Circus spectacle, its architectural concept and its content, has changed throughout the centuries, following social events and cultural frameworks of time periods. In this research paper, we ...investigate the history of circus in Europe which occurred in between the eighteenth century and today’s twenty-first century. The evolution of circus gradually took place and could be followed through the modifications in forms of the buildings in different cities of the continent. Firstly, we research their stationary architecture which establishment is just over in this period. Even though the performance is still changing and modifying, it is questionable if the stationary circuses achieved in adjusting and transform for the purposes of modern society or, on the other hand, they are reorganized in their function and are becoming something completely different.
In the socialist times, large housing estates in the Central and East European (CEE) cities were praised for effectively resolving the housing crisis, providing good and homogenous housing conditions ...at reasonable costs and enabling rapid urbanization. Following the collapse of communism, they have met with various consequences of low-cost construction based on prefabrication, lack of repair and upgrading investments and neglected or deferred maintenance, and the Western experience drew attention to the socio-economic outcomes of further physical downgrading. As the flats located in these estates make up almost half of the total urban housing stock in the CEE region, thus having a significant impact on the overall housing quality, this paper discusses the post-socialist context of development of these estates based on the existing literature and an interdisciplinary analytical approach, with an emphasis on their rehabilitation. The research questions relate to the problems they have been affected by, mechanisms and methods of interventions and multifaceted differences between the CEE and West European estates. The aim of the paper is to analyse the development and rehabilitation challenges that these estates have encountered during post-socialism and thus join the discussion on future prospects and feasible and sustainable upgrading related policies and programmes.
Utilizing culture as a tool for the regeneration of industrial brownfields represents a fairly new trend in post-socialist Europe. This topic has garnered some academic attention; however, studies ...primarily originate from EU member states, whereas the examples from non-EU cities remains largely unexplored. In addition, the literature dealing with the temporary creative use of derelict industrial sites in post-socialist cities is scarce. The case study-based paper contributes to filling these voids by investigating the creativity-driven informal activation of the Kineska Quarter in Novi Sad, the second largest city in Serbia and the European Capital of Culture for 2022, and its planned transformation into a creative district. The research aims are to examine the capacity of temporary uses to act as a hard infrastructure of the culture-led regeneration, identify the policy framework that shaped the project and highlight its shortcomings, detect potential sustainability issues, and examine how soft factors affect the use of hard infrastructure. The findings suggest that the redevelopment of a creative brownfield based on the simulation of bottom-up decision-making and hastily developed and blurry regeneration policies lead to uncertainty about its sustainability. They also suggest that post-socialist cities lacking experience in this field necessitate a context-perceptive, socially responsible, and locale-conscious approach to the (then sustainable) culture-led regeneration of spontaneously activated brownfields sites, which requires meaningful and not just pro forma involvement of non-institutional actors in the policy- and decision-making process.
In West European cities, culture has evolved to become a crucial ingredient of regeneration projects, in which stakeholders' cooperation is of utmost importance and economic and social benefits are ...often well balanced. In contrast, the majority of second-tier Central and East European cities, primarily non-holders of the European Capital of Culture title, still seem to struggle with clearly defining the relationship between culture and urban regeneration, precisely determining the responsibilities of the key actors and making the distinction between social and economic goals in regeneration projects. In this paper, the authors join the emerging discussion on the post-socialist context of culture-led regeneration through a case study of a street in the old core of Novi Sad, Serbia. In an effort to contribute to understanding various challenges that Serbian cities have been facing since the fall of communism, they seek to identify cultural effects of a very distinctive process of transition. They also investigate the interplay between the citizens' cultural preferences, visions of urbanity, private sector's interests and usage of urban space, and discuss the impacts of spontaneous utilization versus exploitation of space and culture. Furthermore, they analyse the outcomes of culture-led transformation conducted in the absence of cultural strategies and in-depth regeneration policies and marked by the laisser-faire attitude of the local authorities. Having completed the analysis, the authors propose the means for redefining the relationship between culture and regeneration in second-tier Serbian cities, yet also in other CEE cities of similar size, emphasizing the role of culture, responsibilities of the local authorities, significance of bottom-up approaches and relevance of place context.
•Culture as urban regeneration tool in second-tier CEE cities is inadequately used.•Post-socialist transition has shaped the cultural ambience in Serbian cities.•Private sector plays a significant role in culture-led regenerations in CEE cities.
