Hello all,
This month's Stadtkolloquium will feature two talks from phd students
doing urban research at UCL: Sam Merrill in Geography and Bernadette
Devilat at the Bartlett. See abstracts below.
We'll meet this Thursday Dec 15 from 4-6 in G07 Pearson. As always, anyone
doing doctoral work related to cities is welcome to attend to listen,
question, discuss, network, and collectively revel in the joys and
difficulties of our academic endeavors.
Also, two more reminders:
1. We've got spaces available for people who'd like to present some aspect
of their current research (a chapter, a paper, a proposal, a conundrum,
etc) at one of our Stadkolloquium monthly meeting this spring. Please
email Susana ([log in to unmask]) if you'd like one of those spots.
2. We're now accepting proposals to participate in our annual workshop,
March 26&27 2012. This event has been very well received in past years,
but space is quite limited. See our website (www.stadtkolloquium.co.uk)
for more details on the workshop and how to apply.
Cheers,
Regan Koch
UCL Department of Geography
Sam Merrill [[log in to unmask]]
UCL Geography
A Cultural Landscape Analysis of Urban Underground Railways: Tracing Power
and Memory beneath London and Berlin.
This presentation highlights the progress that has been made in the first
14 months of the research project. It takes advantage of the forum
provided by Stadtkolloquium to repeat the content discussed during the
candidate's official upgrade workshop. As such it welcomes critical and
constructive feedback, which will benefit the project's aims, objectives
and the forthcoming period of primary data collection scheduled for 2012.
The presentation will cover the research's main theoretical frameworks,
proposed empirical foci and methodological approach.
Bernadette Devilat [[log in to unmask]]
UCL Bartlett
Re_construction strategies on heritage villages after earthquakes: Chile:
2005, 2010, 20??
Chile is a country that has earthquakes regularly, which cause important
levels of destruction in the built environment. The last large earthquake
occurred the 27th February 2010, with a magnitude of 8.8 in Richter scale.
Earthquakes produce a forced and massive renovation process in affected
areas. Due to this, many times in their history, urban and rural areas
have experienced its devastation and necessary reconstruction, with the
profound impact that this process has on cities, villages and their
inhabitants.
In such context, built heritage has resulted quite damaged, especially due
to its age and accumulated damage over the years, plus the indiscriminate
demolition immediately after the emergency. These villages are dispersed
along Chilean geography, so each one has their own particular climate
conditions. An interesting aspect is that these settlements, in general,
represent sustainable answers to environmental circumstances, which are
associated to a way of living and building. They are composed mainly by
houses, with certain common characteristics, such as continuous façades
and traditional building techniques; being physical support of cultural
expressions of their inhabitants.
The most significant problem is that earthquakes have not only produced
physical destruction; they rather have shown the non-existence of
contemporary design strategies that can be suitable with specific
conditions, which have become crucial in vernacular settlements.
Therefore, the objective of this research is to generate new environmental
and architectural approaches, with cultural and technological conditions,
through the analysis of the logics that are at the genesis of a lot of
heritage villages, in order to reinterpret them in the present. Beyond a
conservationist point of view, it is expected to work on how to insert new
buildings into existing fabric with a contemporary approach, generating a
rich palimpsest. Therefore, this research may propose new re_construction
strategies that can be part of future post-earthquakes action plans,
allowing a conscious learning process from past catastrophes to develop
answers for future ones.
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