affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods, while Friends groups are more likely to become inactive at smaller parks more typical in inner-city communities. As public funding for parks continues to decline, we propose that an important environmental justice priority for urban parks systems will be to find ways to keep groups active and engaged at smaller inner-city parks.

Résumé

Cet article présente les résultats d’une étude exploratoire dans l’arrondissement du Sud-Ouest à Montréal, relative aux effets de la revitalisation des espaces publics sur les transformations physiques et sociales des quartiers avoisinants. Même si l’insertion de nouveaux logements luxueux dans le tissu existant peut paraître statistiquement marginale, les résidants traditionnels ont été et sont témoins de transformations de leur milieu de vie. Ces transformations ont un impact sur leur territoire quotidien. Les résultats de nos enquêtes basées sur une approche méthodologique mixte indiquent une (re)définition du territoire du chez-soi, excluant le parc du canal de Lachine, parmi les résidants traditionnels du secteur.

Abstract

Whose Park Is It Anyway? Gentrification and Appropriation of Public Space in Montreal’s Sud-Ouest Borough (Canada)

In this paper we present the results of an exploratory study conducted in Montreal’s Sud-Ouest borough into the effects of the revitalization of public spaces on physical and social changes in adjacent neighbourhoods. Even if the insertion of new upscale housing into the existing urban fabric may appear to be statistically marginal, traditional residents have seen, and are still seeing, changes to the environment in which they live. These changes have an impact on their everyday territory. The results of our surveys, which used a mixed methodology, indicate that traditional residents of the area, excluding the Lachine Canal park, have redefined their sense of home territory.

In 1997, the Gold family sold the property at Gold Park, at a discounted price, to the City of Lynnwood. Today, because of support from multiple organizations, the park is constantly maintained and nurtured, providing a place the public can visit and soak in some local history. During the 2015 Make a Difference Day, as students in an American Religious Diversity course we conducted interviews in Gold Park with members of the Gold family; resulting in oral histories from Tamara and Leah Gold. Gold Park is a showcase of humanity’s beautiful ability to do what it believes is good, no matter what obstacles and oppositions it may face along the way