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Terraced landscapes are important to the cultural and environmental characteristics of many regions worldwide. Accurate and comprehensive documentation of these landscapes is challenging, especially when inventorying drystone walled terraced landscapes and abandoned agricultural terraces. Even inventory methods based on LIDAR and fieldwork do not capture all of the mapped information. To address this challenge, the study proposed the inclusion of additional data sources into the inventory process, specifically aerial photographs from drones and photographs taken with advanced GPS devices. The combination of alreadytested methods and other data sources enabled a more comprehensive and accurate inventory process. The improved methodology was tested in three cadastral municipalities of the Vipava Valley (Črniče, Gojače and Vrtovin), where the terraces have predominantly dry-stone risers with different heights. A large percentage of the terraced landscape in the selected cadastral municipalities is abandoned, so the terraced structures are overgrown by vegetation and forest; in Gojače, almost half of the terraced landscape is like this. In some places, the terraced landscape has become almost completely unrecognizable. With an improved inventory methodology, both active and abandoned agricultural terraces can be mapped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ports are clearly demarcated structures on land and water. They are fenced in, easily recognizable on satellite and orthophoto images, and they have specific functions. This apparent clarity of ports, their function and outline, in relation to nearby urban and rural areas, becomes more complex when explored through the lens of land use, that is the existing and planned future functional dimension or socio-economic purpose of the land. In contrast to urban and rural areas, where land use has been mapped and defined for centuries, the use and function of land and water in port areas has long been multifunctional and not defined on land use maps. This raises questions about the role and understanding of port territory in relation to neighboring spaces, past, and present. This article first defines land use and describes its historical development. Scholars from various disciplines, including geographers, planners, and economists, have addressed the issue of land use in port areas. Land use patterns have emerged over time and are based on earlier demarcations of port areas and distinctions between port and city. As shown by the historical port city borders in Hamburg, Rotterdam, and Koper, these delimitations can change over time, by location and by function. The land use register has only recently been harmonized at the European level. European and national registers distinguish existing and planned land use in port areas differently. Mixed uses prevail in new port interventions, creating a new kind of permeability or porosity; that is, areas where port, urban and rural functions merge. New land use porosity is a particular state of land use (on both sides of the boundaries of port areas) that goes beyond the physical boundaries marked by fences. Land use porosity effectively creates land use continuity, a functional porosity that serves as a hidden blueprint for future planning. Understanding land use porosity can provide a foundation for novel approaches to the development of transition strategies that are needed to address contemporary challenges, including climate change and sea level rise, digitization, and new work and life practices in port city regions. In conclusion, we note that due to the porosity of land use patterns, the separation between the present port and the city is beginning to crumble. However, this process has yet to be made fully visible and used as a basis for design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares methods and results concerning the two most recent inventories of brownfield sites in Slovenia: while the MOP inventory focuses more on spatial planning issues, the MGRT inventory concentrates more on economic issues. Therefore, the two methodologies used cannot be properly combined and a new methodology for brownfields inventory is only able to adopt certain elements of each. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that ordinary and outstanding landscapes are often considered separate, but in spatial reality they are connected; they are the same. The theoretical concept of the Janus face, which combines a centripetal, inward-oriented face and a centrifugal, outward-oriented face, can also be applied to observations of landscapes. The question is whether and why landscapes might correlate with this concept. To explore and confirm this thesis, two landscapes are selected that address this argument: the exceptional viticultural landscapes of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and terraced landscapes in general. Both landscapes include two opposing aspects: they are examples of how ordinary life (the work of farmers and their collective commitment) can produce a set of extraordinary, outstanding spatial structures. Both aspects are fused together in the appearance of the landscape. The polarities are particularly important for the recognition of terraced landscapes, which were created at the very beginning of the historical development of landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Negotiations between the public and private sectors in the urban regeneration process can help achieve public interest objectives. Two conventional urban indicators, the floor area ratio [FAR] and the site coverage ratio [SCR], are used as steering instruments to examine the success of the city's entrance into dynamic negotiations with private owners. A comparison of the starting development vision and final result at the conclusion of the negotiations shows that the negotiation process has yielded significant benefits for all parties involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transformation of coastal or river waterfronts is among the most interesting phenomena in urban redevelopment because the coastal belt is rightly considered among the exceptional locations. When examining waterfronts, the coastal area in the northeast part of the old town of Koper is a very interesting laboratory because it was intensely transformed in a short timeframe. The urban and architectural development of the city of Koper and its urban areas experienced important turning points in the twentieth century, to which political and social events in the northern Adriatic significantly contributed. The key spatial changes in Koper included the construction of the newest northern Adriatic port, the Port of Koper, and projects such as construction of high-rise buildings by architect Edo Mihevc in the northern part of the old city core of Koper and in the Belvedere area. After 2000, new spatial solutions for further developing Slovenia's only port and three adjacent squares (Vergerio Square, Museum Square, and Nazor Square) on the northern side of the former island are being sought through public procurement or public urban and architectural competitions. Although the port is slowly implementing planned steps from the 2011 National Spatial Plan (e.g., dredging the first basin), residents feel that some of the selected squares still remain the most degraded areas of the city. The research describes some historical facts important for understanding the transformation of the location studied, the development of the construction of the Port of Koper, and some arrangements on the north side of the historic core. The analytical assessment of the first plans for a port at Koper and the contemporary comprehensive urban design for the spatial layout of the Port of Koper highlights key elements of spatial transformations of the port area (the waterfront, watercourses, traffic networks, urban structure, and specific territorial features) and individual arrangements in the northern part of the city's historic core. Those spatial elements of the port of Koper, for which there have been various proposals since the construction of the port began, are defined in the discussion. The conclusion offers concrete and general considerations relevant to understanding and evaluating current spatial proposals, and also relevant for designing future spatial proposals not only for Koper's coastal waterfront area but also for other waterfront and port areas. Interconnected areas - or the borders between the city and the port, or the port and the surrounding landscape - are becoming a key point in implementing modern town-planning concepts, thereby increasing the importance of their professional and innovative meaning. Ports fear that urban solutions will affect and restrict the main port activity. Similarly, cities fear that the expansion of the port traffic will generate more noise and negative environmental impacts in city areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]