Volumen 15 (2019): Edición 1 (January 2019)

Article focuses on the workflows for generating new hybrid material explorations for architectural application through development of new strategies of applying parametricism as one of the main driving forces in the design that exercises novelty through 3D modeling and visual programming languages. The obtained results have been applied in series of material design experimental sample projects that challenge the standard geometries and enhance the field of applicative materials for architectural application.

Legibility is urban quality, defining ability to find a way in urban or architectural structure, as well as understanding the identity or function of a certain space. Legible environment could help to comprehend not only the space in which person is in a given situation, but also the whole city. It helps to identify oneself as part of a group or certain community. The article is oriented to better understanding of people’s needs in environment, by analyzing the case study of Kaunas New Town. The project is based on observation, analysis of literature and results of research by space syntax methodology. The results show coherence between design rules, based on people’s needs, and visibility graph model, which shows the potential of public and private spaces.

Affordable Housing is a critical issue in many developing countries that impacts their potential for sustainability and socio-economic development. Lack of affordable housing, slower growth of housing stock, and aging housing conflates numerous other problems in Pakistan, including overcrowding, poor indoor air quality, prevalence of preventable diseases, and development of slums and katchi abadies, etc. These challenges lessen living standards in many areas. Unaffordable housing forces low income families in urban areas to live in dilapidated areas. An increase in the construction of affordable housing is needed to mitigate housing affordability challenges in Pakistan. Setting aside land quotas for low-income families in housing development schemes is not sufficient because the households still lack the means to construct housing. This paper attempts to identify the causes of unaffordable housing and solutions for its provision.

The article demonstrates the development and application of activities with serious play and serious game features for the facilitated process of content analysis of images of urban public spaces. The study involves accumulation of the material for the analysis, develops the coding categories and their visual representations – pictograms, analyzes and groups the images and attributes the pictograms to them, marks the insight on the sticky notes, develops the matrixes of functioning of urban spaces, and discusses the outcomes. The developed set of activities based on the hands-on approach can be used in research and studies and could be adapted to local community-based activities.

The aim of this article is to analyse how physical classroom environment can be related to pedagogy and to examine the causes that prevent such correlation. The article briefly introduces the development of classrooms since the 20th century, it underlines modern learning activities, presents visual organization of classroom spaces in correlation with the latter and analyses students’ activity zones in the classrooms. Article presents the model of interaction between pedagogy and physical classroom environment.

Two distant towns, two founding initiators and, at least for parts of the historic development, strictly separated political systems do not actually suggest a range of similarities. Yet, in closer examination during an academic student research project on major public buildings in Riga and Munich, several remarkable references occurred: some triggered by outstanding individuals, some due to pan-European architectural flow. By comparing the key stages of urban development, mainly on the analysis of historical plans and vedutas and by detecting stylistic links in the cities’ public buildings, striking parallels became visible, as well as significant differences in detail.

The paper discusses the possibilities of HBIM usage in foreign countries and Lithuania. Methods used in the paper are analysis of the literary sources, review of legal documents relating to the digitization of buildings, and analysis of case studies in foreign countries. The aim of the paper is to present the main stages of HBIM process for the historical buildings renovation. Nowadays HBIM process in Lithuania focuses on scanning heritage sites and reproducing realistic images and the attribute data for cultural heritage sites and incorporating them into HBIM models. The process is in the initial stage.

Latvia and Lithuania are producers of glulam and both have managed building projects with glued timber structures, but only as few as 1−2 projects per year. As it is difficult to find information about glulam projects it is possible that many projects are not known even to the audience of architects. The aim of this study was to collect information related to the glulam projects in both countries and the questionnaire was used to get the architects’ opinion on the use of timber and glulam.

Travel behaviour exists in both culture and the surrounding environment. It is crucial to understand it because it helps the policymakers to effectively develop the urban and transportation planning policies. Large scale mobility of people by motorized transport is making our cities polluted and more congested that ultimately affects urban assets. A single paradigm, e.g. land use or socio-demographics, might not clearly demonstrate people’s preferences, it is necessary to take several paradigms in isolation. This study examined the joint influence of multiple attributes that includes land use, socio-demographic and travel information on travel behaviour and particularly preferred travel mode. A structured questionnaire was designed and interviews were conducted to obtain the data. Multinomial logit model (MNL) was applied to estimate the relationships among variables. Furthermore, spatial maps were prepared to highlight the classification of land uses. It was estimated that with the increase in income level people switched from walking to riding a vehicle and most of them prefer to ride a vehicle for longer trips. It was further investigated that people prefer to walk or ride a vehicle in residential and commercial areas. Based on the results, several planning related policies were recommended.

In the mid-19th century, European countries underwent significant changes in their economies. To a large extent they were facilitated by the development of railways. The ability to transport goods quickly and cheaply by land facilitated industrial development and urban growth. The growing needs of the economy created the need for educated specialists who could successfully meet the increasing demands. Riga was not an exception in these processes. A decision inspired by local entrepreneurs was made to educate specialists locally instead of attracting them from other countries. Established in 1862, the Riga Polytechnic was the first institution of higher technical education in the Baltic region. Already in the first decade of its operation, the Department of Architecture (DA) was opened. This study is aimed at identifying and evaluating the circumstances that impacted the formation of architectural education in Riga and estimating the contribution of DA graduates to the urban landscape of Riga city centre.