Offer preparation has always been a specific part of a building process which has significant impact on company business. Due to the fact that income greatly depends on offer’s precision and the ...balance between planned costs, both direct and overheads, and wished profit, it is necessary to prepare a precise offer within required time and available resources which are always insufficient. The paper presents a research of precision that can be achieved while using artificial intelligence for estimation of cost and duration in construction projects. Both artificial neural networks (ANNs) and support vector machines (SVM) are analysed and compared. The best SVM has shown higher precision, when estimating costs, with mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 7.06% compared to the most precise ANNs which has achieved precision of 25.38%. Estimation of works duration has proved to be more difficult. The best MAPEs were 22.77% and 26.26% for SVM and ANN, respectively.
Although a growing body of literature examines the post-socialist European context of urban regeneration, studies on the demolition-based approaches are relatively scarce. Moreover, the regeneration ...policies of cities in non-EU Balkan countries with a distinctive transitional path remain largely unexplored. The paper contributes to filling these voids by investigating a specific demolition-based urban regeneration strategy named permanent reconstruction, which has been launched in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second largest city, and applied to low-density neighborhoods with a derelict housing stock, being seen as a tool for achieving sustainable urban development. The specific research aims are to explain the origin of this strategy; analyze the institutional and planning framework, mechanisms, and dynamics of the regeneration process through a case study; and assess its outcomes based on a mixed methodology. The main research objective is to identify the issues of a post-socialist entrepreneurial urban governance, primarily deriving from Serbia’s distorted transition, which hampered the development of a strategic, integrated, and locale-conscious approach. The findings suggest that Novi Sad and other Serbian cities necessitate socially responsible and context-perceptive regeneration that would produce sustainable regeneration projects. The authors propose the means for redefining them, emphasizing the responsibilities of the public sector and the significance of involving the local community in the planning and decision-making process.
Many scientific papers that deal with the topic of the pedestrian environment use a predefined form for assessing or evaluating its quality as a basic methodological instrument. The aim of this ...research is to emphasize the dimension of the available audit tools or methodologies in order to develop a full-scale database of indices that can be used for the measurement and evaluation of the pedestrian environment. By analyzing 115 research papers selected according to predefined selection criteria, the basic methodological apparatus or the evaluation instrument was observed. Based on the analysis carried out in this way, a number of 40 valid instruments were identified by which it was possible to evaluate the pedestrian environment. The observed instruments have a high level of reliability according to the high values of the ICC coefficient, IRR test, or Kappa value. There are 193 items for the evaluation of the pedestrian environment that were derived from the observed instruments. The items were arranged over seven groups regarding the quality of the pedestrian environment, namely, Functionality, Safety, Comfort, Mobility, Environment, Connectivity, and Aesthetics. On average, the items distributed over those seven groups are in use throughout the entire pool of instruments at the level of 47.41% across all groups. There are 30 instruments or methodologies that are objectively based, 4 subjectively oriented, and 6 with elements of both approaches. Of the instruments, 14 measure and assess the pedestrian environment through a quantitative data set, while 20 are designed for qualitative assessment. Only six of the instruments contain both qualitative and quantitative measuring items. A large percentage of analyzed papers that use a predefined methodology or instrument indicate the need to deepen the field of research and to include additional aspects that would give more authoritative results.
Tradicionalna i vernakularna kuća razvijena je u uskoj vezi između funkcionalne potrebe stanara, kulturnih, klimatskih i drugih aspekata života i izgrađenog okoliša. Tijekom posljednjih desetljeća, ...većina zemalja u razvoju, uključujući Libiju, doživjela je brzi gospodarski rast i povećanje populacije, što je dovelo do povećanja u izgradnji suvremenih obiteljskih kuća pod utjecajem zapadnih modela. U radu se analiziraju aspekti toplotne udobnosti u tradicionalnoj obiteljskoj kući u planini (grad Gharyan) i pustinjskom području (stari grad Ghadames) u Libiji, s ciljem da se istraže prednosti vernakularnog koncepta u suvremenom dizajnu. Studija će utvrditi kriterije vrednovanja kroz istraživanje konststrukcije, materijala, unutarnjeg uređenja, krova, otvora i drugih aspekata koji utječu na održivost. Rezultati će se koristiti u području arhitekture, urbanog dizajna i građevinske industrije u Libiji, jer je poznavanje tradicionalnih koncepata i elemenata koji su korišteni kroz dugo vremensko razdoblje, dragocjeno u izgradnji zdravih kuća i štednji neobnovljive energije u suvremenim konstrukcijama.
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