Architecture

Considered to be sub-ordinated and sub-prime to the city, suburban areas receive little attention by researchers and designers. However, it is the rapidly growing areas outside central cities that pose the biggest questions of the urban millennium: How can the scattered patchwork of urban areas and social spaces linked by networks of highways and public transportation function as a sustainable and livable urban environment? Answering this question requires understanding suburban spaces as heterogeneous urban areas with distinct local characteristics, qualities, and problems.

Following this path, Variations of Suburbanism explores the formation, characteristics, and trends of suburban areas all over the world. It provides insights on common features and differences of suburban governance, design, and infrastructure and discusses strategies to understand and design suburban areas in an increasingly suburbanizing world.

Da Nang City, located in the South Central Coast region of Vietnam, has developed in many aspects in the last two decades and has been known as one of the five independent municipalities of Vietnam. Today, it constitutes the Key Economic Zone in Central Vietnam. Rapid industrialization and urbanization have caused incessant change of land use and land cover (LULC) in Da Nang City. Linh Nguyen's study aims at detecting, quantifying, and characterizing the changes of LULC in the Da Nang City region by using multitemporal satellite images from 1979 to 2009; it further explores the effects of LULC changes on landscape structure through spatial landscape metrics. In a simulation it also shows the changes of LULC under different scenarios, utilizing the model of system dynamics and the model of dynamic conversion of land use and its effects.

The results show that 37% of the total land has undergone change. Before being separated from Quang Nam Province (1979–1996), the LULC in Da Nang City changed gradually. However, after becoming an independent municipality, the LULC changed with accelerated speed, especially in the urban areas. Within 13 years (1996–2009), the urban area grew by 86.6%. The study suggests this is caused by a strong focus on economic development. Conversely, agriculture and forests had a high rate of change. The dynamic change of landscape indices reveal that agricultural areas were broken into smaller patches. However, except agriculture, patches of forestry and urban spaces tended to have a uniform landscape configuration. To simulate the future changes of LULC at Da Nang City from 2009 to 2030, three scenarios with different missions were developed, namely, Development as Usual, Aggressive Development, and Optimal Development. All scenarios result in a continuous increase in urban area and a gradual decrease in agriculture, barren, and shrub areas during the simulated period. The study provides new strategies for land use planning in comparable regions facing rapid urbanization.

Landscape is the impression given by a place. The five senses construct five landscapes: there is not only the visual landscape but also non-visual landscapes such as smell, touch, sound ('sound-scape'), and taste landscapes. The visual landscape is experienced by most people, while the remaining four non-visual landscapes mainly construct the non-visual world of the blind. In their innovative study, Angeliki Koskina and Nikolas Hasanagas explore this non-visual world on an empirical basis. What landscapes do blind people prefer? Is the natural or built environment most attractive for them? How differently do blind people perceive the 'landscape' compared to sighted people? Which feelings does the landscape evoke in blind people, and which values do they attach to these feelings? How satisfied do they feel with the urban or natural landscapes where they live? Spatial Planning and Land-scape Design for handicapped people constitute a much-discussed academic and social issue. Koskina's and Hasanagas' study in the Anthropology of Senses and in Landscape Sociology can be used as an aid tool for planners and designers as well as researchers in various areas such as Architecture, Medicine, Social Sciences, or Psychology.