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Until the beginning of the twentieth century domestic architecture and the design of Iranian houses was sympathetic to the social, cultural and religious values of traditional Iranian society. A wave of Westernisation, which started in the early 20th century, greatly impacted on domestic architectural style and design in Iran. Due to a continuous process of disconnection from traditional and vernacular design principles, cons residents’ needs and values. Domestic architecture spaces are largely designed in an attempt to merely mimic some aspects of Iranian traditional houses while failing to function properly, hence new spaces do not relate to the sociocultural and religious practices and lifestyles of people. In this context, this research focusing on middle-income people, investigates ways in which contemporary housing solutions can cater better to the constantly changing lifestyles of residents while retaining various cultural and symbolic connotations that are embedded in various spaces in a house. The research focuses on Kerman, a historical city in Iran. Adopting a qualitative methodology, this research employs narrative workshops, photo elicitation and in-depth semi-structured interviewing methods for data collection. The research adopted diverse techniques during the interviews, such as drawings, models and films, to capture the rich narratives of participants’ experiential understanding and perceptions of their houses. These rich and complex narratives were analysed to examine the relationship between various spatial arrangements and residents’ sociocultural and religious practices. The research findings show the complex relationship between residents, the places in which they live and the organisation of their home and suggests key architectural design propositions that relate to social interaction, inside-outside connectedness, privacy and re-inventing the past, which play a prominent role in developing an appropriate domestic architecture in contemporary Iran.

Wind turbines are playing an increasing role in the global process of producing renewable energy. There is a development towards integrating large-scale onshore wind turbines within urban environment, and some of these are close to residential areas. The potential adverse impacts of wind turbine noise on health and well-being have attracted substantial attention. The aim of this thesis was to model the distribution of wind turbine noise in suburban-urban residential areas and to investigate the relationships between exposure to wind turbine noise, resident’s response to the noise, and their health and well-being. Questionnaire responses on health and well-being were linked to the noise mapping of respondent’s façade exposures, using statistical tests. The overall results can be highlighted as follows: Firstly, urban morphology – such as the orientation, shape, and length of the building, as well as the spacing between adjacent buildings – could largely influence localised noise exposure especially the noise on receptors’ quiet façades. Noise reduction levels of five morphological indices were identified to guide architects and urban planners in residential design. Secondly, wind turbine noise levels were positively associated with self-reported noticeability and annoyance due to the noise, as well as self-reported prevalence of ear-discomfort, dizziness and nausea. Wind turbine noise levels did not directly influence sleep and subjective well-being, although self-reported health and happiness of the study sample were poorer than the sample of national health survey. Non-acoustic factors – such as age, education, visibility of the turbine, and housing type – could affect self-reported noise evaluation and health. Thirdly, respondent’s knowledge of the research purpose leaded to under-reported health symptoms, which was an important finding on research methodology that suggested the use of a control group with research purpose masked to minimise the focusing bias in health impact assessments. Finally, planning and design suggestions were provided towards wind turbine noise management in urban areas, such as siting urban wind turbines beside busy roads, designing long terraced houses, and engaging public participation.

