Space and Society

Geographers have long debated on the topic of landscape, confronting the ideas of other disciplines and policymakers, always contributing to a positive discussion even for juridical purposes, but never forgetting the necessity to behold critically. The term landscape possesses a double meaning (the thing and its representation), indeed suggesting the considerable complexity of the topic. The real intrinsic risk of the 2000 European Landscape Convention is the demand of transforming what has an unavoidable perceptive-aesthetic nature (landscape), in an object that has a political status (territory). But the difference between the political and the aesthetic is crucial and threatens to undermine the very possibility of the existence of landscape policies. Policies do operate by stating rules and norms, all contained in written laws. On the contrary, the aesthetic field is not reducible, by nature, to any rule or norm, except in the case of dictatorial regimes. In Italy, the actual ris...

This paper discusses operational lessons learnt from the 2013 Euro\-Moon\-Mars-B (MDRS crew 125) analogue campaign for future habitat operations on the Moon and Mars. The two-week campaign conducted a series of geologic, technological, operational, and human factors research toward the goals of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG). The results from those operations provide recommendations for future crewed expeditions for increasing the science return based on improved resource allocation and crew habitation.<br>

I show in the present work some artifacts from the Roman Era up to the 17th century related to the name of the days in a critical way. In each of them there are the 7 planetary Gods of Mediterranean culture related to the days of the week, and I discuss the enigmatic question of their order. Which rule do the planets follow so that the day of the Sun (Sunday) is followed by the day of the Moon (Monday) and so on? What did people know about the 7 planets? When was the time unit of the week established? In the end, we explore their harmonious and cyclic spatial arrangement. Moreover, in different languages the names of the 7 planets refer to different gods. In the ancient Roman world another system preceded it: nundinae, linked to market days and not to the sky. The studied artifacts are calendars, painted or engraved on marble tables, mosaics and bas-reliefs, Planetary tables published in medieval texts and two artefacts of the 17th century.

This paper discusses operational lessons learnt from the 2013 Euro\-Moon\-Mars-B (MDRS crew 125) analogue campaign for future habitat operations on the Moon and Mars. The two-week campaign conducted a series of geologic, technological, operational, and human factors research toward the goals of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG). The results from those operations provide recommendations for future crewed expeditions for increasing the science return based on improved resource allocation and crew habitation.<br>

La localidad de Capilla del Monte, en Córdoba, es centro de un área de turismo espiritual de la New Age. El monte Uritorco que domina el paisaje local es un lugar de visita obligado para quienes se proponen recargar energías, comunicarse con la divinidad o conectar con la ciudad subterránea de Erks, e incluso para quienes esperan avistar naves intergalácticas. A 20 km de la ciudad se encuentran las cuevas de Ongamira. En esta zona, habitada antiguamente por los comechingones, se ha demarcado un circuito de peregrinación católico. A 40 km de Capilla del Monte se encuentra la localidad de San Marcos Sierras, una comunidad que se reivindica hippie y donde la New Age tuvo temprana presencia. Toda el área está surcada por la manifestación religiosa, el mercadeo espiritual y el turismo religioso. A través del análisis de este caso, puede accederse a una de las modalidades de integración que propone la New Age en América Latina. Se trata aquí de una perspectiva religiosa ecuménica en donde se incluyen, sin integrarse, la religiosidad popular y el esoterismo, las religiones tradicionales americanas y las religiones institucionalizadas, en el marco de la explotación mercantil de las creencias.

This paper will use 'space syntax' as a tool in analysing the spatial structure of Dhaka City. 'Space syntax' is a theory and method for investigating the society-space relation, which takes account of the underlying difficulty in illuminating the relationship between social structure and spatial structure. The theory also defines the degree of spatial order which exists in organic and planned layouts, by analysing their spatial configurations to show the relation between local morphological properties and emergent global patterns. The first section of this paper will briefly describe the space syntax method in order to pave the way for the latter part of the text where the method be applied to the case of Dhaka.

