Seminar Series 3 - Urban Elements of Nicosia and Limassol
Programme:
Presentations:
A timeline of Limassol’s development (presentation and documentary preview) by Ilaria Geddes (University of Cyprus)
Slides - Related Paper - Timeline - Video Narrative - Video
This talk will present an ongoing project: the production of a documentary about Limassol’s development through the animation of the city’s maps at various points in time. A short preview of the documentary will be shown, while the presentation will discuss the background to the project, how and why it was it was initiated.
Different urban morphological approaches’ focus on different elements of the city has made it difficult to establish exactly how certain morphogenetic processes interact or whether they are simply different facets of development reflecting wider socio-economic factors. To address this issue, a visual, chronological timeline of Limassol’s development was constructed along with a narrative of the socio-economic context of its development. The complexity of cities, however, makes static visualisations across time difficult to read and assess alongside textual narratives. An animation of land use and configurational analyses of Limassol was developed in order to bring to life the diachronic analysis of the city and shed light on its generative mechanisms. The project’s current outcomes show that composite methods of visualisations are an analytical opportunity still little exploited within urban morphology and that further advancement of the documentary can provide greater understanding of morphogenetic processes as well as a communicative tool to discuss urban issues not just within academia, but also more widely in the planning and design sectors, as well as across the general public.
Role of technology in enhancing public participation for urban policy: the case of an interactive installation in Limassol by Antonis Stylianou (Mesh Spatial Design Studio)
Slides - Briefing Paper EN - Briefing Paper GR
Novel technologies have transformed the way social relations are enacted within the urban space and the public’s perception of participation in the making and planning of the city. Technological systems and physical environments can be understood as mechanisms of social practice, arenas of sociability and experiential places of human interaction.
This presentation discusses the methods in which a participatory event can utilize novel technologies and interactive discourse to enable participation and interpersonal contact engaging local policy actors (municipalities and decision-making bodies) and the public. Through the discussion of the process and outcomes of a two-day participatory and
interactive installation event in Limassol, Cyprus, entitled ‘Parallel Cities’ in January 2017 curated by mesh spatial design studio, we explored the ways in which multi-user access to interactive graphical communication environments can allow citizens to re-discover and demonstrate citizenship in diverse ways and thus involve new categories of civic actors in the urban civic life.
This presentation focuses on a grassroots approach within a participatory planning framework to reveal public desires and opinions. The characteristics discussed above influence citizenship experience relationships and social relations taking place within the urban public space, as well as our perception of the context of these new social constructions.
Limassol, the aftermath of development by Alexandros Christophinis (Anbau Architectural Atelier)
This presentation is the narration of the implementation process of the project called Λεμεσός μετά την ανάπτυξη τι; ‘Limassol: The aftermath of development’, and, the socioeconomic and political framework that led to its development. The project initially aimed to offer insight to citizens around the field of architecture and its local heritage; to document the contemporary city’s identity and to bond artists and architects during this a project, as well as for future projects. Additionally, through the involvement of authorities and decision makers, it aimed to change the limited ways local society thinks, acts, and perceives its architecture landscape and urban fabric. This presentation looks at the role of the architects and artists through the research and experiential practices of a visual social analysis of this specific city’s contemporary identity.
Small stories of long duration; impressing and suppressing narratives in the west historic quarter of Limassol by Sevina Floridou (Sevina Floridou Architects Consultants; Landlife Consulting)
What do so many people who have taken to touring the historic center of Limassol connect with, as they walk the streets of stately mansions belonging to once illustrious local families, created by foreign architects that have long gone from the island? As an informal participant, resident and observer of the city, I have tried on the one hand, to interpret the “message” of museumification that the memory of Limassol is undergoing. Based on scant written records, analysis of texts, exhibits, brochures or old photographs, these are re-circulated over social media becoming in themselves icons of sellective memory. While this is happening on the ground, one sees Limassol today intent on changing itself radically into some vision of a consumer-driven dystopian future.
