Academic literature on the topic 'Transformative placemaking'

The conclusion unites the study’s implications for the contemporary city and the book’s conceptual and theoretical contributions to urban studies. First, it confronts the theme of a formality-informality binary in urbanism, which the findings significantly complicate, positing social legitimacy as the better term for understanding the success or acceptability of an urban space intervention. The chapter describes how some of the problems with DIY urbanism—and many forms of urban placemaking—can be addressed through the operationalizing of legitimacy as a democratic, community-based metric of va

In their Introduction to this volume, the editors note that the contextual analysis of cremation requires an understanding that is broader and more complex than we generally assume. This chapter examines what has been termed a crematory at one site, and tries to determine the accuracy of this label and its cultural implications. The research included in this chapter is not European in focus, but instead looks at the North American site of Aztalan in southern Wisconsin. Aztalan has been excavated, studied, and interpreted over a period of more than 150 years, and serves as a useful contrast to some of the European sites in this volume because research at Aztalan has drawn on different kinds of analogies, modern allusions, and different histories of development of archaeological method and theory. However, because Aztalan is also a site that represents a widespread, structured, complex, agriculturally based society, it should provide a useful comparison with similar European groups, and expand the range of understanding and examples of cremation and fiery technologies. Of course, there is not a formal link between this site and those in Europe, but many of the same kinds of processes, and especially modern allusions and interpretations, apply to both. A discussion of cremation, copper working, and fiery displays is presented first, followed by details of the Aztalan example and the feature originally labelled a crematory (Rowe 1958). Following this, an outline of the range of Aztalan mortuary practices and pertinent ethnographic and ethnohistoric data highlights the importance of both copper and fire in the Mississippian context. Rather than simply looking at the Aztalan structure as an alternative mortuary location, this chapter tries to place the feature contextually in a much broader social, physical, landscape, and behavioural frame. Since 2000, archaeological approaches to the analysis of mortuary sites have become more sophisticated, both theoretically and analytically. In this process, scholars have begun to focus on the fact that cremation practices have often been presented and interpreted as nothing more than an alternative mortuary practice, and the presence of both cremation and inhumation in a single site is often seen as representing no more than choice or a reflection of changing practices over time.

Traditional alleyway (trok, ตรอก) neighbourhoods in Bangkok are ideal examples of Asian ‘urban ordinaries’ that have been converted into cultural and creative sites. This chapter explores the transformation of a local shopping street, the Phra Athit-Phra Sumen (พระอาทิ ตย์-พระสุ เมรุ) corridor in Bangkok’s Old Town, a part of the Banglamphu (บางลำ�พู) and Baan Phanthom (บ้ านพานถม) neighbourhoods in the northern precinct of Bangkok’s heritage core. It provides insights into the process of spontaneous regeneration through the organic expansion of shops with new creative uses. This dynamic can reduce controversy among potentially competing agendas – the daily needs of residents and shopkeepers, heritage conservation, and creative placemaking. The study highlights how the negative consequences of urban change can be mitigated by promoting venues for creative exchange and learning.

Qatar is one of few Middle Eastern oil producing countries that realized the vitality of a needed swift transformation from resources to knowledge economy. Until a few decades ago, Qatar was dominated by nomadic people whose livelihood depended on fishing, pearling, camel breeding, and fishing ships building. However, the discovery of oil and gas has encouraged not only socio-economic change, but environmental change as well. The discussed account will cover the main strategies adopted by the country to create a distinctive model of development in the Middle East. The study also analyzes the s