Here, models of the 'axial structure' of the city of Dhaka are developed from cartographic records which cover the period from 1859 to 1991. Thus, the spatial structure of Dhaka City is considered over last century, through the nine different stages of its evolution for which accurate maps exist. Throughout the century, the growing city seems to have exhibited a series of informal and organic spatial patterns. Yet, despite these morphological continuities, major spatial changes at a global scale can be identified through analysis, which can be shown increasingly to have had an impact on the face of the city. Thus, the paper will try to pinpoint how the cumulative process of growth and consolidation has influenced the spatial structure of Dhaka at a global scale. The hypothesis guiding this investigation is that the overall spatial structures of the historical and contemporary city of Dhaka can be shown to exhibit objective configurational differences, rather than similarities which have persisted through time. The research aim is therefore to explore and quantify the nature of the spatial transformation which has taken place within the city during this period.

In addition to exploring the spatial measures which result from the use of space syntax, the spatial analysis also reveals how the existing commercial centre systematically loses its importance with each succeeding phase of growth. In the middle stages (1952, 1960, 1973) the global focus of the city shifts from the historic commercial areas of the Islampur Road and the Nawabpur Road towards Motijheel, whilst in the most recent stages of its development, the city again shifts its focus from Motijheel to the new commercial development in the Kawranbazar area. The changing pattern of integration indicates that a constant factor in Dhaka’s growth has been the pull of the new extensions at the periphery, which have brought about changes within the global core of the city with the passage of time. This leads to a conclusion that old city is becoming increasingly segregated from the life of the new core. The core has been more or less static for the last two decades, but major changes in the city morphology are still taking place as new developments are constructed in all the peripheral areas except to the south, the cumulative impact of which may be gradually to draw integration still further away from the historic heart of Dhaka. The implications of this for the long term sustainability old Dhaka are serious, and need to be taken into account in arriving at a strategy for its future conservation.

The history of Dhaka exhibits great changes in its morphological structure. The present spatial structure of Dhaka has evolved from a small Hindu trading centre to a ‘Megacity’. The city has primarily grown organically and a number of planned schemes have been incorporated into the organic whole which give rise to the fundamental urban dichotomies. However, a major urban scheme was added in this organic city designed by Louis I. Kahn in 1964. At that time Kahn’s Capital Complex appeared as an isolated development where administration was kept away from the public in the existing city. In spite of such intent, the evolution of the city shows that with the gradual expansion towards north the city quarters surrounded the Capital Complex and now Sher-E-Bangla Nagar stands near the heart of the city.

This analytical paper examines the dynamics of urban growth of Dhaka. Here, models of the 'axial structure' of the city of Dhaka are developed from cartographic records which cover the period from 1859 to 1991. Thus, the spatial structure of Dhaka city is considered over last century, through the eight different stages of its evolution for which accurate maps exist. The paper tries to pinpoint how the cumulative process of growth and consolidation has influenced the spatial structure of Dhaka at a global scale. It shows that in the overall growth of the city, Kahn’s Capital Complex has attained immense importance by pulling the global integration core of Dhaka towards north and merging itself into the global core.

This paper will use 'Space Syntax' as a tool in analysing the spatial structure of Dhaka. 'Space Syntax' is a theory and method for investigating the society-space relation, which takes account of the underlying difficulty in illuminating the relationship between social structure and spatial structure. The theory also defines the degree of spatial order which exists in organic and planned layouts, by analysing their spatial configurations to show the relation between local morphological properties and emergent global patterns. The first section of this paper will briefly describe the space syntax method in order to pave the way for the latter part of the text where the method be applied to the case of Dhaka.

Habitability is one aspect of long-duration missions that becomes more impor-tant as the mission length increases. The impact of a poorly designed switch or lack of stowage area is different for a mission of six months compared to a mission of one week. With habitability and human factors studies which took place during the early phases of the Lunar-Mars Life Support Test Project (LMLSTP), each subsequent phase built on the previous, and the final designs were improved based on what was learned. Information concerning habitability issues was solicited from crewmembers dur-ing LMLSTP Phases IIa and III. One format used to obtain information was the Space Operations Issues Reporting Tool, or SOIRT. A second was a “habitability issues ” questionnaire containing 59 questions used to rate the acceptability of different habitability categories on a Likert scale, from 1 to 7. Shortly before each crew completed its mission, a debrief was held with each member individually. The completed que...

