Previous calls

Issue 23: "Peri-urban landscapes"

Deadline for submission of articles: April 15th, 2024
Expected publication date: December 2024

Call Text:

As shown by urban history, the phenomenon of suburbanisation is as old as cities themselves. However, the way in which cities have colonised new spaces has changed over time. While the industrial era saw the exponential growth of residential and industrial peripheries, in today's city the widespread decentralisation of tertiary activities and the proliferation of infrastructures of all kinds, especially roads and railways, have led to the configuration of what have come to be termed 'new peripheries' or 'peri-urban areas'. These are areas of a very different nature, defined as being in a kind of transition from the strictly rural to the urban [1]. In recent decades, we have witnessed what could be called a real 'peri-urban explosion', a part of the broader phenomenon of the formation of 'urbanised landscapes' [2]. Although peripheries have been shaped through the interaction between humans and nature [3], presently, due to the new processes of urban growth, the natural and agricultural spaces surrounding them are being shaped as a palimpsest [4], a collage of often fragmented, dispersed, empty, or residual spaces with mixed uses. These are not mere visual scenarios, but the manifestation of processes that shape the territory and territorial systems, the so-called peri-urban landscapes analysed by some urban geographers [5].

The degradation of the natural environment, the destruction of agricultural land, and the increasing banalization of the peri-urban landscape are well-known problems. In short, there is a progressive degradation of spaces that are no longer fully urban or rural. However, the cultural and environmental values of these landscapes, i.e. the eco-cultural values of the new urban and territorial systems, are garnering increasing attention in response to these dynamics. By defining landscape as "any part of the territory, as perceived by man, the character of which results from the interaction of natural and human factors and their interactions", the European Landscape Convention (ELC) has taken a decisive step towards an integrated approach. The Convention refers "both to landscapes that can be considered exceptional and to ordinary or degraded landscapes" (CEP art. 2). This implies the recognition of the value of "ordinary landscapes", not only those of exceptional heritage value. This is an innovative idea, acknowledging that every territory is a landscape and that each territory expresses itself in the specificity of its landscape, regardless of its quality and the appreciation it deserves. Re-evaluating the importance of peri-urban landscapes and considering them as an opportunity for the design and implementation of innovative models for the regeneration of cities and landscapes is a priority in the European context.

Peri-urban landscapes present opportunities to address climate change adaptation and mitigation challenges from an environmental perspective. These areas often harbor a diverse range of ecosystems and species. Their maintenance is crucial for preserving biodiversity and ecological balances. Additionally, many peri-urban landscapes provide essential lecosystem services, including water purification, local climate regulation, and flood protection. Conserving those with agricultural land is imperative to support sustainable agricultural practices and ensure local food security and sovereignty. On the other hand, from a cultural and heritage perspective, it is equally important to safeguard the heritage and cultural values they represent. Different measures are needed to achieve this goal. With regard to the quality of life in urban areas, it is clear what role open and natural spaces play in sports and leisure activities and in the mental and physical health of the citizens. These spaces could act as catalysts in urban regeneration processes from a strictly urban planning perspective. Lastly, by acting as a buffer against the effects of climate change, the preservation and enhancement of peri-urban landscapes can increase the resilience of cities.

Issue 23 of ZARCH is devoted to the study and understanding of peri-urban landscapes, with a specific emphasis on their eco-cultural values. It also delves into the importance of those landscapes that, due to their natural, agricultural, or other man-made features, could play a pivotal role in urban and landscape regeneration processes. The aim of this integrative approach is to recognise the complexity of these spaces and their potential, not only to preserve valuable elements from the past, but also to actively contribute to the future development of urbanised landscapes. In this context, it is anticipated that the articles and contributions in this issue will offer a more in-depth and nuanced view of peri-urban landscapes and the various dimensions they encompass. The research project Peri-Urban Strategic Areas In Transformation. Eco-Cultural Challenges In Urban Regeneration Processes In Spanish Cities (PER-START), under which this issue of ZARCH is published, aims to explore the potential of these strategic areas in transition towards landscape ecourbanism at all scales.

The main objective is to underscore the importance of peri-urban landscapes, with a particular emphasis on their eco-cultural values. Traditionally overlooked by urban planning documents adopting an 'inside-out' perspective, i.e. 'urban to non-urban', these places possess a regenerative 'nature to city' dimension that is seldom acknowledged. We firmly believe that only an innovative, multidisciplinary, inter-institutional, and collaborative approach can enable us to understand these complexities.

Several lines of work are suggested:

• Territory, processes, and peri-urban landscapes.
• Challenges of an ecological, socio-cultural, and economic nature
• Periurban growth risks and resilience.
• The dynamisation, regeneration, recycling, and re-qualification of peri-urban landscapes.
• Urban and environmental strategies in peri-urban landscapes: continuity, innovation, and experimentation.
• Urban and landscape regulation and intervention tools: landscape catalogues, plans and projects, actions, etc.
• Cartography as a prospective tool for studying and intervening in peri-urban landscapes.
• On a smaller scale, the study of architectures proposing new readings of the city and the territory from peri-urban areas, including comparative studies or good practices.