Perplexed by the lack of information provided on the west quarter, particularly on the lives of residents in the segment of the town where the Greek Cypriot properties border onto the Turkish Cypriot ones, I have been drawn to stories of locals, fostered through personal relationships. My own home straddles a strip linking one side of town, bursting with traffic, perpetual (electronically rung) church bells, while its back, facing west, overlooks abandoned orchards and buildings. Over the years, subtle aspects of these constrasting aspects engage; the spacious rooms, the grand staricase, the shaded back windows with thickly planted trees, would have looked out onto now vanished quarters. A quote, by Tia Miles, from 'The House on Diamond Hill', echoes in relevance:."...I stand in the back yard gazing up at the windows, then stand at the windows inside, looking down into the back yard and between the me that is on the ground and the me that is at the windows, history is caught..."
Looking across defunct dividing lines, capturing insances in the city from fragments on the ground, by piecing together oral and written sources for over a decade, I realise that my earlier informants are vanishing one by one. Subjective proof of their stories needs to be objectively pinned onto the city, for some stories speak of civic resilience that bears remarkable decency at a time when it was not offered from the government or those in power. Others reveal people taking sides, their residual materiality offering scope for reflection.
Morphological Analysis of urban green space: as a case of Nicosia by Saloumeh Khayyat Kahouei (Eastern Mediterranean University)
Slides - Related Paper
Urban green space is a significant dimension of urban form which provides psychological and visual comfort in urban settings (Carmona et.al, 2013). Although Ebenezer Howards (1902) Garden Cities theories discussed upon the planning and design level, green network dimension and analysis is not discussed enough to draw the overall composition of urban form. Muratori’s and Conzen’s urban morphology and typology studies have not considered the morphology of urban green spaces since they both worked on Medieval settlements which do not define urban green spaces within the city structure and have lack of urban green space within city boundaries. The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology which has been developed based on the approaches of British and Italian schools and then to test if this methodology is applicable by means of urban green spaces in Cyprus. Thus, with the belief that if urban green space analysis is also included in morphological studies as an additional criteria, the combined morphological method would become more powerful. At the end, it is hoped that the proposed analysis method on urban form will help designers, planners, cultural geographers, urban morphologist and landscape architects to find better solutions while they are designing, analyzing and planning cities.
End-of-Year Wine Reception to celebrate the upcoming the CyNUM Conference and the announcement that the 26th ISUF Conference will take place in Cyprus!
A timeline of Limassol’s development (presentation and documentary preview) by Ilaria Geddes (University of Cyprus)
Slides - Related Paper - Timeline - Video Narrative - Video
This talk will present an ongoing project: the production of a documentary about Limassol’s development through the animation of the city’s maps at various points in time. A short preview of the documentary will be shown, while the presentation will discuss the background to the project, how and why it was it was initiated.
Different urban morphological approaches’ focus on different elements of the city has made it difficult to establish exactly how certain morphogenetic processes interact or whether they are simply different facets of development reflecting wider socio-economic factors. To address this issue, a visual, chronological timeline of Limassol’s development was constructed along with a narrative of the socio-economic context of its development. The complexity of cities, however, makes static visualisations across time difficult to read and assess alongside textual narratives. An animation of land use and configurational analyses of Limassol was developed in order to bring to life the diachronic analysis of the city and shed light on its generative mechanisms. The project’s current outcomes show that composite methods of visualisations are an analytical opportunity still little exploited within urban morphology and that further advancement of the documentary can provide greater understanding of morphogenetic processes as well as a communicative tool to discuss urban issues not just within academia, but also more widely in the planning and design sectors, as well as across the general public.
Role of technology in enhancing public participation for urban policy: the case of an interactive installation in Limassol by Antonis Stylianou (Mesh Spatial Design Studio)
Slides - Briefing Paper EN - Briefing Paper GR
Novel technologies have transformed the way social relations are enacted within the urban space and the public’s perception of participation in the making and planning of the city. Technological systems and physical environments can be understood as mechanisms of social practice, arenas of sociability and experiential places of human interaction.
This presentation discusses the methods in which a participatory event can utilize novel technologies and interactive discourse to enable participation and interpersonal contact engaging local policy actors (municipalities and decision-making bodies) and the public. Through the discussion of the process and outcomes of a two-day participatory and
interactive installation event in Limassol, Cyprus, entitled ‘Parallel Cities’ in January 2017 curated by mesh spatial design studio, we explored the ways in which multi-user access to interactive graphical communication environments can allow citizens to re-discover and demonstrate citizenship in diverse ways and thus involve new categories of civic actors in the urban civic life.
