Tom 18 (2022): Zeszyt 1 (January 2022)

Despite the increasingly global orientation of urban morphology, there still remain countries whose achievements in the field of urban form research are underrepresented. Although the attempts to study settlement form in Lithuania were rather early, the second half of the 20^th century was the most productive period. The article presents context, process and findings of the folk architecture research, which became the nurturing environment for the establishment of contemporary urban form studies in Lithuania.

In this article, authors discuss new possibilities for the spatial design universal aesthetic development. Creative artistic means are conditioned by the human ability to comprehend and interpret objects in a particular context. Ideas of arts and science coexistence have been relevant since antiquity. The 20th century, especially the Bauhaus movement, gave a rational basis for conjoining artistic inspiration with the parametric constraints. Contemporary digital technologies provide new possibilities to enhance human creative potential by employing scientific methods. In search of material environment evaluation reference points, it is important to establish a robust connection of human mind and physical world. Subjectivity and intersubjectivity of experiences raise issues in human perception studies, involving both phenomenal and material processes. Embodied cognition reveals itself as an intuitive experience or discovery which provides a new perspective for the creative application. The authors aim to investigate the creative opportunities of automated shape generation systems. The main issue is to find a universal application of creative process analysis. Parametric constraints offer the opportunity to use statistical tools in art practice. These constraints are based on embodied cognition capabilities. Combined methods of qualitative and quantitative evaluation help to assess the contextual relevance of the object and to determine the cultural and pragmatic effectiveness of automated design solutions. The study offers theoretical and applied cross-disciplinary research direction to discover new creative means in material environment design, including architecture and urban planning.

In the context of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, large-scale events have been forced to stop as well as movement of people between cities. At Daxi in Taoyuan, Taiwan, there is an event that lasts for over a century, Puji Temple Annual Celebration of Saintly Emperor Guan’s Birthday, held every summer on June 24 of the lunar calendar. It is not only registered as Taoyuan City’s intangible cultural heritage but also considered as the second Chinese New Year for local people. In order to express gratitude to Saintly Emperor Guan for his blessing, the local groups ‘She-Tou’, residents, shopkeepers and volunteers make a great effort on the preparations before the celebration. Local people who at the time do not live in Daxi because they are studying, working or after marriage are living in other cities would also come back to the town on this day. This traditional and cultural event bred from belief has become a mechanism of community cohesion and has shaped Daxi’s unique sense of place. Unfortunately, the traditional pilgrimage of the celebration in 2021 has been paused due to the pandemic situation. However, thanks to the long-term collaboration and participation of the local museum, the ritual of faith can continue in a new way. This article takes the DaxiDaxi “Lord Guan Online” website and its Facebook page as an example. By analysing how the Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum interprets the traditional celebration and its culture in a digital way, we try to explore the possibility of digital tools as a powerful medium for connecting people and people and place during the pandemic period.

Digital participatory mapping is an emerging and largely unexplored practice in Latvia despite its potential to broaden and diversify public engagement processes. This study explores the spectrum of currently used digital participatory mapping tools through select examples from Latvian municipalities. Furthermore, the study examines the citizens’ participatory habits and preferences using a small-scale citizen survey and co-design activity. The obtained results allow reflection on the design, functionality, and engagement formats of the existing participatory mapping tools compared to the citizens’ expectations.

Urban morphological characters have implications for town-plan regionalization but have received little attention. This paper systematically reviewed urban form aspects, built form and morphological characters. The review highlighted built form is a reference aspect that coordinates other aspects of urban form and contains hierarchical plan-element complexes. Such complex relationship within the built form is vital to give urban form its morphological characters. Since urban morphological characters regionalize town plans, this role merits more study to establish relationships among morphological characters, town-plan regions, and sustainable development. There is also a shift to study town-plan regionalization in support of urban landscape management.

