A new international research partnership aims to spark dialogue and learning through storytelling about sustainable and equitable urban development. Collaborators from five global cities have partnered to shift common practices of how stories of successful urban change are told and who tells them. The study involves three case study cities that are exemplars of sustainable and equitable development. Local collaborators include academics and their community-based partners in Belfast (Queen’s University), Northern Ireland, Belo Horizonte (Federal University of Minas Gerais Brazil…
Research Theme: Arts & Humanities & Urbansim
Studies of civic culture, including public art and community design-build efforts
Alternative gentrification: coexistence of traditional and new industries in historic districts through transfer of development rights in Dihua Street, Taiwan
Sho, K., Chen, Y.-L., & Oshima, K. T. (2023). Alternative gentrification: coexistence of traditional and new industries in historic districts through transfer of development rights in Dihua Street, Taiwan. International Journal of Heritage Studies : IJHS, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2023.2250776
Abstract
The transfer of development rights (TDR) has been widely used in the preservation of historic districts. The Dihua Street TDR (DS-TDR) in Taipei, Taiwan, successfully preserves the exteriors of historic buildings and traditional landscape in Dihua Street, without significant displacement of previous residents or increases in rents. This study describes this process as 'alternative gentrification', which facilitates the coexistence of traditional and new industries in historic districts, unlike typical gentrification in other cities. Although new shops gradually replace existing shops, the rent level remains relatively affordable compared with other shopping streets in the Taipei city centre. These aspects enable the coexistence of a clustering of new creative-industrial stores and existing stores within the buildings restored and landscaped by the DS-TDR.
Keywords
Historic district; transfer of development rights; historic buildings; restoration; landscaping; Commercial Gentrification; Heritage; Displacement; TDR; Urbanization; Conservation; Neighborhood; Culture; State
Dylan Stevenson named to the Population Health Initiative Executive Council
Dylan Stevenson was selected by University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce to serve on the Population Health Initiative executive council beginning Autumn 2023. Assistant Professor Stevenson brings expertise to the team, including his research interests surrounding how culture informs planning strategies and influences land relationships. More specifically, he investigates how tribal epistemologies structure notions of Indigenous futurities by centering Indigenous cultural values at the forefront of environmental stewardship and cultural preservation. See the full list of new council appointees…
[Re]Visioning the Ave
[Re]Visioning the Ave: Students Devise Real-World Strategies for a Thriving, Accessible Neighborhood Hub was published on the College of Built Environments website, discussing the future of “The Ave.” The U-District Partnership (UDP)—a nonprofit organization worked with Teaching Affiliate David Blum and a diverse team of 16 urban planning graduate students through the process of assessing potential improvement strategies for the Ave in Winter 2022. Read more here.
February 2022 Inspire Fund Awardees: Progress and Products
Five projects were awarded Inspire Fund awards in February 2022. They have completed various stages of work and have provided a report on their progress and products. Below, excerpts from these reports are highlighted to showcase the work that has been “Inspired” in 2022-23. Rick Mohler: “One Seattle: Leveraging Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan Update to advance housing diversity, affordability, livability and racial equity” This funding supported products from the Architecture 594 research seminar and Architecture 508 design studio, which tasked students…
Gould Gallery is featured in UW Magazine
Gould Gallery was featured in the June issue of the University of Washington Magazine. Read the full story here.
Architecture and Democracy: Unitarian Churches
Intertwined throughout Borys’ exploration of this architectural tradition in America are the ever-present fundamental values of Unitarianism, leading her research and analysis across the Atlantic and back to the 16th-century Italian Renaissance.
American Unitarian Churches: Architecture of a Democratic Religion
Borys, Ann Marie (2021). American Unitarian Churches: Architecture of a Democratic Religion. University of Massachusetts Press.
College of Built Environments’ Research Restart Fund Awards Four Grants in Second Cycle
The College of Built Environments launched a funding opportunity for those whose research has been affected by the ongoing pandemic. The Research Restart Fund, with awards up to $5,000, has awarded 4 grants in the second of its two cycles. A grant was awarded to Manish Chalana, faculty member with Urban Design and Planning to help support his efforts to carry out archival research and fieldwork in India for his new book exploring the history and memory of non-dominant groups…
A Space of Loss: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Ochsner, J. K. (1997). A Space of Loss: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Journal of Architectural Education, 50(3), 156–171.
Abstract
Few published essays have explored the way in which the Vietnam Veterans Memorial actually communicates with visitors. This article explores the memorial as a "linking object," as conceived by psychoanalyst Vamik Volkan, and as a "space of absence," as defined by Richard Etlin, and shows how these two ways of understanding the memorial are interconnected. A particularly innovative aspect of the memorial is the way it engenders awareness of both surface (emphasized by the inscribed names) and space (experienced as "virtual space") resulting from the reflectivity of the granite, which gives it an apparent ("virtual") depth. The reflective surface brings one "into" the "space" of the wall and allows simultaneous perception of the names of the dead, the reflections of other visitors, and the reflection of oneself. The complex interactive process wherein the inexactness and ambiguity of the reflections catch the viewer, engender projective fantasy, and (because of the presence of the names) simultaneously structure it, fosters a proximity to and an identification with the dead, and the simultaneous experience of connection and separation.