This essay is the afterword in the book, Bioinformation:
Worlds and Futures, edited by Silvia Posocco and EJ Gonzalez-Polledo. This book sets out to define and consolidate the field of bioinformation studies in its transnational and global dimensions, drawing on debates in science and technology studies, anthropology and sociology. It provides situated analyses of bioinformation journeys across domains and spheres of interpretation. As unprecedented amounts of data relating to biological processes and lives are collected, aggregated, traded and exchanged, infrastructural systems and machine learners produce real consequences as they turn indeterminate data into actionable decisions for states, companies, scientific researchers and consumers. Bioinformation accrues multiple values as it transverses multiple registers and domains, and as it is transformed from bodies to becoming a subject of analysis tied to particular social relations, promises, desires and futures. The volume harnesses the anthropological sensibility for situated, fine-grained, ethnographically grounded analysis to develop an interdisciplinary dialogue on the conceptual, political, social and ethical dimensions posed by bioinformation. EJ Gonzalez-Polledo teaches anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. They are the author of Transitioning: Matter, Gender, Thought, and are currently developing research on global open biology movements and global histories of bioinformation.

This research is focused on requirements and methods for supporting human life in space. One of the primary issues investigated is the range of life support consumables (e.g., water, oxygen, and food) needed to support active humans on the surface of the moon on a per-crew per-day basis. A set of hypothetical daily lunar activity scenarios is developed to attempt realistic estimation of lunar energy expenditure levels for both mission planning and consumables provisioning purposes. Metabolic energy expenditures for lunar astronauts will probably be significantly higher on a regular basis than that of average earth-based North Americans. Estimates of life support system consumables (food, oxygen, drinking water, and wash water) clearly indicate that a concerted effort should be made to close the gray water cycle, and possibly the black water cycle as well. Nomenclature CO2 = carbon dioxide EVA = extravehicular activity FTCSC = Food Technology Commercial Space Center ISS = Internation...

In light of the renewed international interest in lunar exploration, including plans for setting up a permanent human outpost on the Moon, the need for next generation earth-based human space mission simulators has become inevitable and urgent. These simulators have been shown to be of great value for medical, physiological, psychological, biological and exobiological research, and for subsystem test and development, particularly closed-loop life support systems. The paper presents a summary of a survey of past, present and future human space mission simulators. In 2006, the Vienna based company Liquifer Systems Group (LSG) conducted an in-depth survey, for a European Space Agency (ESA) commissioned Phase-A

Ausgehend vom Begriff der Gegenöffentlichkeit nach Martin Büsser sucht der Essay das kritische Potenzial des sogenannten Offspaces als emanzipatorischen Gegenläufer zum mainstreaming musealer Institutionen darzulegen. Nach einer historischen Einordnung und dem Vorschlag einer Lesart des Offspaces, die seine begriffliche Unschärfe als Möglichkeit seines Andersseins begreift, widmet sich der Text der Repräsentation von Marginalisierung und Nischenphänomenen, die trotz der Etablierung von Begriffen wie etwa "diversity" und "Intersektionalität"  im Diskurs öffentlicher Einrichtungen selten Sichtbarkeit erfahren.

Bitte wie folgt zitieren:
Rado, Naomi: Offspaces als Gegenöffentlichkeit. Raumgestaltung als Grundlage der Organisation von Kultur und Gesellschaft, in: Koi_Pond. Katalog zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung kuratiert von KVTV, Frankfurt 2021.

Este artículo tiene como objetivo contribuir al debate y la reflexión sobre los vínculos entre espacio y religiosidad a partir del análisis de una de sus múltiples expresiones: la de la relación entre religiosidad y residencia. Para ello, se analizarán las trayectorias espirituales, laborales y educativas de dos parejas de migrantes por estilo de vida que trasladaron su residencia a una localidad de la periferia de Buenos Aires cuya población y equipamientos urbanos crecieron significativamente a partir de la década de 1990, y en la que se desarrolló un importante circuito de prácticas espirituales Nueva Era. Se mostrará la movilización de concepciones espiritualizadas del espacio y del hábitat, así como la centralidad que los equipamientos y las sociabilidades situadas en el espacio tienen en el contacto con y el reconocimiento de una orientación por la espiritualidad. Los datos presentados fueron construidos y analizados por medio de métodos biográficos.

