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The complex panorama of the Mediterranean area in the fourteenth century compelled Venice to modify its economic patterns. The city started to pay attention to the Italian mainland, developing its agriculture and other industries. But the Veneto was marshy and needed to be drained and improved. The Venetian and mainland aristocracy gradually abandoned commerce for agriculture and land reclamation. Andrea Palladio built many villas for them from which they could administer their estates, transforming the marshes of the Veneto into sites for the villas. Those villas became the perfect place for retirement and contemplation.

Filarete's treatise presents architecture, the new archaized mode of building, to Francesco Sforza as the means to historiate and recuperate his insurgent regime, which had overturned the preceding dynastic order of power. This thesis shows how the treatise tried to persuade a powerful but retardatory new prince not yet absorbed by the legitimizing narrative of a renascence of antiquity. It focuses on the treatise's narrative, and places it in its political situation, to show that Filarete made a dramatic, polemical opposition between building and architecture, which he will be shown to have defined as those techniques of assuring the arche.

This report examines the diffusion of innovation to North American home building firms. Innovation is defined as new technologies in the form of new products and techniques. / The organizational structure of the home building firm and the unique mindset of builders/developers running these firms are examined in order to understand the firm and its leader. Technology diffusion theories are then explored to comprehend how innovation reaches the marketplace. Through research, evaluation criteria are established which builders/developers use when adopting innovation. These criteria are tested by interviewing twelve selected builders/developers in the Montreal-Ottawa region and by recording their responses to thirty innovative products. / The study demonstrates that all factors comprising the evaluation criteria are important to different builders/developers at different times. Furthermore, builders/developers cannot be treated as a homogeneous group since their backgrounds are not similar. Accordingly, no model depicting a builder's/developer's decision-making process can guarantee the successful diffusion of an innovation. The author therefore suggests certain guidelines to help innovators diffuse innovation to home building firms.

Le Corbusier's project for the French parish church of Saint-Pierre at Firminy-Vert is an architectural work which embodies the modern concern for individual accessibility. The following thesis examines Saint-Pierre in this light, showing how it was created as a reaction against the imposing and manipulative natures of both a reductive perspective manifestation of art, and a dogmatic form of ritual. These themes, being particular to modern art, may be seen as a desire for a more accessible and individual participation. The reading of Saint-Pierre proceeds on three levels, addressing divergent aspects of the work's nature, ranging from its formal character, to its symbolism split between the natural and cultural realms. Each level contributes to the image of an open place of worship, that is, an accessible architectural setting intended to frame an individual and inward form of worship. This reading also reveals the inherent conflict involved in attempting to reconcile a monumental disposition--evident at Saint-Pierre and understood as forming part of the poetic integrity of the work--with the accessibility that tends to compromise such integrity. This points to the problematic nature of monumental architecture in modern society.

The study of cost-saving measures involved in the fit-up of the kitchen is explored, and two strategies of cost-saving are identified: reducing kitchen area; and, simplifying construction materials and assembly techniques. Alternative area requirements, as well as alternative materials and assembly techniques are examined in an effort to reduce cost. The cost of a series of compact kitchen layouts are analysed with respect to alternative construction techniques. A method that assesses the functional requirements of the layouts and costs involved is applied and various cost effective designs are examined.

This thesis is a reflection on Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's (1876-1944) book La cucina futurista which was published in 1932. The text will provide the setting for an interpretation and a discussion of the possibility for finding a way of addressing and creating architecture today that strives to initiate creative, imaginative, poetic, and playful attitudes - yet attitudes that are always ethical. Marinetti' s book offered a resistive proj ect that was to breathe new life into the creative realm. With help from the text, this thesis will ponder the notion of architecture today as a place of invitation in which humans may gather and share vital and emotive dialogues about themselves and their existence. Reading Marinetti' s text, we may conclude with a possible strategy of resistance for- architecture that can be, as its Futurist predecessor once was, critical of its present limitations. / Cette these est une reflexion sur le livre de Filipo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), La Cucina Futurista, publie en 1932. Ce texte servira de cadre a une interpretation et a une discussion de la possibilite de trouver une facon de penser et de creer une architecture qui serait a la fois creative, imaginative, poetique et ludique, tout en restant eminemment ethique. Le livre de Marinetti offrit une position de resistance qui allait insuffler une nouvelle vie au domaine creatif de l'epoque. A l'aide du texte, cette these tentera de valider la possibilite que l'architecture actuelle soit un lieu invitant les etres humains a se rencontrer et partager des dialogues emotifs et vitaux concernant leur vie et leur existence. En lisant le texte de Marinetti, on pourra en arriver a une strategie de resistance pour l'architecture qui pourra etre, comme le fut son predecesseur Futuriste, critique vis-a-vis ses limitations actuelles.

The thesis would start out by dealing with the multiple dwelling types, and their respective environments, as they occur in various countries. It would analyze, discuss and evaluate their merits. Brought into the study would be the planning aspects pertaining especially to the space about buildings and their atmosphere and appearance. Finally, certain theories and conclusions might be formulated to improve the environment about multiple dwellings locally.

The French Canadian village occupied until recently a dominant position in the agricultural economy of a region. It functioned as a service centre for its immediate surrounding and contained within its framework all elements required, whether conceptual or physical, to fulfill this task. The village represented the first step in the make-up of a balanced urban entity. The Industrial Revolution, however, upset this balance. Centralization emerged as a major trend and through improved transportation and communication facilities, urbanization of a higher degree followed suit.

Throughout history the concept of a "mall" has manifested itself in various forms. Malls provided once and continue to provide an opportunity for ostentation and observation in a constructed environment. Ranelagh Gardens is an example of such an environment. It is an Eighteenth Century London pleasure garden devoted exclusively to the acts of exhibiting one's self and beholding others, a sort of celebratory act of mutual affirmation. These gardens were frequented by various elements of London society, from royalty to the middle class. All sorts of boundaries were further blurred through the ritual of the masquerade, which flourished at Ranelagh. After examining the various devices employed to that end, I will look into the parallels of such interaction in our increasingly virtual society.