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"Is it not time to search for paradigms beyond capitalism and socialism? The book argues that interactions between the claims of “ownership”, “control” and “use” can elucidate crisis in our environments through measuring responsibilities. Levels of responsibility created by propeties’ and individuals’ rights developed by societal systems, shape our attitudes and actions in most realms of urban life such as utilization, maintenance, investments, etc. In this edition, further arguments were added such as the impossibility of achieving sustainability and justice within socialism or capitalism. In a letter of recommendation to Jamel Akbar, John Habraken, former chairman of the De...
Originally published in 1985 this book explores, in four interwoven essays, the many ways human life and built form interact and the place that professional designing takes in this interaction. Together, the essays touch on a number of ideas: the idea that our position in space relative to the thing we are designing determines the methods we apply when designing it; the idea that designing is about making proposals, and is therefore a social act first of all; and the idea that agreements, consensus and above all conventions shape the act of designing things independent of their creative qualities.
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Written with the non-Muslim reader in mind, this book analyses the principles and values established by Islamic tradition to govern the social and physical environments of Muslims. The picture of Islam that emerges from this work is of a way of life with social ideals. Relying on the Qur'an and Sunna, the basic sources of Islamic law, and using examples of the built environment of early Muslims in North Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia, the author explains how following these ideals can create an urban environment that responds to social and environmental variables.Islamic views on the controversial issue of modernisation are also examined. This book will be of interest to people in the fields of urban planning, architecture, sociology, anthropology, housing and built environment, as well as Islamic studies.
The essays in this book represent an up to date research and investigation into the various aspects of heritage and sustainability in the Islamic Built environments with an analysis of the problems that these cities face, as they confront the forces of globalization and new development. The authors in the book aim to the need for knowledge and understanding of Islamic society which is crucial for comprehending their rich architectural heritage and urban form with their intended meanings and uses. The book embraces a wide array of principles, strategies and precedents that are instrumental to the design of cities and communities in Islamic regions in order to sustain their cultural and environmental vitality. The subject matter in this book will provide an important body of knowledge, not only to the design professionals and students of architecture and planning, but also includes useful information across disciplines, such as social sciences, planning, urban geography and more.
The World of the Siege examines relations between the conduct and representations of early modern sieges. The volume offers case studies from various regions in Europe (England, France, the Low Countries, Germany, the Balkans) and throughout the world (the Chinese, Ottoman and Mughal Empires), from the 15th century into the 18th. The international contributors analyse how siege narratives were created and disseminated, and how early modern actors as well as later historians made sense of these violent events in both textual and visual artefacts. . The volume's chronological and geographical breadth provides insight into similarities and differences of siege warfare and military culture across several cultures, countries and centuries, as well as its impact on both combatants and observers. See inside the book.
How did colonial influences change the urban form of the Arab capitals? The author here poses - and answers - many questions on globalisation and the Middle East.
The Arab World is perceived to be a region rampant with constructed and ambiguous national identities, overwhelming wealth and poverty, religious diversity, and recently the Arab uprisings, a bottom-up revolution shaking the foundations of pre-established, long-standing hierarchies. It is also a region that has witnessed a remarkable level of transformation and development due to the accelerated pace imposed by post-war reconstruction, environmental degradation, and the competition among cities for world visibility and tourism. Accordingly, the Arab World is a prime territory for questioning urban design, inviting as it does a multiplicity of opportunities for shaping, upgrading, and rebuild...
This book develops academic understanding of Muslim urban space by pursuing the structural logic of the premodern Arab-Muslim city, or medina. With particular reference to The Book of Walls, an historical discourse of Islamic law whose primary subject is the wall, the book determines the meaning of a wall and then uses it to analyze the space of Fez. One of a growing number of studies to address space as a category of critical analysis, the book makes the following contributions to scholarship. Methodologically, it breaks with the tradition of viewing Islamic architecture as a well-defined object observed by a specialist at an aesthetically directed distance; rather, it inhabits the logic of...