Caroline Newton
I am an architect, urban planner and political scientist and completed my PhD in social geography at the K.U. Leuven (Belgium). My work and research focuses on the socio spatial dimensions of design and critical spatial practices in Europe and the Global South. My research interests are centered on the interrelation between societal processes and the built environment.
Having a very broad interest I have worked on informal dwelling and participatory upgrading, the challenge of design and planning in post colonial environments and also on the methodological and pedagogical challenges of a 'designerly way of knowledge production'. Additionally I have been working and writing on integrating real and virtual words and their role for architecture and architectural education.
I am a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Housing and the Built Environment (http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/population+studies/journal/10901).
Research Interest
The core of my research interests is the intertwinement of the notions freedom, public sphere, city and architecture and a certain notion of democracy. As such I am currently focusing on how mechanisms of power work on different scales and within distinct spatial settings, or using Foucault’s (1980, p. 149) statement: “a whole history remain to be written of spaces – which would at the same time be the history of powers (both these terms in the plural) – from the great strategies of geopolitics to the little tactics of the habit, institutional architecture from the classroom to the design of hospitals, passing via economic and political installations”.
Within this setting the role of the architect/planner/designer is being put under scrutiny. More than ever cities are more than built up space and morphological composition. They reflect the strong intertwinement of space and people, they are about lived realities, as, using the words of de Certeau, the city has truly become a “practiced place” (1984: 117). Working within a normative framework whereby the search for the just city and the right to the city are central, my research stresses the opportunities a designerly way of knowledge production holds to address some of the challenges urban design in development is confronted with.
Design has its own ways of knowledge production, thinking and acting (Cross, 2001). A designerly way of knowing is able to reinterpret existing “problems”, or more broadly “questions”, and to develop solutions that have been unthought-of before. Our societies need creative/artistic research, not only because it is part of our humanistic heritage, but also because it helps to achieve, to realise, a high-quality human (humanistic) culture, which is only possible if we develop ideas/concepts/solutions that are not merely grounded in the current conditions and problems but that go beyond this, as such a Utopian attitude(1) is needed.
____________________________________
(1) not to be understood in the modernist’s sense, but Utopian as Bloch’s (1995 (1938–1947), p. 13) “experienced Not-Yet-Experience in every experience that has previously become”.
Bloch, Ernst (1995 (1938–1947)), The Principle of Hope. Cambridge, Massachusetts: the MIT Press.
Cross, N. (2001) Designerly Ways of Knowing: Design Discipline Versus Design Science. In: Design Issues 17(3): 49-55.
Foucault, M. (1980). The Eye of Power. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 by Michel Foucault. C. Gordon. New York, Pantheon Books: 146-165.
Having a very broad interest I have worked on informal dwelling and participatory upgrading, the challenge of design and planning in post colonial environments and also on the methodological and pedagogical challenges of a 'designerly way of knowledge production'. Additionally I have been working and writing on integrating real and virtual words and their role for architecture and architectural education.
I am a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Housing and the Built Environment (http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/population+studies/journal/10901).
Research Interest
The core of my research interests is the intertwinement of the notions freedom, public sphere, city and architecture and a certain notion of democracy. As such I am currently focusing on how mechanisms of power work on different scales and within distinct spatial settings, or using Foucault’s (1980, p. 149) statement: “a whole history remain to be written of spaces – which would at the same time be the history of powers (both these terms in the plural) – from the great strategies of geopolitics to the little tactics of the habit, institutional architecture from the classroom to the design of hospitals, passing via economic and political installations”.
Within this setting the role of the architect/planner/designer is being put under scrutiny. More than ever cities are more than built up space and morphological composition. They reflect the strong intertwinement of space and people, they are about lived realities, as, using the words of de Certeau, the city has truly become a “practiced place” (1984: 117). Working within a normative framework whereby the search for the just city and the right to the city are central, my research stresses the opportunities a designerly way of knowledge production holds to address some of the challenges urban design in development is confronted with.
Design has its own ways of knowledge production, thinking and acting (Cross, 2001). A designerly way of knowing is able to reinterpret existing “problems”, or more broadly “questions”, and to develop solutions that have been unthought-of before. Our societies need creative/artistic research, not only because it is part of our humanistic heritage, but also because it helps to achieve, to realise, a high-quality human (humanistic) culture, which is only possible if we develop ideas/concepts/solutions that are not merely grounded in the current conditions and problems but that go beyond this, as such a Utopian attitude(1) is needed.
____________________________________
(1) not to be understood in the modernist’s sense, but Utopian as Bloch’s (1995 (1938–1947), p. 13) “experienced Not-Yet-Experience in every experience that has previously become”.
Bloch, Ernst (1995 (1938–1947)), The Principle of Hope. Cambridge, Massachusetts: the MIT Press.