This presentation focuses on a grassroots approach within a participatory planning framework to reveal public desires and opinions. The characteristics discussed above influence citizenship experience relationships and social relations taking place within the urban public space, as well as our perception of the context of these new social constructions.
Limassol, the aftermath of development by Alexandros Christophinis (Anbau Architectural Atelier)
This presentation is the narration of the implementation process of the project called Λεμεσός μετά την ανάπτυξη τι; ‘Limassol: The aftermath of development’, and, the socioeconomic and political framework that led to its development. The project initially aimed to offer insight to citizens around the field of architecture and its local heritage; to document the contemporary city’s identity and to bond artists and architects during this a project, as well as for future projects. Additionally, through the involvement of authorities and decision makers, it aimed to change the limited ways local society thinks, acts, and perceives its architecture landscape and urban fabric. This presentation looks at the role of the architects and artists through the research and experiential practices of a visual social analysis of this specific city’s contemporary identity.
Small stories of long duration; impressing and suppressing narratives in the west historic quarter of Limassol by Sevina Floridou (Sevina Floridou Architects Consultants; Landlife Consulting)
What do so many people who have taken to touring the historic center of Limassol connect with, as they walk the streets of stately mansions belonging to once illustrious local families, created by foreign architects that have long gone from the island? As an informal participant, resident and observer of the city, I have tried on the one hand, to interpret the “message” of museumification that the memory of Limassol is undergoing. Based on scant written records, analysis of texts, exhibits, brochures or old photographs, these are re-circulated over social media becoming in themselves icons of sellective memory. While this is happening on the ground, one sees Limassol today intent on changing itself radically into some vision of a consumer-driven dystopian future.
Perplexed by the lack of information provided on the west quarter, particularly on the lives of residents in the segment of the town where the Greek Cypriot properties border onto the Turkish Cypriot ones, I have been drawn to stories of locals, fostered through personal relationships. My own home straddles a strip linking one side of town, bursting with traffic, perpetual (electronically rung) church bells, while its back, facing west, overlooks abandoned orchards and buildings. Over the years, subtle aspects of these constrasting aspects engage; the spacious rooms, the grand staricase, the shaded back windows with thickly planted trees, would have looked out onto now vanished quarters. A quote, by Tia Miles, from 'The House on Diamond Hill', echoes in relevance:."...I stand in the back yard gazing up at the windows, then stand at the windows inside, looking down into the back yard and between the me that is on the ground and the me that is at the windows, history is caught..."
Looking across defunct dividing lines, capturing insances in the city from fragments on the ground, by piecing together oral and written sources for over a decade, I realise that my earlier informants are vanishing one by one. Subjective proof of their stories needs to be objectively pinned onto the city, for some stories speak of civic resilience that bears remarkable decency at a time when it was not offered from the government or those in power. Others reveal people taking sides, their residual materiality offering scope for reflection.
Morphological Analysis of urban green space: as a case of Nicosia by Saloumeh Khayyat Kahouei (Eastern Mediterranean University)
Slides - Related Paper
Urban green space is a significant dimension of urban form which provides psychological and visual comfort in urban settings (Carmona et.al, 2013). Although Ebenezer Howards (1902) Garden Cities theories discussed upon the planning and design level, green network dimension and analysis is not discussed enough to draw the overall composition of urban form. Muratori’s and Conzen’s urban morphology and typology studies have not considered the morphology of urban green spaces since they both worked on Medieval settlements which do not define urban green spaces within the city structure and have lack of urban green space within city boundaries. The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology which has been developed based on the approaches of British and Italian schools and then to test if this methodology is applicable by means of urban green spaces in Cyprus. Thus, with the belief that if urban green space analysis is also included in morphological studies as an additional criteria, the combined morphological method would become more powerful. At the end, it is hoped that the proposed analysis method on urban form will help designers, planners, cultural geographers, urban morphologist and landscape architects to find better solutions while they are designing, analyzing and planning cities.
End-of-Year Wine Reception to celebrate the upcoming the CyNUM Conference and the announcement that the 26th ISUF Conference will take place in Cyprus!
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