Drawings as a form of knowledge Re-presenting Gjirokastra LORISS ROSSI, LAURA PEDATA
Author: PhD. Loris Rossi
Affiliation: Manchester School of Architecture (UK)
Author: PhD. Laura Pedata
Affiliation: Sheffield Hallam University (UK)
Abstract
This paper introduces the relevance of using drawings, notations, and diagrams in analysing, observing, and reinterpreting shrinking cities. This year the 35th cycle PhD workshop was centered on the case of Gjirokastra (Centre, 2021) one of the main cities in south Albania with a high risk of depopulation. In the 1990s, more than a quarter of large cities worldwide shrank, and the phenomenon of urban depopulation has been studied and analysed worldwide with different theories on possible interventions (Hollander, 2018). Drawing a timeline around the concept of shrinking cities is quite complicated due to the different shrinkage typologies. Nevertheless, the research "Shrinking Cities" developed between 2002 and 2008 by Philipp Oswalt (Oswalt, Rieniets, & et al., 2005) gave a valuable contribution, and it was adopted as a background reference in several later investigations. In general, urban depopulation is caused by multiple factors like suburbanisation, deindustrialisation, and post-socialist change. In the architectural field, such factors can overcome their negative acceptation and become an opportunity to address Urban landscape design strategies.
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