Transgressive Design Strategies for Utopian Cities

This book critically examines the philosophy of the term ‘transgression’ and how it shapes the utopian vision of contemporary urban design scenarios.

The aim of this book is to provide scholarly yet accessible graphic novel illustrations to inform narratives of urban manifestos. Through four select case studies from the UK, Cyprus and Germany, the book highlights the paradoxes and contradictions in architecture and provides detailed evaluation of the limits and contemporary forms of sustainable urban regeneration. The book proposes an ‘utopian urban vision’ approach to social, political and cultural relations, trends and tensions – both locally and globally – and seeks to inspire an awakening in architectural discourse. The book argues that the philosophical undermining of transgression is the result of a phenomenon from a different perspective – its philosophical background, social construction, experimental research process and design implications on the city. As such, the book provides a critical examination of how architectural design interventions contribute to sustainable urban regeneration and gentrification and can impact local communities.

This book provides a significant contribution to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as early career researchers working in architecture, planning and sustainable urban design. It offers effective guidance on adopting the state-of-the-art graphical illustrations into their own design projects, while considering contradictions between architectural discourse and the philosophy of transgression.

Bertug Ozarisoy is an architect and expert in building energy modelling in Cyprus. His research focuses on understanding the theory between architecture and energy policy design in conjunction with exploring the impact of passive cooling systems on domestic energy use and households’ thermal comfort. He is interested in environmental design and the development of novel design applications throughout his architectural practice. He has ten years’ of experience in intensive teaching, academic research and architectural practice. He was involved with the BSc (Hons) Construction Management programme at the University of East London between September 2016 and 2018. He has developed teaching skills to demonstrate significant intellectual input to students’ technical drawings and monitor their learning adaptability and integration to the Construction Technology and Materials module. Currently, Dr. Bertug Ozarisoy is a postdoctoral researcher at the Middle East Technical University (METU) Northern Cyprus Campus where he teaches two post-graduate taught courses, which are entitled ‘Deep Energy Retrofit’ and ‘Environmental Design and Engineering’, as part of his postdoctoral research in the Sustainable Environment and Energy Systems (SEES) programme. He is also the first author of many scholarly articles relevant to the building engineering field. He has been mostly involved with research projects in the Sustainable Development of the Built Environment (SDBE) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Europe.

Hasim Altan is Professor of Sustainable Design and Architectural Engineering in the Faculty of Design, and Director of the Research Centre at Arkin University of Creative Arts and Design (ARUCAD) in Kyrenia, Cyprus. He is a Chartered Architect (RIBA) and a Chartered Engineer (CIBSE) with over 20 years of academic and practice experience in the field of Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) in the Built Environment in UK, Europe, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions. He sits on several editorial boards and reviews project proposals for the European Commission, UK Research Councils and Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) of the Qatar Foundation. Since 2004, he has, singly or jointly, secured and directed 32 research grants worth over £21 million. He is a founding member of the International Network on Zero Energy Mass Custom Home (ZEMCH), which has so far organised eight international conferences, several design workshops, and numerous technical visits. As well as having supervised 17 successful PhD students, Prof. Dr. Altan has published over 280 refereed international journal and conference papers, technical reports, edited books and chapters and editorials in related fields.