This thesis proposes a new philosophy of birth space design that values the diverse spatial practices and space-based experiences of childbearing women, across all types of birth venues and experiences of birth. The research aligns with the philosophy of woman-centred maternity care. It critically examines this as an intervention imposed on to a pre-existing medical system of care - a system which, in turn, influences the techno-rational basis of healthcare evidence-based architecture and the tendency for researchers to investigate the birth environment in quantifiable ways. The thesis proposes that birth space should be interrogated in a number of new qualitative ways: by user experience-based spatial design starting with the interiors of buildings; by examining women’s patterns of use of space over time, especially in relation to social interactions; and by interpreting space-based experiences within women’s birth stories. The literature review draws from a wide-range of literature: architectural, spatial, birth-environment, social theory, midwifery, obstetrics and policy documents. It critiques the naive readings of homely, control, safety and risk, and architecture understood as a techno-rational domain, in the extant research relating to birth spaces. This thesis has an interpretative methodology that crosses disciplinary boundaries, and the definitions of architectural space and childbirth, that have previously limited knowledge of birth spaces. The nature of what is appropriate evidence for design, the spatial understanding afforded by using visual qualitative methods, semiotic meaning within policy documents, the nature of personal experiences of childbirth, and the application of a critical spatial methodology to birth spaces, all inform the selection of methods. Representations of architecture are used to interpret the social and spatial meaning that architecture represents to birth space producers and users. Spatial practices for producing birth spaces are interpreted from the three policy design guidance documents commonly used in the context of maternity care in the UK; and the spatial practices of childbearing women are interpreted from the experiences of twenty-four women who took part in qualitative interviews. The transcripts, policy guidance documents and drawings were thematically-analysed and the visual data was also examined as semiotic materials. The findings demonstrate that birth spaces are prosumed and curated by women. Birth space is experienced as a socially-situated progression through time - and not contained within one room as current guidance implies. Women’s spatial experiences are embodied and influenced by prior experience and expectations of birth venues. Space is experienced in multiple ways (visually, via perceived affordances, and via movement) that are contingent on the venue. Experiences of waiting and of labour as a ‘physical journey’ are both spatially significant. Women want to use spatial strategies to self-manage the ebb and flow of companionship in labour. Women build personally-meaningful intergenerational stories from where birth took place. The discussion chapter develops spatial insights into the design guidance and maternity policy goals (choice, control, continuity of carer and personalised care) from the interpretation of women’s experiences. The thesis creates a new critical understanding of the value of social architecture for improving midwifery practice and women’s birth experiences. Practical recommendations to be applied to existing maternity spaces are proposed. Existing spatial and social theory is applied to the new area of birth space, and its lacunae identified. The thesis concludes with a new situated spatial theory derived from women’s experiences of childbirth as inspiration for much needed further interdisciplinary research and design development in this area.

Asian vernacular architecture is generally dynamic, progressing and constantly transforming. The significance of Asian vernacular values lies in the culture, identity and memory of the people rather than the fabric or preserved artefacts. Likewise, the vernacular traditional Malay houses are a manifestation of the craft process and meanings embodied in the people, their building practice and artefacts. However, the Malay building culture is diminishing while the numbers of tukang or master craftsmen is declining, which adds to the loss of traditional knowledge and skills in Malay house building culture. The study investigates the traditional craft of Malay house-building within the present in order to identify the legacy of Malay craftsmanship concerning knowledge and skills of tukang and their apprentices. Furthermore, the study explores contemporary Malay building practice and inquiring how traditions were and continued to be conveyed towards building participants. The unstructured interviews with tukang, experts and non-experts, while observing building activities were used to provide insights of the Malay house building culture within contemporary. The methodology adopted is relevant as much of the craft knowledge and skills are embodied and performed, rather than articulated in oral or literature. The study concluded that Malay architecture is rooted not in the tangible built fabric but in the knowledge and dexterity of tukang and the craft process relating to materials, tools, measurement and bodily movement. Similarly, the meaning of Malay craftsmanship is defined by tukang and embodied in their practice. However, tukang is more than simply a builder but has a spiritual role that connects the Malay cultural beliefs to the Malay house and the building process. Hence, the study implies that the Malay house building is a form of a spiritual practice emphasising the value of culture, memory and religious identity rather than purely narrating the structures. Furthermore, the findings of the study suggest that essential qualities of craftsmanship, knowledge and skills in Malay house-building are exemplified subliminally within the actions of buka-pasang or disassembly and assembly. The study demonstrates that the practice of disassembling and assembling existing Malay structures, was and still remain as a socially communicative act in transmitting building traditions. The study characterised the disassembly and assembly as a building process involving dyadic knowledge of technical (strategy) and spiritual (cultural) that manifest the poetics, procedural, ritual and somatic means of Malay house-building culture. Therefore the study asserted that performing disassembly and assembly afford to a sense of retracing footsteps of past mastery as an embodied heritage experience - hence comparable to the apprenticeship-style of learning that demonstrates the process of mimetic, causal learning and reflective cognitive process. Eventually, the study expresses that the values of Malay cultural heritage are not in the static heritage artefact, but the physical and spiritual interaction between artefacts and the people in the present. The answer to the loss of heritage and the decline of traditional building practice and knowledge it offers is through disassembly and assembly, where the study views this process as a catalyst in overcoming these shortcomings.

