Today We Launch Our Website
Today we launch our website, Urban Research Table.
Back in the summer of 2016, we founded Urban Research Table (URT) while pursuing our doctoral studies in different labs at the University of Tokyo and Keio University in Japan. In the last two and a half years, our activities grew in scope and URT transformed in a structured research and design collective exploring emerging issues in architecture and urbanism. The site we are launching today at urbanresearchtable.com further expands our operations to disseminate our ideas and foster discussion and collaboration with a broader audience.
URT website wants to be a platform to contribute to urban scholarship and investigate the future of cities in the midst of their rapid transformation. Through our articles and visuals, we aim to challenge assumptions about urbanism and city life by engaging with the constantly transforming reality of the urban realm. In particular, we will publish original essays, short commentaries, or news that correspond to our research agenda, especially on places, public life, streetscape, mobilities, public-private dynamics, and methods to analyze and visualize urban spaces.
Today we publish the first round of contents. In particular, we offer a brief overview of our key research interests in order to introduce our research agenda. Zdenka Havlova’s The Issue of Multilevel Pedestrian Urbanism brings to your attention the need for a better understanding of the contribution to public space of grade-separated pedestrian systems that are an ever-increasing presence in cities throughout the world. Meanwhile, Siqi Li focuses on The Problem of “Spontaneity” and public space’s management in Southeast Asia through a case study of Xiamen’s Qilou verandah spaces. In Investigating Place in the Age of Mobility, Marco Reggiani briefly introduces the challenges brought by global mobilities and transit infrastructures to cities around the world and their still insufficiently understood consequences on sense of place and urban life. Finally, Zhouyan Wu presents an exploration of Tokyo’s street edges and claims for a New Mapping Method to analyze this fundamental in-between space based on the usage of moving images. We hope these short-illustrated pieces will catch your attention and bring you back to explore these topics more in detail in the following weeks.
Beginning with the homepage, you will be able to access a variety of sections.
Research Blog is the core of the website. Here you will find a frequently updated selection of articles that document the exploration and scholarly efforts from all our contributors.
Events will keep you updated with URT members’ initiatives. We will cover conferences, workshops, seminars, or upcoming events through a feed of short reports and news.
Projects represents a window on design accomplishments that, for most of us, represent a complementary and practice-oriented endeavor along with our scholarly activities.
Soon, we will also start publishing content from external collaborators. They come from a variety of institutions around the globe and share URT’s commitment to urban research. If you are interested in collaboration or would like to inquire about us, you can reach us through the contact form provided on the website or write an email to info@urbanresearchtable.com.
We hope you will find inspiration on Urban Research Table website and come back frequently.
