NATIONALTECHNICALUNIVERSITY OF ATHENS

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING DEPARTMENT

Patission 42, 10682 Athens, tel. 30(1) 7723818/3820/3839 fax 7723819, email:

WINTER SEMESTER 2008-2009

SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

(7th Semester)

OPEN SPACES AND NATURE IN THE CITY

Teaching Team: Polyxeni Kosmaki, NTUA Professor, Sonia Mavrommati, NTUA Lecturer (PD 407/80)

Teaching assistant: Georgia Goumopoulou, NTUA PhD candidate – Foundationer ELKE

Invited speakers: Nikos Pangas, Forester - NTUA researcher, Dimitris Polychronopoulos, Assistant Professor DUTh., George Sarigiannis, NTUA Professor

  1. CONTENT AND SCOPE OF THE LESSON

The lesson looks at theunits of natural, semi-natural and manmade open spaces and landscapes and of their relation with the environment of settlements and cities.

Public open spaces of the city accomplish two different but complementary to each other roles: Firstly, they are spaces open to the elements of natural environment (sun, wind, water, greenery), they allow namely the presence and – up to a certain point – the function of nature on the built environment. That means they have a regulating function, concerning microclimate and the quality of the environment in the city. They also offer the opportunity to the people who live and move in the urban space to come to direct contact with natural elements.

Furthermore, they are public urban spaces and that means social places, they bear namely a big part of city’s social life. As such they have a connective function in the network of activities, of buildings, of points and flows of the built environment. They also represent places of citizen’s gathering, where cultural, recreational, commercial and athletic activities often take place.

The scope of the course is to help students familiarize with various planning approaches which forces their interest in the re-establishment of natural environment and the improvement of microclimate in the built environment of settlements and cities. Within this framework we are also interested in the “rest” areas of city such as vacant lots, abandoned buildings and industrial spaces, undesigned and empty fields, neglected areas, rest of other uses, downgraded natural spaces and more generally spaces where they remain inactive and contribute in the latent potential of urban tissue.

During this semester a big part of theory and exercise of the course will be focused in the subject of environmental re-design of open spaces with bioclimatic principles. At the same time we will attempt torecognise the role of “urban voids” as special open spaces with particular “dynamic” and also to point out their importance as spaces capable to bring nature, social life and action in the city.

  1. THEORY -LESSONS’ SCHEDULE

The courses of theory include the following units:

1.Natural and landscaped units of open spaces: the role and their function in the environment of settlements and cities. The effects of natural destructions in the elements of natural environment and in the microclimate of city.

(4 courses: P. Kosmaki, Invited speaker: G. Sarigiannis)

2.Ecological and social aspects of designing and management of a network with open/unbuilt spaces - Effects from the settlement related uses and activities. Natural landscapes in the city.

(3 courses: G. Gkoumopoulou, Invited speakers: N. Pangas, Helias Gianniris)

3.Basic principles and examples of environmental planning of units and networks of open spaces in the built-up space from Greece and other countries

(6 courses: G.Gkoumopoulou, P.Kosmaki, S.Mavrommati, Invited speaker: D.Polychronopoulos)

Other information related to the lesson can be found at the address:

3. EXERCISE

The exercise’s subject and target is the close examination of issues concerning planning units of open spaces in settlements and cities, which refer to the appraisal and improvement of urban environment conditions (i.e. issues of planting, soil, water, protection from noise and climatic conditions, air circulation/ventilation safeguarding).

“Urban voids ” contrary to the squares, streets, parks and more general open spaces are derivative no-foreseeable transformations of city.

The particularity in the exercise of this year's course is the focalisation on the “unshaped”, “undesigned” city areas through a different point of view. Those “empty fields” can be unique opportunity in the searching process to express the relation of urban and natural landscape and also a place where complicated open ecological systems interact and get connected with social, cultural, economically and infrastructure’ssystems of contemporary city.

The students’ teams can choose between three categories of case studies:

  1. Investigation of cases concerning environmental management of “urban voids” in European or American cities (egParis, London, Philadelphia, Seattle, etc) through bioclimatic design.
  2. The close examination of issues concerning replanning the natural and built environment in rural regions regarding:
  3. the redefinition of the settlement tisue
  4. the re-establishment of social cohesion
  5. the development ofnetworkswith public open green spaces
  6. the bioclimatic design of cities

These subjects will be studied in two stages as follows:

1. Documentation and analysis of the selected area in order to note the natural, environmental, social elements of settlements’ structure.

2. Principles and proposals for replanning the natural and built-up environment of selected regions.

C.Study and evaluation of a specific natural formation (forest, stream), in the city or in the edges of it, that has been seriously damaged by human ground uses of ground or bioclimatic islands in the urban tissue (e.g. public places O.T. and empty lots of central residential areas).

Students are expected to work out some of the elements that constitute the research, either individually or in groupsof two or three, in order to propose axes of replanning the selected areas, from the whole of the course.

After the selection of elements, that would be worked out from each group, the students should initially point out, with sketches, rough drafts, diagrams and photographs the characteristics of the areas under research, in such a way that would be pointed out the “positive” and the “negative data” of the environment and the reconstitution of “life” in the area.

Afterwards, the characteristics will be examined and interpretedthrough the overall examination of their environmental and social function, the organization of rural space and its relations with the new residential fabric Projects should be submitted in issues of 8-15 pages, A3 size respectively, which should include text with sketches, diagrams, draft drawings, maps and photographs.

Students’ evaluation will be based by 2/3 at the process and the final submission of their exercises and by 1/3 at their documented presentation.

OPEN SPACES AND NATURE IN THE CITY - SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

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