‘Just Urbanism’ refers to approaches that attempt to tackle social injustice and to address the difficulties of living in unjust spaces of contemporary cities affected by uneven development. This thesis argues that just urbanism cannot be achieved without taking into account inhabitants’ sociocultural aspects and their experiences of (in)justice. Therefore, it offers mapping as a method to explore qualities and themes that influence such experiences and to incorporate them in the just development of neighbourhoods and cities. Gaps in current approaches towards achieving a (more) just city occur as a result of a predominant focus on distributive aspects (quantitative approach) rather than on social aspects, values, qualities and recognition of differences. This research particularly concentrates on the gap in the mapping of injustice and on the digital tools used for this purpose, which often disregard socio-cultural condition of inhabitants. Moreover, there is a disconnect between abstract theories of justice and the everyday situated judgments and design decision that planners, designers and architects have to make. These gaps can be addressed by concentrating on the relationship between the individual and the collective, their position in society and their everyday experiences of (in)justice in the city. The mapping method used in this research is conceptualised as a platform to bring socio-cultural aspects into the digital mapping of injustice and represents particular qualities and conditions that influence inhabitants’’ experiences of (in)justice. Therefore, mapping here is both the subject of the research as well as the research method. To situate the research within a city context, a case study approach (with Sheffield as the case study) and a multi-method approach were adopted. The latter was conducted through three phases of mapping, including Storytelling Map, Map Art, and Mapping Multiplicity, comprising the residents’ perspectives from the individual, one-on-one exchange through to the collective collection of data on the city neighbourhood level. This overall mapping methodology and, in particular, the Mapping Multiplicity platform were put forward as a multi-method mapping approach, one that is more situated in the local context, and, by incorporating local knowledge and recognising individuals, their communities and the diversity of their background, it acknowledges different ways (in)justice is experienced. By doing so, it enables the identification of the particular needs of various communities, whilst providing the spatial context in which they take place. In this way, the proposed mapping method can complement current approaches in order to create a (more) complete picture of (in)justices in the city. Therefore it enables designers, planners and decision makers to make informed decisions that are backed up by thorough research. It also provides citizens with means to create a vision for a just city while being continuously engaged in the process of challenging the status quo and creating and consequently moving toward achieving a more just city. This thesis builds on the work and theories of a number of scholars. To define justice, poststructuralist and Marxist thinkers such as Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraser and David Harvey provided the framework. From their viewpoint, the contemporary challenges for justice are manifestations of both vi uneven distribution and the misrecognition of social groups, ethnicities, gender inequalities, etc. In moving toward a just city, Susan Fainstein’s theory which stresses the importance of three areas – equity, diversity and democracy and Henry Lefebvre’s ‘right to the city’ which entails three rights for inhabitants: the right to appropriation, the right to participation and the right to difference, can represent the way this thesis responds to the question of justice and just city. In relation to the mapping methods, Denis Wood and Brian Holmes’ discourse of “counter-Mapping”, a critical method in which mapping is employed to ‘dissent’ and resist the power of the state, and taking the perspective of the marginalised, has influenced the overall methods of mapping (in)justice in this thesis. Storytelling and Map Art were inspired by performances such as Jake Barton’s ‘City of Memory’, while Mapping Multiplicity is in dialogue with the notion of Rhizome conceptualized by Deleuze and Guattari and practices such as Fernard Deligny’s tracings of autistic children, Doina Petrescu’s relational maps of communities, groups, devices, and places, as well as Mark Lombardi’s Narrative Structures and Bureau d’Etudes’ power lines, all of which demonstrate the use of line and relationality in exposing the complex relations among physical, political, economic and social forces.

