La Cambre

Background/Objectives: Older adults with neurocognitive and psychological disorders are often institutionalized in nursing homes, which negatively affects well-being and mood, and may accelerate cognitive decline. Immersive virtual reality (VR) is a promising non-pharmacological countermeasure, but VR-headset discomfort limits its usability in this population. Therefore, this study examined the tolerability and feasibility of an immersive VR room, which provides customizable interactive environments projected across four walls at 360° and enables shared experiences, to enhance positive affect and engagement in nursing home residents. Methods: Twenty nursing home residents were initially enrolled, and nineteen completed five 10 min sessions in the immersive VR room accompanied by a caregiver. State positive and negative effects were assessed using the visual analogue scale (VAS) and the Observed Emotion Rating Scale (OERS), and participants' verbal feedback was collected during and after the sessions. Results: VAS scores indicated that VR room immersion was feasible and well-tolerated, with most participants feeling secure and experiencing increased positive affect during and just after the sessions. OERS scores and observations revealed frequent expressions of pleasure, interest, and active engagement with both the VR environments and the caregiver. Participants' reports valued the enjoyable and relaxing experience provided by immersion in the VR room, noting the realism and aesthetics of the environments and nature-related elements, which allowed them to travel virtually and evoke personal memories. Conclusions: Immersive VR room sessions were well tolerated, enhanced positive affect, and may support cognitive functioning by fostering active engagement and social interaction. Given that this is a feasibility study with a small cohort and short follow-up, the present findings should be considered preliminary and confirmed in larger, controlled, longer-term studies.

Using the Precolumbian lowland Maya model of urban soil connectivity discussed in Part I, we review how soil connectivity can transition into urban planning policy and, by extension, could ultimately become codified as vantages and guidelines for urban design. In Maya agro-urban landscapes, the interspersion of open and green space with construction and paving provides edges (or interfaces) between sealed and unsealed soils at which the potential for soil connectivity manifests. These edges create an undeniable opportunity for urban planning to determine methods, guidelines, and conditions that can enhance soil connectivity. We argue that adequate attention to soils in urban sustainability goals would counteract misconceptions about the compact city paradigm and compensation for soil sealing in urban practice. Through preserving and increasing urban soil availability, proximity, and accessibility, advisory policies can stimulate shared values and everyday behaviours that reinforce the responsible and productive use of urban soils. Such urban planning can enable and encourage widespread participation in urban soil management. To promote policymaking on urban soils, we assess the importance and challenges of using urban green space as a proxy for the presence of urban soils. Our review suggests that urban green space offers high potential for use in urban planning to develop habit architectures that nurture soil-oriented pro-environmental behaviour. However, we also acknowledge the need for consistent and systematic data on urban soils that match sustainable urban development concepts to assist the effective transition of soil connectivity into urban planning codifications. Formulating adequate soil-oriented planning guidelines will require translating empirical insights into policy applications. To this end, we propose methods for enhancing our understanding and ability to monitor urban soil connectivity, including onsite surveys of land-use and bottom-up experience of soils, the mapping of the edges between sealed and unsealed soils, and using landscape ecological scales of analysis. In conclusion, we position soil care and connectivity as a primary task for urban planning and design and digest our findings and empirical vantages into concrete starting points devised as instruments to support urban planning in achieving soil codification.

Supervisie kent verschillende doelstellingen. Een belangrijk onderdeel van supervisie is de kwaliteitsborging van de door de supervisant uitgevoerde behandeling. Dit behelst dat de supervisant zowel technische vaardigheden op interventieniveau moet leren als inzicht moet krijgen in het therapeutisch proces dat mede beinvloed wordt door persoonlijke kenmerken. Het leerproces gedurende de supervisie wordt door de supervisor beoordeeld. We doen dat door de prestatie van de supervisant af te zetten tegen een standaard die we hanteren om de prestatie af te meten. Deze bijdrage beoogt elementen aan te brengen die ons kunnen helpen om tot zo’n standaard te komen. De beoordeling omvat een proces- en productevaluatie. Een aparte vorm daarvan is de evaluatie van competentiegerichte supervisie (CGS). Verder argumenteren we dat het evaluatieproces zich niet beperkt tot het afmeten tegenover een norm, maar dat we ook rekening houden met het persoonlijke (groei)proces van de supervisant.

Dans cet article, nous proposons de revenir sur l’expérience du quartier alternatif de la Baraque à Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgique) en tant qu’occupation de terrains où s’opère depuis 1975 une tentative de dé-marchandisation radicale du logement. Après avoir situé le quartier de la Baraque historiquement comme expérience pionnière pour la pratique du logement en « commun », nous nous attacherons à décrire les stratagèmes, tant en termes d’auto-institution de règles que de spatialisation, mis en place par le quartier pour se distinguer des modes standardisés de production et de passation de logements. Nous verrons ensuite comment ces stratégies de singularisation sont mises à l’épreuve tant par l’évolution du quartier que par celle de son contexte urbain et sociétal, et comment les tensions émergentes entre valeur d’usage et valeur d’échange sont gérées. Nous conclurons en considérant les dynamiques de concertation en cours qui peuvent constituer des pistes pour aborder et, à terme, résoudre ces tensions.

This short introduction reflects upon the significance of the conference to the research topic and scholarly community. After briefly providing an overview of the collaborative framework within which the event took place, it provides a few figures on the participation to the call for papers and the conference itself, as well as a few explanatory words concerning the different themed sessions and sections of the proceedings. Doing so allows the authors to highlight the relevance of the event to both research on the topic and to the concerned disciplines, but also the under-represented topics and disciplines, as a constructive contribution to the future research agenda.

El tema de esta introducción gira, dentro del contexto de la conferencia, entorno a varios conceptos que no son neutrales desde el punto de vista cultural, político, económico o espacial. Como se puede sobreentender a partir del título de la propia conferencia «Territorio y Patrimonio» existe un parentesco conceptual entre ambos términos.

In our on-going thesis, “cultural attractors and mobility in Brussels metropolitan region”, we investigate the role of cultural infrastructures in the structuration and formalization of the metropolitan landscape. The research aims to contribute to an in-depth debate across research fields regarding the relationship between culture and city, by focusing on the architectural and urban expression of the places of cultural diffusion and on the evolving rationalities that saw to their implementation. A specific focus is put in our research on mobility, and its influence on the territorialization of cultural infrastructures. Indeed, their accessibility defines more often than not their ability to be spaces of convergence and to contribute to construct the cultural, social and public aspects of the metropolis. Analysing the accessibility of cultural infrastructures, and its evolution, thus prove to be revealing of their embedded rationalities. With this mind-set, we would like to question in this paper the presence, accessibility and localization of cultural infrastructures—which can be seen as (a small) part of a territory’s cultural capital—of the Horizontal Metropolis and the challenges it faces.