We studied concepts for a minimal Moon-Mars habitat, focussing on the system aspects and as an evolving architecture. We validated experimentally the Habitat and Laboratory ExoHab concept constraints during EuroGeoMars campaign in Utah desert research station.

The question of representation in the definition of landscape is arguably at the nexus of important theoretical issues in the social sciences and humanities, and is in evident need of clarification. A key but largely overlooked concept in the debate on landscape and representation is the concept of alienation and, by extension, the concepts of commodification and reification. This paper will first examine the relation between landscape representation and alienation in terms of its substantive historical meaning, the transferral of ownership of rights in the land=property and the loss of rights which effectively makes one an alien, or foreigner, in the land. It will then examine this relationship in terms of the philosophical concern with alienation and objectification, particularly as explicated by the literary scholar and philosopher Georg Lukaacs.

Obiettivo del servizio è ricomporre alcuni frammenti della ricca eredità lasciataci da Giancarlo De Carlo a quindici anni dalla sua scomparsa. I contributi raccolti guardano, da diverse prospettive, ai percorsi di ricerca che l’architetto milanese, nella sua poliedrica attività, ha tracciato esplorando declinazioni diverse di un progetto teso tra architettura e urbanistica, per restituirne la complessità. Al tempo stesso, le riflessioni proposte offrono utili suggestioni al momento che stiamo vivendo, in cui risulta ancor più necessario ritornare su alcune delle questioni che sono state centrali nella ricerca decarliana, per un progetto di città aperto alla sperimentazione, libero e capace di riportare di nuovo al centro le relazioni tra spazio e società.

With the prospect of extended manned space-flight looming in the near future, and the ever increasing costs of such endeavours, the  possibilities offered by running simulated missions on the ground should be seriously considered for investigating scientific and operational aspects prior to the actual implementation of a space mission. A ground based simulation of an extended space mission may be run at a fraction of the cost of an in-orbit pre-cursor mission of even one weeks duration. Notwithstanding, although very attractive from the standpoint of cost and lead-time, such missions must be planned so that they may yield useful results and be accompanied by beneficial experience.

A dolgozat a bős-nagymarosi vízlépcsőkonfliktusról szóló esettanulmány, amely mellőzi a téma szokásos jogi, környezetvédelmi, politikai megközelítéseit, ehelyett Bős mint lokalitás diskurzusait igyekszik feltárni. A terepmunka során készült napló, interjúk, mentális térképek elemzéséből kirajzolódó valóságértelmezéseket a kortárs kultúratudományi elméletek segítségével értelmezi. A végeredmény azt mutatja, hogy míg Magyarország és Szlovákia két könnyen körülírható (és egymással szemben álló) valóságkonstrukciót képvisel a vízlépcsőrendszerről, addig
Bős diskurzusa egyáltalán nem egységes és nem határozható meg egyszerűen. A vízlépcsőkonfliktus mikroszintű vizsgálata feltárja azokat a történeteket és társadalmi tereket, melyek eddig jelentéktelennek bizonyultak ahhoz, hogy a témáról szóló magyarországi és szlovákiai írásokba bekerüljenek.

This thesis focuses on creating and testing a design-build strategy for community-based projects.It poses questions on how to create work that is locally relevant, place sensitive and site specific in the contexts of working ‘for’ and ‘with’ a community. As designers, we frequently make assumptions based on what we think community design should be. In developing a design-build strategy which responds to community needs, this thesis makes a claim for design-build. The strategy developed attempts to create a hybrid form in responds to a local material culture, the benefits of a local material palette, and community engagement in the design-build process. The production of two design-build projects located in Dawson City, Yukon Territory, provides an opportunity to examine the proposed strategic framework, its ability to integrate a sense of place, the design-build process, and the project outcomes.

