Space is Luxury. Selected Proceedings of the 24th AESOP Annual Conference

619 Pages·2011·25.86 MB·English

Centre for Urban and Regional Studies Publications B 103
Espoo 2010

Peter Ache and Mervi Ilmonen (eds.)

Space is Luxury.
Selected Proceedings of the 24th AESOP Annual Conference

Aalto University
School of Science and Technology
Centre for Urban and Regional Studies
Aalto University
School of Science and Technology
Centre for Urban and Regional Studies

Centre for Urban and Regional Studies Publications B 103

Available only at:
http://lib.tkk.fi/Reports/2010/isbn9789526031309.pdf

ISSN 1455-7797
ISBN 978-952-60-3130-9 (pdf)

Espoo 2010
Space is Luxury – Foreword
Peter Ache and Mervi Ilmonen (eds.)

On the occasion of the 24th AESOP Annual Conference, the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies
at Aalto University welcomed more than six hundred planning scholars and professionals from all
over the world to Finland. The purpose was to discuss the manifold issues related to „space is
luxury‟ and to explore the multitude of related planning issues in more than four hundred paper
presentations.
The rational for choosing such a title has many dimensions. In 2010, the world is clearly one that
can be called „urban‟. In relative terms, more than half of the world‟s population dwells in urban
settings – about one billion under „slum conditions‟ (UN Habitat, 2006). Not only in such a
deprived situation, having quality space available equals commanding a „luxury‟! Planning and
urban design are key factors in shaping and managing space and generate the wished for quality
spaces (UN Habitat, 2009). The concept of space and concomitantly that of spatial quality includes
different meanings and dimensions. Space is physical, including architecture and urban form
(Borden, Kerr, Rendell, & Pivaro, 2001). Space is also socially constructed through various forms
of human interventions (Massey, 2005). Space is contested and a reason for serious conflicts
(Harvey, 2000). Space is presented and space represents (Lefebvre, 1991). For planning, the
management of the competing uses for space requires complex interventions (Ache, 2010). The
making of better places that are valued and have identity is an enduring ambition of planning (Hall,
1996). And, returning to the start of this brief reflection, the major challenge of spatial planning is
to find solutions for a more sustainable urban millennium (Ministers for Urban Development,
2007).
The conference and in particular the sixteen different tracks provided a very good framework to
further explore the resulting issues, be it problem dimensions or opportunity structures.
AESOP has almost a set standard of tracks and thematic orientations under which papers are
presented and arguments exchanged. The full listing of tracks includes:
Track 1 Planning Theory and Methods - Track 2 Planning History - Track 3 Planning Education -
Track 4 Planning and Complexity - Track 5 European Territorial Cooperation and Policies - Track
6 Global Challenges and Local Responses - Track 7 Planning for Rural Areas - Track 8 Urban
Planning and Physical Form - Track 9 Culture, Heritage and Planning - Track 10 Sustainability:

5
Climate Change, Risks and Planning - Track 11 Housing and Regeneration Policies - Track 12
Mobility: Transport Planning and Policy - Track 13 Resource Management, Energy and Planning -
Track 14 Participation and Governance - Track 15 Planning, Law and Property Rights - Track 16
Planning ‘in’ or ‘for’ Multicultural Societies
Additional sessions were organized covering for instance new instruments on the basis of ICT or
elaborate theoretical perspectives.
Over all, close to six hundred presentations were given by individual researchers or group of
researchers, constituting a very dense and very interactive exchange of ideas and perspectives. The
current proceedings try to represent the spirit of the „space is luxury‟ conference – and they no
doubt will fail in the sense that we cannot possibly represent all the interesting twists and turns, that
the intellectual minds have explored.
Nevertheless, in attempting to give a proper picture, the LOC and Editors of these proceedings
applied several strategies to identify a matching range of papers and perspectives: All Track Co-
Chairs were asked to submit proposals regarding papers that reflect the range of topics addressed
during the conference and most followed our call. The paper selection applied academic standards
but also picked out some striking contributions, be it in terms of theoretical or practical, be it in
terms of surprising new perspectives against sound reflections of the history of ideas. They are
coming from established academics and scholars, but they also come from young academics in the
early stages of their career. The Editors had the massive task to go through those submitted papers
and also to be in touch with authors to identify publication restrictions or to clarify minor elements
in the structure or format of the papers. But basically, the Editors followed the proposals made by
Track Co-Chairs. For the theme „space is luxury‟ the Editors also identified additional papers that
specifically deal with the title dimensions.
Excluded from these proceedings are the very stimulating key note speeches:
Sharon Zukin provided in her opening key note a sociological view on recent developments in New
York City, presumably one of the epitomes of modern urban societies. Zukin‟s approach towards
„luxury‟ started with a reflection of advertisements posted by real estate companies in NYC. Those
adverts and other printed material target the middle classes and their lust for luxury. Actually, in the
interpretation of Zukin, the modern American middle classes see themselves as being „entitled to
luxury‟. Where exactly this attitude is rooted, remains to be further explored. But the market finds
that luxury increasingly everywhere in the city, creating small scale conversions and micro