Taking into account the wide variety of household types, it is crucial to provide different housing. The research focuses on the diversity of Riga 21st century apartments, considering the principles of the housing diversity concept and the context of Riga development. Theoretical studies as well as empirical research methods were used. According to the research results, in general the diversity is satisfactory. However, several negative aspects were identified. Therefore, it is necessary to take actions in order to achieve a greater housing diversity and overall sustainability.

We are witnesses of continuous and turbulent complexity process of urban development at every spatial level. The presence of information and communication technologies in every aspect of our life leads to the fact that there is no more “delay” in between global and local changes. This conjunction changes the paradigm of urban development, which is now in networking, communication and integration. This paper discusses these relations described as hypothesis within Castells’ paradigm of network society and project identity that should be developed on local level in order to be a part of – a node of global network, and to survive and develop its potentialities and capacities. This paradigm is discussed in relation to C. Alexander’s, E. Howard’s, and P. Geeds’ approach in order to define principles and steps of integration of different spatial levels toward more coherent, harmonized urban development. The research applies theoretical approaches of networking towards integrated development of Danube region.

Architectural studies in Kaunas University of Technology shift towards implementation of BIM concept-based approach in design modules, which suggests the use of related software (Revit, ArchiCAD). Implementation of parametric design (3ds Max, Cinema4D) related subjects in the study process is in alarming situation because of the University’s and even national policy. Nevertheless, its wide usage, at least in the visual presentation of architectural projects, strongly suggests that graduates need to have knowledge of these technologies as it is often required in the general practice. However, the different concepts of BIM and parametric design modelling practice makes the study load too heavy for the students. Thus, it is vital to find a balanced solution for both of these subjects to be presented equally during architectural studies at the University. The aim of this paper is to analyse the opportunities and challenges of introducing parallel learning of both software.

The study summarizes information on buildings of catering establishments of the 1960s in Latvia. The analysis of the interior, exterior, location of the buildings as well as the possibilities for their restoration has been carried out. Information on the restoration and preservation of the Modern Movement architecture in the world has been analysed as well.

Up-to-date nature tourism trends witness a growth of customer-oriented unique experiences. The present paper explores the potential of treehouses in nature tourism development in Latvia by providing unique and authentic experiences. Using the method of practical modelling several distinct treehouse construction methods are compared considering regional differences and different use cases. To achieve the set goal, three separate practical modelling workshops in different municipalities in Latvia were organised during the summer holidays of 2016–2018. History and construction types of treehouses were analysed as well as 30 experts from the local municipalities, treehouse companies, workshop participants, clients and customers were interviewed. The presented study is based on the 4-year experience of participation in several European treehouse workshops and organisation of the local treehouse activities and events in Latvia as well as learnings from managing an outdoor recreation company “Movement Spontaneous” and co-founding the Latvian Outdoor Association “Outdoor Club Latvia” in 2018.

The research, outlined in the paper, explores games as methods for better public participation in planning. Drawing on the thematic analysis of scientific publications, prominent authors and research centres, as well as key research themes, are identified. The themes include motivational aspects of gamified participation, online and pervasive games for massive civic engagement, deliberative and educational games for collective problem-solving, game co-design for questioning and reframing planning concepts. The paper concludes with the benefits of gamification for participatory planning practice.

Today’s European historical city centre streetscapes, many of which are designated cultural heritage sites, consist of a mix of urban and architectural housing heritage of different periods, including post World War II period buildings. Nevertheless, knowledge of history of historical centre post-war housing and their artistic and cultural-historical values of this recent past is still insufficient, to a certain degree contradictory, and in some cases even incorrect. This is particularly accurate regarding Modern Movement serial or type Soviet housing in former Soviet republics. This paper presents an ongoing research intended to identify valuable housing streetscape architecture and urban layout traits of post-war period in Latvia (1945–1990) in the environment of historic centre. The goal is to provide specialists in planning and heritage fields with appropriate evaluation criteria and correct know-how material on the theme, as well as general public with cultural historical information considering post-war housing heritage. In this study an example of post-war Modern Movement serial Soviet housing in the historical centre of Riga, the capital city of Latvia, and its protection zone is drawn. The research is based on mapping and auditing streetscapes using Maryland Inventory with this housing typology in historical built environment to identify most common characteristics and qualities of these buildings. The main conclusions are that historical street-scapes do not have significant qualitative differences from historical mixed with post-war housing streetscapes, whereas the quality of streetscapes with dominating post-war modern housing tends to differ from historical streetscapes, as well as has similar shortcomings to those of the large-scale housing block streetscapes.

Urban regeneration has been an ongoing process in many cities for decades. It has experienced various changes in terms of the main driving force, with public engagement becoming more and more important. One of the ways for communities to get involved in urban transformation is through participation in urban planning. Local communities are considered as partners in urban design processes, and in many countries their role in planning and design is defined by industry regulations. Still, one question is important – is public participation a formal tool or does it have an influence on planning and how it impacts decision making. Along with community involvement in planning processes, participatory budgeting has been developed as a public participatory approach in recent years. This gives a chance for inhabitants to participate in the budgetary decision-making process. The aim of this study is to analyse whether participatory budgeting, which is mainly municipal-led urban activism, answers the real needs of inhabitants in terms of urban regeneration. The interests of formal urban activism are defined and compared to the interests of informal urban activism actions, correlation and gaps are defined.