Call for contributions for the conference European Geosciences Union General Assembly, Vienna,
27th of April – 2nd of May 2014 a new editions of the European Geosciences Union General Assembly takes place in Vienna.
More details are available from the site of the conference www.egu2014.eu and from the attached flyer (download).
Researcher dr. arch. Maria Bostenaru Dan got accepted two session proposals, namely:
ERE4.1
Digital methods in landscape architecture – a branch of digital humanities?
(in Energy, Ressources and the Environment > Landscape and Land Use) together with Iris Meder, from BOKU Viena. Due to development of computer technology in the 21st century digital methods have become a must in any field. Humanities had a pioneering role in the application of methods that have been developed elsewhere within the own discipline, introducing the so-called “digital humanities”. The theme proposed for this session passes from this aspect of the design to the research which establishes project. If the existing substance can be enhanced by applying multimedia technology, it is also the basis for all subsequent design decisions and should be investigated as such. In this context, of researching the existing built substance, the history of landscape architecture and urbanism use methods that can be regarded as a branch of digital humanities, digital art history. We invited both theorists of this category and practitioners of landscape architectural design, urban and landscape planning to discuss these issues.
NH9.11
Natural Hazards Impact and Urban Planning (in Natural Hazards > Natural Hazards and the Society).
The classical field of dealing with earthquakes is called “earthquake engineering” and considered to be a branch of structural engineering. Also other natural hazards are deemed to belong to natural sciences, loosing the social sciences holistic view. Thus, in projects dealing with strategies for earthquake risk mitigation, approaches from urban planning are many times neglected. The contribution of architecture and urbanism to natural hazards mitigation is however important as:
– retrofitting interventions are performed many times on heritage buildings, or, more generally, on buildings with cultural value,
– today interventions are needed not only on building scale, but on city scale.
For implementing risk reduction strategies, urban planning plays a key role, interventions can only take place with the support of the affected people, the acceptance being based on the landmarks (after Lynch, 1960, “The Image of the city”) built by architectural objects which are bearers of memory.
This session calls for papers on the impact of natural hazards, including also a broader view on multi-hazard, on urban areas. Different from other works dealing with the field, a particular importance is given to urban planning and architecture issues, such as integrated conservation. Papers are dealing with the impact of hazards on historical sites, with earthquakes which shook the world through the need of rebuilding like the recent earthquake in Haiti or the Lisbon 1755 earthquake. Other works emphasize pioneering approaches such as the definition of urban structure for seismic risk management or the reconstruction after the Abruzzo 2009 earthquake, compared with historical flood reconstructions like in interwar time in Arges, or the reconstruction after the Ajka chemical disaster, the usage of social housing for reconstruction needs. The outreach of urban planning issues in teaching and civil protection is to be considered.
We will launch a recent book on the topic edited by Maria Bostenaru Dan, Iuliana Armas and Agostino Goretti.
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Deadline for sending the contributions (abstracts only) is the 16th of January 2014.
Clearly, those interested may send contributions to any of the sessions proposed by other researchers which can be found in the Call for abstracts.
Since the conference is accompanied by a large exhibition which includes international publishers, we envisage to launch in this frame two recently edited books at Springer, namely Earthquake Hazard Impact and Urban Planning (eds. Maria Bostenaru Dan, Iuliana Armaş, Agostino Goretti) and Planning and Resilient Sustainable and Resilient Landscapes (eds. Cerasella Crăciun şi Maria Bostenaru Dan), this later being part from the series of activities dedicated to the anniversary of 10 years of landscape teaching at our university.