FUTURE ASIAN SPACE

Call for Paper

FUTURE | ASIAN | SPACE

The rapid urbanization of the urban periphery has resulted in the growth of cities with populations of more than eight million people culminating in the unprecedented rise of megacities. At the turn of this century, there are about 28 megacities, the majority of which are in developing nations, and half of them are in Asia. Nation states are increasingly aware that the impacts of globalization on their cities are uneven, and that Asian cities, perhaps more so than their nation states, have become the competing entities in the global arena.

Foremost of the changes have been the unprecedented rate of urbanization and urban projects, including the revitalization, renewal and building of mega-projects in existing city centers, as well as urbanization of the periphery. Rural-urban migration and the resulting population pressure in these cities have also spawned the need for the rapid output of urban housing as well as growth at the periphery of cities. The phenomena of regionalization and globalization and the attendant dynamics in the opening up of new Asian economies have engendered the need for us to understand cities in Asia in new ways with regard to design at the urban scale, of how to understand and perceive and value the Asian city and the challenges of assessing the tools and methods we have adopted.

These spatial processes, influenced by accelerated change and the rise of new international economic and financial relationships, have put pressure on local ecosystems and natural resources, as well as local cultural heritage - and have raised issues of design, re-negotiating the experience of the city and questions of creating sustainable urban development in Asian cities. Competing forces of development for limited urban space have also resulted in changing forms, use and dynamics of urban public space, and processes for the reclamation of space for public good. New technologies used in designing and conceiving the city, as well as new technologies in urban space, and how one communicates and negotiates within urban space have drastically changed the landscape of the city, such that we begin to even question if there is such an entity as the Asian city, or if more pluralistic concepts of the city in Asia has to be interrogated.

The conference introduces the following sub-themes in which to discuss the Future Asian Space:

DESIGN: Future Space
Urban forms | urban space
Urban Patterns
Shaping Space
New Development
Housing

The Asian city has perhaps for a long time not been designed as an entity, but grew and became what it was, that is, growth and design had been incremental and piecemeal, rather than designed in broad sweeps, but of course with qualified exceptions. Increasingly however, cities are undergoing renewal, re-design, expansion or additions so that space is being shaped according to political wills, design strategies and single-minded blueprints rather than being shaped through time. Can the Asian city really be designed, or will it forever change in shape and morphology with these new initiatives by planners, urban designers, architects and the ambitions of developer conglomerates? Papers in this sub-theme will explore aspects of the design of Asian city in the shaping of future space, and may examine patterns of development or focus on specific design initiatives and projects, and their outcomes in the space of the city. Papers from practitioners, observers of the city, design educators and critics of anticipated.

What exactly constitutes Asian space and how do intangibles such as Asian value systems and practices play out in space? The tensions between global and local entities in cities and how these engender richness and diversity or antagonisms will be discussed in this sub-theme. Rather than focusing on nostalgias for lost spaces, papers in this sub-theme will try to tease out new possibilities presented by new dynamics in Asian cities in producing hybrid spaces, alternative spaces and new identities in space in experiencing the Asian city. The richness of urban chaos generated in the complex dynamics of the city will be mined for its rich offerings in understanding the deep structures that operate in the culture of congestion. Papers that deal with the experiential aspects of Asian cities, read from the ground up and generating new perspectives from which to read the city will populate this theme.

SUSTAINABILITY: Future Cities
Environmental and cultural sustainability
Eco Urbanism
Compact | Congested
Mobility

Asian cities have been culprits of notorious traffic congestion, environmental pollution, or relentless demolition of built heritage and the destruction of urban neighborhoods so that they have been called unsustainable: physically, environmentally, socially and culturally. Are there examples of practices in Asian cities that can counter these serious accusations? Do proposals and policies exist that may be applied to the city? The implementation of large environmental initiatives may sometimes meet insurmountable cost or political hurdles, and if so, are there initiatives from the ground up, whether in empowerment of the urban community in implementing green measures, or design initiatives that will help change the environmental or social trajectories of the city? Are there emerging practices, design initiatives or paradigm shifts in policy-making that will ensure the survival of the Asian city? Papers that deal with the design, technology, education or policy aspects of urban sustainability in its broad reading are included in this track.