The research here presented involved a group of Italian and migrant people living in the town of Montebelluna (Northeastern Italy), with the objective of exploring their relationship with everyday places and the meanings attributed to the surrounding landscape. This paper focuses in particular on the data concerning migrants, aiming at illustrating their experiences: through a qualitative and visual approach, we highlighted that their relationship with the place of living is based both on practical actions and emotional responses. The " emotional dimension " is considered the main source of sense of belonging to place: it is especially determined by the landscape's symbolic meanings, mainly through important memories, social relationships and quality of life. The effects of difficult intercultural relations on migrants' sense of belonging to place are also discussed. In conclusion, we underlined the potentialities of landscape as an " intercultural mediator " , which can effectively be used in creating educational and recreational activities aimed at fostering intercultural dialogue and interactions.

Perception landscape by local communities is a key aspect that provides guidelines for possible sustainable development of places in continuity with history and local traditions.
For this reason,The European Landscape Convention recognizes the landscape observatory as an essential tool of landscape that, from it’s image as perceived by inhabitants, allows us to define projects consistent with the identity of places.
New tools from the Internet world enable the development of innovative strategies for monitoring, protection and landscape design.The continuity between physical space and virtual flows generate hybrid realities that shape new geographies: web 2.0 allows definition of shared and custom maps as expressions of social and anthropological dimensions of places and not only geometric space but telling a community connected to places. Cybergeography is produced from communication by Internet users and it becomes a new tool for investigation of contemporary landscape, it allows us to: read and interpret places such as customs, habits and movements of people that reveal immaterial aspects, result of culture, behavior and desires of community.
“Tracking” and “tagging” define new ways to write and access sites that tell the landscapes unpublished: stories and tales connected to places around the world and within an urban environment, itinerary images, videos and sounds made on site or associated with them.
Especially in abandoned, degraded and everyday landscapes neglected in policies of territory government, are effective project tools highlighting intangible aspect of landscape. People become actors and authors of individual and collective stories that tell specific issues related to landscape which contribute in an active way to redefine the often absent collective imagination. This is essential for the recovery of landscape networks deleted by modern changes and are therefore a bridge that reconnects past and future, a point from which to re-start.

Cities are the mirror of globalization; they reproduce and anticipate the same trends and contradictions from the inside. The controversial notion of urban landscape is here explored in connection with the commons paradigm, those resources which have been studied by Elinor Ostrom, Nobel prize for economic sciences in 2009 and Author of Governing the Commons, the fundamental text for the study of collective institutions and the governance processes of natural and artificial resources. In the text the landscape is excluded from the list of commons because these identify self-governed microsystems of local-territorial resources, that is to say, a set of practices and rules of access and fruition that are the exclusive pertinence of the users of local communities. The landscape is perhaps more similar to public goods, with one condition: that its fruition from a specific point of view does not impede the aesthetic, affective, patrimonial and identity appropriation of others, nor compromises its own existence. Nevertheless, apart from this, the " health " of urban landscape is given by the simultaneity and compresence of different spaces, as is shown by the " fight " against the commercialization of public spaces of the inhabitants of the Marina neighbourhood in Cagliari.

Few human endeavors present as much of a planning and scheduling challenge as space flight, particularly manned space flight. Just on the operational side of it, efforts of thousands of people across hundreds of organizations need to be coordinated. Numerous tasks of varying complexity and nature, from scientific to construction, need to be accomplished within limited mission time frames. Resources need to be carefully managed and contingencies worked out, often on a very short notice. From the beginning of the NASA space program, planning has been done by large teams of domain experts working months, sometimes years, to put together a single mission. This approach, while proven very reliable up to now, is becoming increasingly harder to sustain. Elevated levels of NASA space activities, from deployment of the new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) and completion of the International Space Station (ISS), to the planned lunar missions and permanent lunar bases, will put an even greater strain on this largely manual process. While several attempts to automate it have been made in the past, none have fully succeeded. In this paper we describe the current NASA planning methods, outline their advantages and disadvantages, discuss the planning challenges of upcoming missions and propose a distributed planning/scheduling framework (CMMD) aimed at unifying and optimizing the planning effort. CMMD will not attempt to make the process completely automated, but rather serve in a decision support capacity for human managers and planners. It will help manage information gathering, creation of partial and consolidated schedules, inter-team negotiations, contingencies investigation, and rapid re-planning when the situation demands it. The first area of CMMD application will be planning for Extravehicular Activities (EVA) and associated logistics. Other potential applications, not only in the space flight domain, and future research efforts will be discussed as well.