Reducing energy use and CO2 emissions to curb global warming and climate change are the greatest challenges now facing mankind. The vast majority of energy generated from fossil fuels is burned to run vehicles, fuel power stations and cool or heat homes. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest producer and exporter of petroleum, currently consumes almost three times higher than the world average energy use and hence; ranked ninth among nations for CO2 emissions. Among all fossil energy consumers, residential buildings use almost half of the Saudi’s prime energy sources and are responsible for almost 50% of the emitted CO2. In such a hot climate region, air conditioning (AC) of dwellings is by far the major consumer representing 69% of domestic energy use and drives peak loading. Future projections predict a continuous increase in energy use as the majority of existing buildings are poorly designed for the prevailing climate, leading to excessive use of mechanical AC. Therefore, it is crucial for Saudi Arabia to consider a horizon where hydrocarbons are not the dominant energy resource. The adoption of energy efficiency measures and low carbon cooling strategies may have the potential to displace a substantial percentage of oil currently used to run conventional AC plants. Therefore, the current study investigates the viability of ‘fabric first’ intelligent architectural design measures, in combination with hybrid ground cooling pipes integrated with black-body radiant night cooling systems, with a specific purpose to displace AC systems and decrease the carbon footprint while sustaining year-round thermal comfort. The interrogation of this hypothesis was addressed in three stages. The first stage was to generate a baseline analysis of the thermo-physical and energy performance of a typical residential block in Jeddah. The second stage involved developing an alternative low energy cooling approach that could handle high ambient temperatures. The task involved designing ground pipe ventilation integrated with high emissivity blackbody radiator to displace AC systems. The design of such ‘hybrid’ system required a parametric analysis combined with testing prototypes in field trials to establish actual ground temperatures at various depths and black body emissivity ranges under different sky conditions. This hybrid system became the subject of numerical modelling and simulation using DesignBuilder software in conjunction with EnergyPlus simulation engine. The third stage was to assess the simulation results and validate the cooling efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the hybrid system compared to the baseline. The preliminary results of prototype thermal simulation and field trials suggest that ‘fabric first’ passive designs and measures (PDMs), combined with night hydronic radiant cooling (HRCS) and supply ventilation via ground pipes (GPCS), can negate the necessity for a standard AC system by displacing over 80% of cooling demand and lower the carbon footprint of a typical housing block by over 75%. Such passive and hybrid system applications also have a remarkably short payback period with energy savings offsetting the capital costs associated with building thermo-physical enhancement.

In 1984 E.O. Wilson proposed the Biophilia Hypothesis, an evolutionary theory which holds that there is a connection between humans and non-human Nature which is innate: that when this connection is provided the human mind performs at its best, and when this connection is absent the human mind is in a state of deterioration. Increasingly, research in the field of environmental psychology supports the Biophilia Hypothesis; studies show that connection to Nature provides psychological, physical, and emotional benefits. Concurrently, the world’s urban population is rapidly growing and is expected to reach 70% of the world’s total by 2050. Thus a dichotomy emerges: how do we maintain this essential and beneficial human connection to Nature in an increasingly urbanising world? The research has developed the Space/Nature Syntax, a novel, cross-disciplinary methodology which attempts to understand how maintaining an instinctive bond with Nature, through visual connectivity, can enhance social interactions and inform future design choices within built environments. Arcosanti, an “urban laboratory” in the Arizona desert which is built to the design principles of Paolo Soleri’s Arcology (ARChitecture + ecOLOGY) theory, serves as a site for both development and application of the Space/Nature Syntax methodology. The Space/Nature Syntax was applied to 15 public spaces at Arcosanti and both qualitative and quantitative relationships between spatial configuration, visual connectivity to Nature and observed social Interactions were produced. The main findings support a relationship between spatial configuration and both Passive Interaction with Space and Spontaneous Use of Space, echoing existing established patterns in spatial analysis research. Additionally, the research finds a relationship between visual connectivity to Nature and Intimate Interaction with Others, and between Visual Interaction with the Natural Environment and Personal Interaction with Others, suggesting that a view of Nature encourages a social connection between people of a certain emotional closeness. Finally, the thesis presents the viability of the Space/Nature Syntax methodology as a design tool, projecting where social interactions within built spaces at Arcosanti could be influenced by alterations to spatial configuration and visual connectivity to Nature following future stages of construction; demonstrating where informed design can allow for the essential human/Nature connection to thrive, and taking steps towards understanding how cities can be built in harmony with Nature.