Considering the broad variety of household types as well as future generation needs and negative impact of often housing modifications, flexibility is a crucial aspect. The research aims to evaluate to what degree Riga contemporary apartment layouts meet human needs in terms of flexible housing. The theoretical framework is based on relevant literature review. Empirical studies are based on the assessment of selected case studies. The major findings show that there is a limited housing flexibility especially in the case of the compact apartment sector. To ensure greater housing flexibility, a number of key indicators should be incorporated into the building codes.

The emerging application of AI-based tools in creative practices encourages analysing how these tools could be integrated into ecological architectural design. This research was aimed at identifying the possibilities of applying AI-based tools and approaches for shape-finding in the field of biophilic architectural design. The research encompasses review and analysis of literature, the experiment of shape-finding using AI-based tool VQGAN+CLIP, and the evaluation of generated images according to the system of biophilic design criteria adapted for the purpose of image evaluation. The experiment of shape finding demonstrated that the use of keywords describing the characteristics of natural systems and the VQGAN+CLIP code allow generating unexpected, interesting forms which correspond to some biophilic characteristics. Such forms can be the start of a further creative search for the architect.

The article offers a study of the oldest building of Iecava manor – a stone barn that has survived after the devastating wars of the 20^th century. The history and architecture of the construction of the barn until 2020 seemed to be known. The stone building has a weathercock dated 1797, and the construction time of the building is related to it. The architectural composition of the main façade and some carefully designed details allowed to hypothesize that the architect of the Duke of Courland S. Jensen is the author of the building. A building research study in 2021 found that in the second half of the 18^th century, a wooden farmhouse with a basement (or on an existing basement) was built, having a gable roof with pitched ends and timber framed gables. The main façade had a roof overhang, and perhaps this façade was painted red, imitating a brick wall with grey seams. The current appearance of the stone barn was obtained after the exterior walls of the wooden building were replaced by masonry walls. It happened in the first decades of the 19^th century. The building was transformed into a masonry structure, leaving the floor beams, ceiling beams, pediments and roof structure of the old wooden building, and expanded by moving the main façade wall ~ 1 m further apart. The function of the wooden building is not clear. Previous hypotheses about a malt in the 18^th century are neither denied nor confirmed. The assumption that the brewery was the only brick building in the 1786 inventory is erroneous, as the building was originally made of wood.

Today, the barn is the oldest existing building in Iecava manor. This study is an example of the importance of structural thinking and knowledge of structures in architectural research. This knowledge is provided by architecture education that is different from formal analysis practiced in the art sciences.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the successes and challenges of participatory planning of three urban improvement projects. The paper uses a case study approach with mixed methods of interviews and documents to investigate how women were included and whether the strategies used succeeded in overcoming gender inequalities in the preparation of the master plans and action plans, thus achieving benefits for both men and women in the camps. The results indicate that using of mixed gender inclusion strategies support gender equity, but significant changes cannot take place depending on context. Such projects should focus on the sustainability of the change even if incremental.

The purpose of this research is to disclose the architectural features of cities and towns during the period of Lithuania’s reconstruction in 1918–1925. Therefore, the features are analysed according to three criteria – the functional needs of a newly founded state, its technical capacities and stylistic preferences – by granting an acceptable stylistic shape to buildings. The results of this will help to identify the state’s functional needs in consideration of losses caused by WWI to a country that could not be reconstructed in full from the then state budget; thus, from the very beginning the focus was on reconstruction of public buildings and residential houses, out of necessity.

The topic of justice and equality in Lithuania has been studied mostly from the sociological point of view and the most commonly used concepts are segregation, differentiation, and polarization. The article analyzes the concept of spatial justice, its theoretical and practical assumptions discuss urban policy, how the public understands spatial justice and how it is taking part in the decision-making in Lithuanian city planning processes. For the case study, the examples of public participation in urban planning processes in Kaunas city are analyzed.

The research focuses on active leisure areas created in the 21^st century, identifying the main planning trends. Based on the obtained data from the literature review, the mutual comparison method was used to survey territories in Latvia and Estonia. The research showed that it is necessary to change the approach in planning to meet today’s requirements by developing uniform planning principles and guidelines and increasing awareness of general quality requirements for all parties involved.

