THE PLAN Journal (TPJ) intends to disseminate and promote innovative, thought-provoking and relevant research, studies and criticism in architecture and urbanism. The criteria for selecting contributions will be innovation, clarity of purpose and method, and potential transformational impact on disciplinary fields or the broader socio-cultural context. The ultimate purpose of the TPJ is to enrich the dialog between research and professional fields, in order to encourage both applicable new knowledge and intellectually driven modes of practice. (Maurizio Sabini)
Vol. 8 - Issue 1
Open Access
EDITORIAL
Editorial
In This Issue [1/2023]
VOLUME 8/2023 - Issue 1 , Pages: 5 - 6 published: 2023-06-27 Open Access
URBANISM
Article
Blue Urban Commons: A Cross-Examination of Water Bodies an Urban Informality
VOLUME 8/2023 - Issue 1 , Pages: 7 - 21 published: 2023-07-12This study uses the “urban water commons” lens to examine the intricate interplay between urban informality and bodies of water. Case studies from Jakarta, Beirut, Medellín, and Dhaka are analyzed, each illuminating a unique array of challenges. Themes of environmental degradation, involuntary displacement, and infrastructural deficits are prevalent across these urban contexts. The paper stresses the urgent need for comprehensive urban planning strategies that safeguard equitable access to and shared stewardship of urban water resources. It underscores the necessity of government policies that prioritize community involvement, environmental sustainability, and the integration of informal settlements into the wider urban fabric.
Subscribers only
HOUSING
Article
Beyond Modernist Housing: Can the Mass Housing Model Accommodate Human Agency?
VOLUME 8/2023 - Issue 1 , Pages: 23 - 43 published: 2023-06-28The lack of attention paid to the disempowerment of the residents has been a shortcoming of the modern mass housing model. Even today, no policies promote and support the residents’ efforts to continue improving their quality of life through actions involving changing the physical environment. Following a brief history of the origins of mass housing in the West through the discourse in the modern movement, the paper expands on implementing these modern ideas in the post-War non-Western region and how they were received and appropriated there. The article presents the case study from the author’s work on Korangi Town in Karachi, Pakistan, to show that the residents’ changes reflect their active agency. However, it was an unintentional outcome of modernist design and planning. This paper is more than just a critique of the cultural apathy of modernism. It questions what happens to a modernist project after the expert leaves the arena. How do residents adapt to or cope with their physical environment? Moreover, is there a way to include human agency in mass housing?
Open Access
CROSS-DISCIPLINARY STUDIES
Article
The Urban Forum Dialogue Tool: Reflecting on a Designerly Approach to Transdisciplinary Research
VOLUME 8/2023 - Issue 1 , Pages: 45 - 67 published: 2023-06-15With a view to working toward urban sustainability goals, two Swedish research platforms, SLU Urban Futures at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp (SLU) and the Urban Arena at Lund University, launched Urban Forum, a transdisciplinary dialogue format, in 2019. Designed to foster exchange between practitioners and scholars in the spatial design fields the Forum convenes actors from practice and academia working on matters of shared concern to increase their interaction and defuse preconceptions against each other. The initiative recognizes that academic and non-academic design actors are equally needed to build transformative capacities and reflects two related convictions: that siloing practice and academia is unproductive and that synthetic encounters can serve to reimagine roles and retool mindsets currently hampering mutually beneficial knowledge exchange. This article analyzes a series of Urban Forum events from 2019-21 to extrapolate procedures for overcoming entrenched notions of the practice/academia dynamic; identify criteria for productive knowledge exchange; suggest ways to design transdisciplinary dialogues; and highlight the benefit of involving designerly knowledge and working methods into the transdisciplinary methodology toolbox.
Subscribers only
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
Article
Why the Energy Transition Needs Designers
VOLUME 8/2023 - Issue 1 , Pages: 69 - 84 published: 2023-06-14This study is based on the work of Vienna-based architectural firm Delugan Meissl Associated Architects. Together with a group of experts, the office has developed an exemplary approach for the energy transition in the field of architecture and landscape design on the basis of five concrete scenarios. The authors maintain that the energy transition is not only subject to technical solutions but of equal importance to designers, which they underpin by policy frameworks on climate change in the DACH region. Since all five design scenarios are located in Austria, the study focuses on the situation there. The authors view the scenarios as concrete examples and practical guidelines for the implementation of similar projects at a municipal level by providing local decision-makers with concrete planning tools. The design is focused on photovoltaic energy provision since the implementation of such systems currently has the greatest financial incentives and the lowest implementation hurdles in terms of legal frameworks in the DACH region.
Featured Articles
Open Access
Position Paper
Human Time as a Resource: Twelve Strategies for Re-thinking Urban Materiality
VOLUME 6/2021 - Issue 2 [The Good Material], Pages: 305 - 322 published: 2021-11-30 Open Access
CROSS-DISCIPLINARY STUDIES
Opinion
Baukultur in a Cybernetic Age: A Conversation
VOLUME 6/2021 - Issue 1 , Pages: 7 - 28 published: 2021-05-14We received and we gladly publish this conversation among distinguished theorists and scholars on an important topic, also aligned with the cross-disciplinary mission of our journal. [MS]
ABSTRACT - The article offers a multi-author conversation charting the future of architecture in light of the apparent tension between Baukultur, which combines the culture of building and the building of this culture, and the rapid changes brought about by digital technology, embracing cybernetics and artificial intelligence. The article builds on a discussion of Baukultur to debate in what sense buildings are “machines for living in,” then examines neuromorphic architecture wherein cybernetic mechanisms help buildings sense the needs of their occupants. It closes with an example of a building complex, Kampung Admiralty, that combines cybernetic opportunities with a pioneering approach to building “community and biophilia” into our cities. This article interleaves an abridged version of Michael Arbib’s (2019) article “Baukultur in a Cybernetic Age,” 1 with extensive comments by the co-authors.
Open Access
Position Paper
Gender Matters. The Grand Architectural Revolution
VOLUME 4/2019 - Issue 2 [GENDER MATTERS], Pages: 273 - 279 published: 2020-02-07 Subscribers only
CRITICISM
Essay
Japanese Architecture Returns to Nature: Sou Fujimoto in Context
VOLUME 7/2022 - Issue 1 , Pages: 7 - 36 published: 2022-05-16We received and we gladly publish a contribution by distinguished author Prof. Botond Bognar. [MS]
ABSTRACT - The essay introduces the development of Sou Fujimoto’s architecture as it has been influenced by various sources and experiences leading to his recently completed and highly recognized major project, the House of Hungarian Music in Budapest. Among these influences the contemporary economic and political conditions in Japan and beyond, as well as the nature-inspired work of prominent Japanese designers are discussed. Touching upon the seminal work by Tadao Ando and Toyo Ito, the essay also highlights the contrasts and occasional similarities between the so-called “White School” and “Red School” in contemporary Japanese architecture, in referencing nature as the primary source of their designs. Today, these “schools” are best represented, respectively, by the activities of SANAA and Kengo Kuma. Although Fujimoto’s architecture is clearly derivative and part of the radically minimalist White School, the House of Hungarian Music reveals an intimacy and richness
in articulating its relationship to the surrounding natural environment, which quality, if perhaps momentarily, points beyond the minimalism of the “Whites.”
Open Access
Opinion