6
gentrification on a block or house basis without respect to existing situations. This is a perforation
of the city, driven by luxury and creating secluded places and a kind of „micro‟ gentrification
pattern. This form of intensive or extensive „pursuit of happiness‟ in a liberal society is not such an
issue in the Finnish context, at least it is not visible to a similar extent.
Stephen Graham, at the close of the conference, was dissecting the, often hidden, urban warfare
design in global cities. He created a claustrophobic scenario of a city being under siege, largely
unnoticed by the unsuspecting eye of citizens. However, looking at it from a different angle, it is the
citizens being under siege and constant observation. The enemy is inside, so to say, and needs to be
observed using patterns of behaviour and image recognition to automatically detect unruly
behaviour or security breaches. The issue of CCTV and control of public spaces is present in the
Finnish academic research.
Kimmo Lapintie explored in his opening talk the Finnish history of urban planning thought and the
evolution of a professional orientation in place making. He started with Lars Sonck, the important
figure of the National Romanticism in Finland, and his critique of the engineering approach to
planning. Interpreting Lapintie‟s comments on Sonck and subsequent master architects, the quest
for identity and an „atmosphere‟ that resembles the typical or the variation is still a core theme when
attempting to shape and create new spaces. Again interpreting Lapintie, the „space is luxury‟ theme
can be seen as diversified and maybe „organic‟.
Juri Soolep, who acted as a commentator for the entire conference on the closing day, unearthed the
deep cultural layers of „community‟ [kunta] and its places and identified a hidden luxury: that of
still being grounded or rooted in a deeper, possibly unconscious layer of the community. Those
layers are re-enacted with communal practices like, very appropriate in a Finnish context, the sauna.
And, we might like to add, those communities are also re-enacted on such an occasion like a
conference. „Kunta‟ also implies being fully present and sharing f.i. the „bread‟ of thoughts and
ideas.
The structure of the proceedings follows the track structure of the conference and presents all main
tracks. The individual sections will be introduced with the invitation texts that were used in the call
for papers of the conference. The sequence of papers inside those sections does not imply a quality
hierarchy but follows simply the paper IDs used in the organization of the conference. The papers
have different qualities, as the reader will see. The advantage of the proceedings format is to have
that degree of freedom and to publish papers that do not match the tight framework usually applied

7
by journals. The reader will find everything, from a fully developed paper of journal quality to
explorative short essays.
How the „space is luxury‟ theme is covered in papers and texts will now be presented in a cursory
reading. These passing remarks emphasise certain elements of the papers, focusing on the two
motives of the main theme, space and luxury.
[Track 1] Planning theory and methods is one of the continual tracks where fresh theoretical
approaches and established paradigms are debated, disputed and reassessed. The for long
dominating communicative planning theory (CPT) has lately been challenged. It has been
reproached for e.g. facilitating neo-liberal market practices to the disadvantage of broader social
interests. Tore Sager comments in his paper on this critique and clarifies what neo-liberalism
demands from urban planning. He concludes that whether the critique of CPT turns out to be valid
or misconceived, planners should be warned not to approve solutions without first taking a critical
look at the role played by different powerful actors in the communicative process. Yosef Jabareen
discusses climate change and how it creates a need to rethink and revise current planning methods
and theories. He proposes a new multifaceted conceptual framework for theorizing planning for
climate change and tries to apply this framework for critically analyzing the recent master plan for
New York City. In his view, in order to meet the challenges posed by climate change, planning is in
need of a more coordinated, holistic, and multidisciplinary approach.
[Track 2] Space can be approached differently, obviously. The usual approach looks at the „over
ground‟ representation of space. Overground quality spaces are the theme of Gerhard Hatz‟ paper,
who discusses spatial development strategies for the city of Vienna. His embarks with utopian
views on the city and city structure, in particular drawing on Situationist (Constant) thinking which
a.o. he juxtaposes to the „foam city‟ (Sloterdijk). His final clause says, „the future city has to be
understood as a relation among sites, loosely interconnected, a „Meta-collector‟ of constructed
ambient urban environments‟.
[Track 3] Quality is a form of minimal luxury, one might say. In spatial planning education the
quality has become a very important issue, not least due to the Bologna Process and the building of
a European wide Higher Education Area. Anders Törnqvist continues with a report about the
training students in negotiation and argumentation. His view is „learning by doing‟, supported with
simplified conceptual models and computer programs. The specific learning outcome might be
called „conceptual apprenticeship‟. The last paper in this section by Frassoldati/Wang/Deng starts
with urban design and planning in the education of planners in China. The massively evolving

