Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism: Transformations, Challenges, and Future Prospects

Dear Colleagues,

Cities worldwide have been witnessing rapid transformation processes due to continuously changing environmental, economic and social conditions. Architecture has played an important role in defining contemporary urbanism due to its direct impact on place-making, housing dynamics and the ecological performance of our urban environments.

This Special Issue aims to offer a platform for integrating a wide spectrum of examples in contemporary design practice, theory and education in the context of recent urban transformation worldwide. In general, five main types of transformation can be observed: (a) emerging economies, such as knowledge economies and urban manufacturing including informal sectors; (b) demographic changes due to migration; (c) recent lifestyle changes resulted from on-going digitalization; (d) new forms of governance to stimulate urban growth; and (e) climate change and its impact on policies and developments.

Within these transformation processes, both architects and urban designers have been challenged to respond to new urban conditions. Unlike certain eras in the past, recent globalization dynamics and the focus on attracting growth have led to more and more standardized and replaceable forms of urbanism. Thus, both professionals and academics have been engaged in identifying the future role of architecture.

Architecture and contemporary urbanism needs to be discussed from various scientific angles. As a form of space production, architecture can reflect environmental and socio-cultural challenges, as well as economic realities. Beyond other subjects engaged in redefining the built environment, both architecture and urban design can fundamentally change how places are used, perceived, and eventually assessed.

Possible paper topics and issues of exploration include:

• Advancing the theory in architecture and urbanism, including discourses on space production;
• Empirical case studies of how architecture has been reflecting and/or changing contemporary urbanism;
• Methodological approaches of how to study the impact of the built environment on environmental, economic and social realities, and vice versa;
• Emerging economies and the role of architecture in accommodating new developments;
• Demographic changes (e. g. migration) and the importance of creating responsive urban environments;
• Lifestyle tendencies and housing dynamics;
• The role of architecture in redefining urban identities;
• The role of contemporary policies and regulations in redefining architecture and urbanism.

Dr. Florian Wiedmann
Prof. Dr. Ashraf M. Salama
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Urban Science is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• architecture
• cultural identity
• urbanism
• urban design
• urban resilience
• sustainable cities
• emerging cities
• migrant cities