Introduction Itsukushima Shrine, a prime example of Japanese spiritual culture and aesthetics, offers deep insights into the country's heritage. Situated on an inlet of Miyajima Island, also known as Itsukushima, the shrine is often referred to as Aki no Miyajima. Located in Hiroshima Bay within the Inland Sea, this island is home to Mount Misen, the region’s highest peak (Cartwright, n.d.). The shrine’s structures, meticulously restored to preserve their twelfth-century character, include six National Treasures and eleven Important Cultural Properties, with the World Heritage site covering fourteen percent of the island (Joseph Cali et al., 2013). History of Itsukushima Shrine…

1. Introduction Ferentari is a neighborhood in southeast periphery in Sector 5 of Bucharest, Romania with an estimated population of 75,000. Once a marginal area, Ferentari has evolved into one of Bucharest's most marginalized urban zones. Sector 5 is exhibiting the starkest housing inequality in the city, where Ferentari's poverty is neighbouring the affluence of areas such as Cotroceni. Over 20% of its residents, approximately 18,200 people, live below the poverty line (Chyi-Yun Huang et al., 2019). This essay delves into Ferentari's history and current state, analyzing it through the lens of systemic and contingent marginalization theories explained in "Concepts…

Introduction Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is an essential tool in a worldwide effort to protect the environment. EIA provides a systematic approach for sustainable development, focusing on the balance between economic, environmental costs and benefits. It was created as a reaction originating from environmental concerns in the 1960s (Morgan, 2012), at a time when biophysical, social and health impacts were not considered in most development projects. EIA Description and History The International Association for Impact Assessment defines EIA as “the process of identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social and other relevant effects of proposed development proposals prior to…

Figure 1: Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo, Japan (McCurry 2021) Nakagin Capsule Tower was designed by Kisho Kurokawa, a pioneer of Metabolism and capsule architecture who studied at Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo, under the supervision of Kenzo Tange. The tower is one of the few metabolist concepts that were ever realized, belonging to the architectural movement of the 60s and 70s, Metabolism, which appeared as a counteraction to the westernization of Japan after the Second World War (Ishida 2015). As the Greek term ”metabole” is directly translated to ”change”, metabolists were implementing the old Shintoism’s philosophy of periodic…

Introduction The city of Tel Aviv has the world’s largest number of buildings in the Bauhaus and International Style (Geva 2008), having its roots in the Bauhaus school in Germany and the modernism movement. Its rich history was rediscovered with the 1984 exhibition ‘White City. International Style Architecture in Israel: A Portrait of an Era’ (M. D. Levin 1984), which was held at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art for the 75th anniversary of Tel Aviv’s founding (Sonder 2016). This initiative prompted a vast number of preservation projects around the city, listing Tel Aviv as a UNESCO World Heritage Site…