---

Issue 22: "In Between Permanence and Temporariness. On Camps, Urbanity and Time"

Deadline for submission of articles: November 15th, 2023
Expected publication date: June 2024

Call Text:

In 2019, issue 13 of ZARCH addressed the subject of the “traces of the ephemeral” in the cities. The volume put forward research on the bonds between the permanent structures in the city and those of certain “temporary events”, and also on how significant urban pieces are sometimes founded on the basis of this paradox. The editorial read: “major research is being conducted into the nature, role and traces of the ephemeral”, referring “not only to the ‘physical’ footprints of temporary constructions”, but also “to the intangible legacies that remain in the cultural landscape and in the social imaginary, our architecture and our cities. [...] Much has been written about ‘occasional’ architecture associated with public celebrations, religious acts, political or cinematographic scenography, festivals, temporary markets, nomadic housing, emergency architecture. [...]The field of the ephemeral goes, however, even further, particularly regarding the proliferation of provisional architectures”, such as “those associated with the great events of modernity. [...] Therefore, it seems reasonable to question the nature and quality of the ephemeral in history, at present and—why not?—in the future of our cities”.

The purpose of this issue, number 22, is in some respects a continuation of issue 13. However, while the former focused on the relationship between the ephemeral and the permanent, particularly on the consequences for the city of constructions designed for or resulting from certain ephemeral events, this issue intends to take another look at the contradiction between temporariness and permanence, leaving out those permanent ephemeral constructions—such as universal exhibitions and pavilions or the Olympics—in order to concentrate on two questions:

• On the one hand, to explore the urban conditions for temporariness whether they are formal or informal, lasting or momentary events – festivals, dances, markets, or demonstrations— or settlements – refugee camps, control or celebration and artistic or religious camps, the contingency of the nomad, in caravans and camps – and the transfers of ‘urbanity’, as understood by Lefebvre, which can be produced on the permanent fabrics. The aim is to discover what is permanent about temporariness.
• On the other, to study the increasingly temporary conditions of the urban life of fabrics, whether physical or social, that we believed to be permanent and whose urbanity, Bauman claims, is confined to less built areas by the condition of ‘liquid‘ modernity. The pressure of the tourism and leisure industry over the city, the temporary occupation of public space and some instability acquired from the dissolution of certain social constructs that were believed to be sound lighten up the condition of permanence that Rossi assigns to urban fabrics—new rules are established and new urban patterns offered. In other words, the aim is to enquire what is temporary about permanence.

The goal would be to strip the urban phenomenon of its stable physical condition to reach the ‘zero point’ of urbanity. We propose to study the contradictions and parallels between the city’s temporariness and permanence. This journey can cover, among others, the following paths opened by some authors:

1. Overmeyer[1] studied the city of Berlin as a laboratory of informal, temporary uses and how, in a temporary or more permanent way, these new uses laid claim to the city’s vacant sites and gave them a new life. Subsequently in 2013, he extended these studies to five European cities and examined how the ‘camp’ has entered the urban fabric, its capacity for transformation and its future. Whilst accepting the oxymoron of ‘urban camp’, it would of the interest of this issue to publish studies that reveal the fragility of the permanence of contemporary, physical, urban fabrics and explore how this very fragility can generate urbanity in an increasingly liquid social and political context.
2. Hailey[2] classifies ‘temporary cities’, which he terms ‘camps’, into three categories: autonomy camps, referring to those chosen voluntarily, to celebrate, learn, retreat or protest; control camps, such as military camps, detention centres, waiting and transit zones, and concentration camps, among others; and necessity camps, normally created, whether constructed spontaneously or planned, for people who have been forcibly displaced from their places of origin, as a result of natural disasters or conflicts. Camps house a group of people that is increasingly diverse —prisoners, refugees, immigrants, pilgrims, activists, tourists or hedonists—, represent an urban reality that is greater than ever, in terms of scale and relevance, and, on occasions, their temporariness is permanent and their superstructure becomes an infrastructure. What can we learn from these contemporary camps to better understand the apparently permanent urban fabric? What knowledge can the former transfer to the latter?
3. Mehrotra[3] classifies temporary urban phenomena, which he terms ‘ephemeral urbanism’, into celebration, transaction, extraction, refuge, military, religion and disaster ephemeral landscapes. ‘Ephemeral urbanism’ attempts to overcome the dichotomy between formal and informal—“the circus, the farmers’ market, and the festival, for example, are suddenly moments where different parts of society are made aware of their own existence within the urban system”—and it views the ‘new urban normality’ as being in constant movement. Temporariness is a “new urban ecology” that appears and disappears, or remains for brief spells. Mehrotra wonders, can cities be designed with this condition of movement and temporariness? Can temporariness be acknowledged as an intrinsic part of the city? Can it be incorporated in terms of urban forms or public spaces?

The works and studies expected to receive, which are linked to these topics, may take a critical-speculative approach or a practical one, with examples that specifically reveal the transfers between temporariness and contemporary urban conditions. In both cases, the points of view may be limited to particular disciplines, in the field of architecture or urbanism, but we also need insights from the arts—whether visual, object-based or performing—to construct a multifaceted landscape.