Henrietta Palmer
I’m a transdisciplinary oriented architect, researcher and pedagogue. My research focus concerns socio-spatial transformation towards just and sustainable cities, looking across differing global contexts. In doing so, my focus is in part on comparative urban studies both in terms of theory, methods- and knowledge development. This also embraces the intersecting field of urban development and migration studies. I’m devoted to the approach of transdisciplinary research, and to pedagogy and methodologies for sustainable urban development – including visualisation, aesthetics and methods for artistic research.
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concept zone of proximal development (Cazden, 1979), which indicates the zone that a learner at a certain level of development can cover only with the assistance of interactional support, the zone beyond which the learner cannot reach even with aid. Scaffolding has been used to describe a variety of supportive interactions, including peers working with peers, that is the structuring effects on both individual and group actions
(Renninger & Granott, 2005). In the context of group collaborations, the metaphor has come to include different methods, tools, and facilitation that support learning and decision-making, as well as pre-empt conflicts in multi-stakeholder processes (Jordan, 2016). Overarching the different contexts where it has been adopted, scaffolding offers perspectives on how new abilities come into being (Granott, 2005). In this chapter, we explore scaffolding in the context of transdisciplinary (TD) projects and research (TDR) in order to uncover what gives a group the leverage and ability to climb higher than otherwise possible. We first discuss the role of metaphors and their importance for research processes, before focussing on the metaphor of scaffolding. We then make our case for the usefulness of scaffolding in TDR by pointing out challenges and scaffolding needs.
Thereafter, we propose scaffolding for TDR as an integrated learning system made up of different interacting elements. We conclude by discussing the promise, legacy, and pitfalls of scaffolding. Our purpose is to deepen the inquiry into what scaffolding means, what it enables, and what it may constrain. In doing so we hope to reveal some insights and useful principles for scaffolding in TDR.
'This book is a must read for all those engaged in managing the future of our cities in ways which are resource effi cient and which improve the lives of urban citizens. Based on three years of research and project work at the Royal Institute of Art, the book offers innovations for visioning and managing our urban futures in the context of the global challenges we face today-depleting resources, climate change and rapidly expanding urban populations. Its core thesis is that change and uncertainty are both conditions for ensuring sustain ability in urban development. The book off ers tools and methods with which to explore the dynamics of urban change through progressive and incremental trans formations rather than wholesale redevelopment. The authors, in their different ways, give new meaning to the idea of development, a term which they argue has been appropriated and distorted by markets and the power elite. Its text is radical, unsentimental and optimistic, its methods grounded in the experience of everyday practice and the diversity and resourcefulness of informality. It is both scholarly and practical.'
Nabeel Hamdi, Architect and Professor Emeritus, Oxford Brookes University.
If you are interested in how urban change can work towards realising a more just society in a world as challenged and challenging as ours, this book will take you one step in that direction. Its contributors share their stories of how they developed, and are constantly reworking, their methods for addressing the complexities of the urban environment. This book will not give you the answers to what could be a sustainable solution to a specific urban problem, but it will take you into a discussion of how possibly to create new knowledge for difficult emerging urban challenges.
Papers
concept zone of proximal development (Cazden, 1979), which indicates the zone that a learner at a certain level of development can cover only with the assistance of interactional support, the zone beyond which the learner cannot reach even with aid. Scaffolding has been used to describe a variety of supportive interactions, including peers working with peers, that is the structuring effects on both individual and group actions
(Renninger & Granott, 2005). In the context of group collaborations, the metaphor has come to include different methods, tools, and facilitation that support learning and decision-making, as well as pre-empt conflicts in multi-stakeholder processes (Jordan, 2016). Overarching the different contexts where it has been adopted, scaffolding offers perspectives on how new abilities come into being (Granott, 2005). In this chapter, we explore scaffolding in the context of transdisciplinary (TD) projects and research (TDR) in order to uncover what gives a group the leverage and ability to climb higher than otherwise possible. We first discuss the role of metaphors and their importance for research processes, before focussing on the metaphor of scaffolding. We then make our case for the usefulness of scaffolding in TDR by pointing out challenges and scaffolding needs.
Thereafter, we propose scaffolding for TDR as an integrated learning system made up of different interacting elements. We conclude by discussing the promise, legacy, and pitfalls of scaffolding. Our purpose is to deepen the inquiry into what scaffolding means, what it enables, and what it may constrain. In doing so we hope to reveal some insights and useful principles for scaffolding in TDR.
'This book is a must read for all those engaged in managing the future of our cities in ways which are resource effi cient and which improve the lives of urban citizens. Based on three years of research and project work at the Royal Institute of Art, the book offers innovations for visioning and managing our urban futures in the context of the global challenges we face today-depleting resources, climate change and rapidly expanding urban populations. Its core thesis is that change and uncertainty are both conditions for ensuring sustain ability in urban development. The book off ers tools and methods with which to explore the dynamics of urban change through progressive and incremental trans formations rather than wholesale redevelopment. The authors, in their different ways, give new meaning to the idea of development, a term which they argue has been appropriated and distorted by markets and the power elite. Its text is radical, unsentimental and optimistic, its methods grounded in the experience of everyday practice and the diversity and resourcefulness of informality. It is both scholarly and practical.'
Nabeel Hamdi, Architect and Professor Emeritus, Oxford Brookes University.
If you are interested in how urban change can work towards realising a more just society in a world as challenged and challenging as ours, this book will take you one step in that direction. Its contributors share their stories of how they developed, and are constantly reworking, their methods for addressing the complexities of the urban environment. This book will not give you the answers to what could be a sustainable solution to a specific urban problem, but it will take you into a discussion of how possibly to create new knowledge for difficult emerging urban challenges.
Is the global economy, just as the world’s other assets, a limited finite resource? Is the global economy, just as the world’s other resources, limited? In light of today’s financial situation, the relations between economics, growth and limitations becomes obvious. Do the rules of economic development dictate a system limit that permits certain economies to grow while others stagnate? What does growth really mean? Perhaps it is symptomatic that while the economies of the west are contracting, India’s continues to expand.
The eyes of the world are now on India. At the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this fall, Indian leaders will have to take a position on how their nation will assume its responsibility as one of the planet’s three largest economic players. Today India is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, but the possibilities for alternative energy sources are enormous and awareness about the consequences of climate change on their own geography is high. Even if the average Indian citizen is responsible for just 1/28 of the CO2 emissions compared with his American counterpart, the burgeoning pocketbooks of a rapidly growing middle class in a country which is soon to be the most populous in the world will have extreme consequences for our global environment and for India itself. A change in course for the world’s largest democracy would set a new international agenda. Can the Indian city reinvent itself and thereby present us with an alternative Development?
Consumption is ultimately powered by Desire. Nowhere is the monumentalization of Desire more palpable than in Los Angeles. As in no other place, the city’s perpetuation is dependent upon Desire. Los Angeles is the place for extreme lifestyles, parallel universes, segregated dreams and secured utopias. However, Los Angeles is also a place where alternative cultures and progressive grassroots movements seem to originate and flourish, fulfilling other kinds of dreams. The invention of alternative patterns of consumption must be based on other aspirations and longings. What does Los Angeles look like beyond Desire?