8
housing markets constitute a situation of high and speculative pressure, for which students need to
be prepared as they find themselves in a situation of on one hand calls for compaction and
densification, on the other market driven luxury developments. In a separate special session on
computer applications in planning, Deborah Peel raised a surprising perspective, luxury is space to
write, discussing the use of tablet PC‟s to enhance learning and learning environments.
[Track 4] Complexity and planning have a strong connection. “Space however is a luxury, as it is
the basis upon which various interacting autonomous and induced processes, socially and
physically, emerge, to which planners respond in an adaptive way. Spatial planning is dealing with
non-linear, emerging processes.” (TC) In such a situation, planners have the typical problem of
selecting and processing information, frequently in short periods of time. The paper by
Hemberger/Schönwandt develops and defines some key cognitive skills which can be helpful with
complex planning problems. Under that perspective, the paper obviously also has implications for
planning education.
[Track 5] The European spatial planning system meanwhile has evolved as a multi-layered complex
of politics, strategies, institutions, and – not least – spaces or regions. Andreas Faludi proposes a
„motion for resolution‟ acknowledging the importance of territorial cohesion and appropriate
policies. He is guided by ideas of „soft spaces‟ and soft spatial planning – probably the next „hot‟
issue in planning discussion promoted in the writings of Haughton et al. (2010). The contribution by
Eskelinen/Fritsch fits into this thinking. Reporting on the northernmost regions in a European
context, they look into the development of policy concepts and how they are recognized, adapted or
rejected over the various periods – always trying to keep the particular situation of those concrete
spaces vivid in a European context. In contrast to that, Knieling/Othengrafen elaborate on
conceptual aspects of new regions and provide a full set of different spatial entities, from
metropolitan region, to supra-regional partnership, to meta-region, to – finally – macro region. In
the end and as comment, a full system of embedded territories is presented – and territories here
understood as spaces of varying governance.
[Track 6] Global challenges produce local responses and in particular spatial transformation. The
creation of new urban spaces for the „new economy‟ in Sao Paulo, especially for advanced producer
services is the interest of Roberto Rocco. Such processes do, but not only, produce the „glistening
global hubs‟ and create at city level a polycentric structure. It is the unplanned context that worries
most of course. Yi-ling Chen discusses in her paper identity politics at city level in Taiwan. The

9
struggle for but also the utilization of identity is her theme, either challenged or supported by
culture led urban regeneration.
[Track 7] The particularities of rural areas in the planning context have certainly changed over past
years. “The need to move away from a narrow „resource‟ perspective and engage in integrated
spatial planning and development for a differentiated and multifunctional countryside has become
increasingly evident and has made some parts of the countryside a scant resource.” (TC) The
contributions of this section reflect such a perspective very well. Verbeek / Leinfelder / Pisman /
Hanegreefs / Allaert discuss the changing meaning and perception of „open space‟ in Belgium and
detect, how this has become a semi urbanized consumption space, mainly for recreational purposes,
in a part private, part public manner. A form of „luxury space‟ one might wonder. The contribution
by Awuor-Hayangah/Ofosu-Kwakye on rural planning in Africa compares with this quite
dramatically. The task here is to fight a battle against rural deprivation and to develop the full
capacity of the „rural‟, not least as 60 % of the population can benefit from appropriate integrated
planning approaches. The „un-occupied‟ or sparsely populated country side is also the theme of
Maarit Sireni who analysed the views of rural politicians towards building rights, city compaction,
and low density areas in Finland. Sprawl or no sprawl is the conflicting issue, which seems not to
be resolved lightly.
[Track 8] In the following section, a set of shorter papers reflect on urban design and physical form
and the search for space and luxury. Design is a „qualitative and desirable commodity‟ and works
through exposure. Tom Jeffries discusses „banal luxury and quality places‟. Whereas the interest of
the public actor is the aspect of difference or distinction, in the end many similar places are
produced by the private developer – at least when looking at „Beetham, Beetham, Beetham ... „,
three examples of high-rise luxury apartment buildings in the UK. Claudia Cassatella searches for
„landscapes‟ as luxury and in particular for the visionary quality of landscapes, as opposite to urban
scapes. The last contribution in this section irritates in the first instance. Zvarka/Tellios look into
cemeteries. The „gravescapes‟ as urban territories are discussed as „paradoxical‟ and „transcending
functional aspects‟. The key notion is aposiopesis, becoming silent, maintaining silence, left
unfinished, „only to be completed in imagination‟.
[Track 9] Culture, heritage, planning, and tourism are the interlocking elements of the papers
presented in the next following section. Trevor Budge analyses the representation of European
Colonial Heritage outside Europe. The packaged tourism from Europe in very specific ways
reproduces culture and heritage abroad – which becomes a curiosity or an „airbrushed place‟. Such

10