| 1. |
- Colding, Johan, 1958-, et al.
(författare)
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Applying a Systems Perspective on the Notion of the Smart City
- 2020
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Ingår i: Smart Cities. - : MDPI AG. - 2624-6511. ; 3:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper focuses on the need for a widened definition of the notion of technology within the smart city discourse, with a particular focus on the “built environment”. The first part of the paper describes how current tendencies in urban design and architecture are inclined to prioritize high tech-solutions at the expense of low-tech functionalities and omits that information and communication technology (ICT) contrasts the art of building cities as an adaptable and habitually smart technology in itself. It continues with an elaboration on the need for expanding the limits of system boundaries for a better understanding of the energy and material telecouplings that are linked to ICT solutions and account for some perils inherent in smart technologies, such as rebound effects and the difficulty of measuring the environmental impacts of ICT solutions on a city level. The second part of the paper highlights how low-tech technologies and nature-based solutions can make cities smarter, representing a new technology portfolio in national and international policies for safeguarding biodiversity and the delivery of a range of ecosystem services, promoting the necessary climate-change adaption that cities need to prioritize to confer resilience.
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| 2. |
- Hedblom, Marcus, et al.
(författare)
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Reduction of physiological stress by urban green space in a multisensory virtual experiment
- 2019
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although stress is an increasing global health problem in cities, urban green spaces can provide health benefits. There is, however, a lack of understanding of the link between physiological mechanisms and qualities of urban green spaces. Here, we compare the effects of visual stimuli (360 degree virtual photos of an urban environment, forest, and park) to the effects of congruent olfactory stimuli (nature and city odours) and auditory stimuli (bird songs and noise) on physiological stress recovery. Participants (N = 154) were pseudo-randomised into participating in one of the three environments and subsequently exposed to stress (operationalised by skin conductance levels). The park and forest, but not the urban area, provided significant stress reduction. High pleasantness ratings of the environment were linked to low physiological stress responses for olfactory and to some extent for auditory, but not for visual stimuli. This result indicates that olfactory stimuli may be better at facilitating stress reduction than visual stimuli. Currently, urban planners prioritise visual stimuli when planning open green spaces, but urban planners should also consider multisensory qualities.
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| 3. |
- Marcus, Lars, 1962, et al.
(författare)
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Cognitive affordances in sustainable urbanism : contributions of space syntax and spatial cognition
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of Urban Design. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1357-4809 .- 1469-9664. ; 21:4, s. 439-452
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Post-industrial societies impose new ecological challenges on urbanism. However, it is argued here that most approaches to sustainable urbanism still share the conception of the humans-environment relations that characterized modernism. The paper finds support in recent knowledge developments in social-ecological sustainability, spatial analysis and cognitive science to initiate a dialogue for an alternative framework. Urban form engages humans not only through physical activities, but also mentally through opportunities for learning and creation of meaning, thereby both reinforcing and impeding behaviours on a cognitive level. Against this background, it is proposed that what in cognition studies is termed ‘cognitive affordances’ could form the core of a new epistemological framework of the human-environment relation in sustainable urbanism.
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| 4. |
- Marcus, Lars, 1962, et al.
(författare)
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Placing Urban Renewal in the Context of the Resilience Adaptive Cycle
- 2024
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Ingår i: Land. - : MDPI. - 2073-445X. ; 13:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Resilience thinking provides valuable insights into the dynamics of complex adaptive systems. To achieve resilience in urban systems, it can be fruitful to delve into the intricacies of resilience processes. This paper theorizes about how the specific characteristics of resilient systems can be integrated into the spatial design of cities. Emphasizing the importance of the built form and spatial systems in maintaining order within urban processes, we focus on how adaptive renewal cycles can be applied to various systems and dimensions where urban change, adaptation, and renewal occur. The paper identifies key resilient system characteristics applicable to urban spatial form and contextualizes urban renewal within the adaptive renewal cycle—a framework originally developed to capture temporal and spatial ecosystem dynamics. We integrate insights within ‘space syntax theory’, theorizing about how cities renew themselves over space and time. We discuss instances of ‘compressed resilience’ and the challenges posed by the ‘tyranny of small decisions’ in urban planning and development. In conclusion, we identify future research directions in the theory of spatial morphology and resilient urban systems, emphasizing the need for a deeper understanding of the interplay between urban processes, urban form, resilience, and adaptive renewal.
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| 5. |
- Marcus, Lars, 1962, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a socio-ecological spatial morphology: a joint network approach to urban form and landscape ecology
- 2020
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Ingår i: Urban Morphology. - : International Seminar on Urban Form. - 1027-4278. ; 24:1, s. 21-34
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Interest in the green infrastructure of cities has rapidly increased in recent years. The reasons are several but generally relate to the great increase of research and policy on sustainable urban development. Of particular importance here is the more recent shift in this field towards greater emphasis on biodiversity and urban ecosystems and not only climate change and environmental engineering. This shift brings new demands for a deeper understanding of the morphology of green infrastructures in cities, understood as ecological environments and not only as areas for human use, as has been the general case in urban morphology. In an earlier paper (Marcus et al., 2019), we discussed how descriptions of landscape patterns of both urban and natural kinds, as developed in urban morphology and landscape ecology respectively, could be integrated into a joint socio-ecological spatial morphology. That paper outlined a framework for such a morphology where green (and blue) as well as built-up areas in cities can be jointly described as configurations of patches. However, the discussion in that paper does not address how to capture the relation between such configurations and the processes that they structure, or how such processes over time may alter such configurations, which is the aim of the present paper. It does so by extending the theory of generic function (Hillier, 1996) to other species than humans, and by applying the theory of affordances (Gibson, 1986) as a means to develop distance measures specific for different species. The origin of the discussion in both papers is the need for progress in sustainable urban development for which this relation is vital, since if we are to address the function of both urban and ecological systems through spatial form, we need to develop an understanding of how such patterns underpin and structure urban and ecological systems.
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| 6. |
- Marcus, Lars, 1962, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a socio-ecological spatial morphology: integrating elements of urban morphology and landscape ecology
- 2019
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Ingår i: Urban Morphology. - : International Seminar on Urban Form. - 1027-4278. ; 23:2, s. 115-124
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The recent shift towards greater emphasis on biodiversity and urban ecosystems has increased the need for greater understanding of the green areas in cities as ecological environments. However, landscape ecology and urban morphology have yet to be integrated into a joint field. In this paper steps are taken towards developing an integrated socio-ecological urban morphology based on developments in each field. Such a morphology can inform professional practice in urban design. Comparisons of the different objects of description in the two fields are made and their different means of description - notably the patches, corridors and the matrix in landscape ecology, and the streets, plots and buildings in urban morphology. This provides a basis for a joint description in which these elements together form a configuration of patches.
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