Aeolian Urbanism [electronic resource].

Rib 2020

Open access content

Two topics emerge from the third session of Taming the Horror Vacui. One is apparent, the other is fleeting. One is sought, the other is coincidental. Centred around the guided tour given by city planner Emiel Arends in Rotterdam in June 2020, the event firstly deals with the ways in which wind shapes the city and the city shapes the wind. The locations in the tour, explains Arends, are examples of how the city landscape interacts with its aeolian one, and is marked by specific architectural interventions. Rib’s focus on the material language of the city joins Haseeb Ahmed’s ongoing investigation into the phenomena of the wind. On the other hand, the event brings up the topics of failing models and adhocism. In the previous publication, we investigated the nature of models. For this issue we instead look into their practical application, specifically in city planning and wind management. We delve into the ways in which models might come short in their duty of predicting future situations. Designers, architects, and artists are no gods knowing all that will result from their works, let alone a complex phenomenon such as the wind in the urban environment. Ad hoc and impromptu solutions are common, sometimes even welcome. We list a few in this publication. The aeolian urbanism in the title can therefore be read as the title of a case study. Learning about the wind in the city during Arend’s tour, the creativity of architects and city planners in respect of this issue, the testing of models of entire neighbourhoods in wind tunnels, implementing new regulations and procedures, getting smart to solve unexpected problems, all these things shed some light on the process of makers in cities. The artist’s struggle between first intention and final result expands to the large scale of a city like Rotterdam. Philosophy of art is best done through concrete examples. This issue of Taming the Horror Vacui publication aims at that too…
https://www.librarystack.org/aeolian-urbanism/?ref=unknown

Architectural criticism
Architecture
Earth sciences
Philosophy
City planning

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Haseeb Ahmed
Piero Bisello
Emiel Arends
Aslı Çiçek
Laura Herman
Maziar Afrassiabi
Kristin Metho
Roxanne Da Graca
Marta Navarro
Ana Paula Teixeira
Jakob van Klinken
Linus Bonduelle