Urban planning has always reflected the major crises and technological developments. Throughout history, the most noteworthy advancements and innovations in urban planning have occurred in reaction to serious public health pandemics. The Covid-19 pandemic affected our negligent strategy to resilience in urban planning. The Covid-19 outbreak has touched everyone internationally and has caused us to rethink our lifestyle. This current crisis sheds new light on a number of challenges regarding urban planning. The Covid-19 pandemic has the potential to significantly change urban planning and the existing way of living. This situation demands understanding the obstacles faced, the mistakes, and the undiscovered opportunities in order to allow the construction of epidemic resilient communities. Therefore, this research is set out to investigate the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on urban planning. Taking into consideration several problems brought by the crisis, with an emphasis on the urban planning context and the changes taking place in the planning sector, this study followed the case study approach focusing on Amman – the capital city of Jordan. Urban planning in Amman has witnessed many spatial planning issues during the recent pandemic. Results indicated that we should rethink the current urban design and planning strategies to bring forth a new phase of sustainable and resilient urban cities which will enhance resilience to emerging future disease outbreaks.

Housing modernization played one of the most important roles in the modernization processes of interwar European cities. In this context, the development of housing in Vilnius, which belonged to Poland in 1919–1939, is researched. The research is based on the theory of “housing-based urban planning” developed by Yael Allweil and Noa Zemer. This theory conceives urban structure and urban housing as one single problem rather than disconnected realms of planning. Based on new findings and revised study of available sources, three planning processes by which policy makers, planners, and dwellers in Vilnius (Wilno) engaged in this housing-based urban vision are investigated: (1) the city as a housing problem; (2) the city as social utility for reform and reconstruction; and (3) housing-based urbanisation as self-help. The result is a new historiographic perspective on Vilnius’ modern urbanism focusing on the planning and construction of new housing.

With the increasing density and cost of living in cities in the early 21^st century, more and more people are choosing to live in rural areas. With improvements in road quality, vehicle technology and engineering infrastructure, the population of rural areas within 10–15 km outside of cities is increasing, choosing the most scenic locations. This is also the case of the Lielupe river countryside, where not only old homesteads are being renovated but also new housing clusters with their own infrastructure are being created, bringing a new architectonic and aesthetic quality. This is particularly true in areas where both a cultural and historic area and a picturesque natural base coexist. The study examines the processes of landscape transformation of the Lielupe riverbanks downstream of Bauska and upstream of Jelgava. The landscape of the banks of the Lielupe river between Bauska and Jelgava is rich in cultural and historical buildings. Part of it was lost both during the Bermondt affair period and in September 1944 when the Russian army forced its way into the shallower parts of the Lielupe. With the growth of low-rise buildings along the banks of the Lielupe in the early 21^st century, new viewpoints, features and dominants were introduced, marking a new architectural character of the buildings. The silhouette of a particular historic site, which sharply marks this dissonance in the plain area, is fading away. At the beginning of the 21^st century, the development pressure is creating a new scale for the mosaic landscape of the plain with the changing character of the Lielupe river – from a steep bank with exposed dolomite layers to the flow of the river through the floodplain meadows.

Promoting public participation in urban processes has long been a critical issue in discussions about urban governance. However, despite the advantages of more progressive and inclusive city governance, participatory budgeting (PB) often faces challenges in ensuring collaboration between different stakeholders involved. Not always do the involved parties have adequate resources to lead the brainstormed ideas to a tangible project application. In recent decades universities are supporting partnerships, grassroots projects and media conversations to take an active part in the development of cities. In addition to the wish of making research results available to a wider public and increasing the chances of making use of them, universities are also interested in the co-production of knowledge with non-academic groups. This makes universities an important stakeholder with a potential of supporting community engagement processeses. Thus, through the analysis of participatory budgeting processes in the cities of the Eastern Baltic Sea region and a detailed case study of participatory budgeting in Riga, this research explores the limits of current PB programs, motivations and advantages of involving university in this process.