Cross, N. (2001) Designerly Ways of Knowing: Design Discipline Versus Design Science. In: Design Issues 17(3): 49-55.
Foucault, M. (1980). The Eye of Power. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 by Michel Foucault. C. Gordon. New York, Pantheon Books: 146-165.
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Books by Caroline Newton
If on one side Dharavi was what some would call a ‘live’ case study, on the other it was more than that. Dharavi was a place where our different epistemic words of what we called urban design started falling apart. It was also a complex microcosm of practices where our methodological and architectural artillery became somewhat ineffective and sterile. It was a symbol of a multiplicity of urbanisms at play that failed all our philosophical apparatus. Dharavi for us was essentially a space in which we started our process of recalibration of Urban Design - an intellectual, pedagogical and political process at the centre of the MSc Building and Urban Design in Development course at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit.
Deze publicatie gaat in op de praktische en procedurele uitdagingen die hiermee gepaard gaan. Als eerste Nederlandstalige handboek voor ‘sociaal-ruimtelijke planning’ wil dit boek architecten en stedenbouwkundigen wapenen voor de nieuwe sociale opdracht die ze krijgen. Tegelijk richt dit boek zich tot professionals actief in de ‘sociale sector’: opbouwwerkers, buurtwerkers, jeugdwerkers, buurtregisseurs, integrale veiligheidscoördinatoren…. De auteurs gaan er vanuit dat de stedenbouw van de toekomst nog sterker interdisciplinair zal moeten zijn dan vandaag. Willen stedenbouwkundige projecten een maatschappelijke meerwaarde realiseren, zal de samenwerking met deze sociale professionals moeten worden versterkt. Met dit boek willen de auteurs beide groepen helpen om samen te werken, om zo meer te halen uit stedenbouwkundige projecten: stenen, maar voor mensen.
De tekst biedt een overzicht van de meest actuele wetenschappelijke kennis over de interactie tussen bebouwde omgeving en sociale praktijken en processen als ontmoeten, veiligheid, sociale cohesie. Op basis van een langlopende samenwerking met de cel sociale planning van de Stad Antwerpen werd bovendien een methodiek ontwikkeld voor sociaal-ruimtelijke planning. Aan de hand van concrete praktijkvoorbeelden wordt uitgelegd hoe op verschillende momenten van het ruimtelijk planningsproces de samenwerking tussen sociale en stedenbouwkundige professionals kan worden verbeterd en hoe de kennis van sociale professionals gevaloriseerd kan worden in betere, meer sociale stedenbouwkundige projecten.
Papers by Caroline Newton
If on one side Dharavi was what some would call a ‘live’ case study, on the other it was more than that. Dharavi was a place where our different epistemic words of what we called urban design started falling apart. It was also a complex microcosm of practices where our methodological and architectural artillery became somewhat ineffective and sterile. It was a symbol of a multiplicity of urbanisms at play that failed all our philosophical apparatus. Dharavi for us was essentially a space in which we started our process of recalibration of Urban Design - an intellectual, pedagogical and political process at the centre of the MSc Building and Urban Design in Development course at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit.
Deze publicatie gaat in op de praktische en procedurele uitdagingen die hiermee gepaard gaan. Als eerste Nederlandstalige handboek voor ‘sociaal-ruimtelijke planning’ wil dit boek architecten en stedenbouwkundigen wapenen voor de nieuwe sociale opdracht die ze krijgen. Tegelijk richt dit boek zich tot professionals actief in de ‘sociale sector’: opbouwwerkers, buurtwerkers, jeugdwerkers, buurtregisseurs, integrale veiligheidscoördinatoren…. De auteurs gaan er vanuit dat de stedenbouw van de toekomst nog sterker interdisciplinair zal moeten zijn dan vandaag. Willen stedenbouwkundige projecten een maatschappelijke meerwaarde realiseren, zal de samenwerking met deze sociale professionals moeten worden versterkt. Met dit boek willen de auteurs beide groepen helpen om samen te werken, om zo meer te halen uit stedenbouwkundige projecten: stenen, maar voor mensen.
De tekst biedt een overzicht van de meest actuele wetenschappelijke kennis over de interactie tussen bebouwde omgeving en sociale praktijken en processen als ontmoeten, veiligheid, sociale cohesie. Op basis van een langlopende samenwerking met de cel sociale planning van de Stad Antwerpen werd bovendien een methodiek ontwikkeld voor sociaal-ruimtelijke planning. Aan de hand van concrete praktijkvoorbeelden wordt uitgelegd hoe op verschillende momenten van het ruimtelijk planningsproces de samenwerking tussen sociale en stedenbouwkundige professionals kan worden verbeterd en hoe de kennis van sociale professionals gevaloriseerd kan worden in betere, meer sociale stedenbouwkundige projecten.