The aim of this study was to review the ward housekeeper role, specifically focusing on the impact since the national implementation as a result of the NHS Plan (Department of Health, 2000). The housekeeper role is a ward-based non-clinical multi-skilled position. The ward housekeeper focuses on ensuring the cleaning, food service and maintenance are delivered to appropriate standards in order to make the care environment suitable for the patient (NHS Estates, 2001a). The study was divided into two parts: An initial investigative phase presented in a series of 13 case studies. A second evaluative phase looking at a longitudinal impact of the role presented in two case studies. As a phenomenological piece of work, the primary methodology employed was a case study design based on the holistic multiple case with single units of analysis (Yin, 2009) i.e. different NHS Trusts that had implemented the new ward housekeeper role. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were used as the principal method of data collection. Several themes arose from the first set of case studies relating to the Trust's experiences of implementing the ward housekeeping service. The main themes related to six areas that were: Role; Recruitment; Induction; Training; Integration (into the ward team) and Management. The evaluative case studies revisited the themes and found them to still be appropriate. In addition the later case studies also discussed the following: The impact of the Modern Matron role; Importance of auditing; Shift in emphasis from catering to cleaning; A developing tension between FM and ward staff; Lack of National support and co-ordination (for NHS Trusts implementing and managing housekeepers) and Value to patients and contribution to patient care. The significance of this study emerges through the advancement of methodology within the context of facilities in healthcare and through the contribution to knowledge and practice by way of suggesting two original models: 1. FM department and ward team involvement in ward housekeeper services: a proposed model (Model A). 2. Emotional and function based housekeeper concerns (Model B)

This practice-led thesis asks how touring urban buildings and their environs can reinvigorate learning activities. Concepts and processes for learning through touring are developed through the thesis in the form of analytic investigations and design projects that aim to facilitate wider engagement for people to learn about the built environment. The development of a design methodology, learning-through-touring, is the key original contribution to knowledge that the thesis makes. The thesis provides a framework for making and investigating interconnections across areas of enquiry from different disciplines such as architecture, art, education, geography and urbanism. It is composed of two parts which operate in dialogue in relation to one another: Contexts and Projects. In one part, Learning and Touring Contexts, notions of site-specificity and subjectivity are argued to be relevant in rethinking the relationship between learning and touring. These discussions are then developed to produce the key concepts explored through the thesis: those that involve a shift from passive to active learning through visitor participation in the production of tours. The thesis proposes a new theoretical framework or context for considering how learning can take place through touring. The other part, Learning and Touring Projects, explores these ideas in practice, developing through a series of site-specific projects, new methods and processes for designing learning activities in tours. These projects are: Mudlarking in Deptford, Transitional Spaces at the V&A and Cracking Maps at the British Library. The thesis concludes by presenting a new design methodology – learning-through-touring. This methodology has relevance for those concerned with developing participatory practice in urban design and architecture, with education centres committed to delivering learning activities in and about the built environment, with educators who develop creative ways of engaging with the topography of the urban landscape, and with those researching mobile learning.

Now challenging the westernised hegemony of global wealth in the United States and Europe, China’s rise as an economic superpower is the subject of much hyperbole and discussion. As the urban nuclei that spearhead its modernisation become increasingly globalized, perhaps the most prominent keystone of development is the shopping mall, which increasingly defines the public spaces of the city core. The presence, in this context, of the built form that embodies Western capitalisms apogee makes explicit the inherent tensions between China’s Communist state and its ascent within the free market. It is a scenario which brings modern China to a crossroads as it struggles to come to terms with a national identity that can embrace these opposing strands of ideology. A unique opportunity therefore exists to examine the manifestation of these interrelationships in the hybrid built form of the shopping mall. Understanding these constructions of identity as processes generated by the fluid interaction of global and local influences, the aim of the research will be to theorise an alternative understanding of the shopping mall that is more relevant to China’s ongoing evolution. In turn, the study aims to re-evaluate the building typology at a global level. Much architectural criticism fails to address the levels of meaning implicit within the shopping mall. It is, however, a building type that endures by providing an environment in which the principle leisure activities of many developed (and developing) societies are contained within a protective, highly intelligible and environmentally stabilised shell. If architecture is to remain a relevant social art then a more holistic understanding of this phenomenon is a necessary and integral part of the process of adapting to globalizing forces. A study of Chinese malls offers an excellent case study, indeed microcosm, of what is happening in all our cities today.

It is desirable for a glazed façade to have a variable performance to moderate a building’s energy-balance from seasonal variations in solar gains (Davies, 1981). A novel actuator mechanism is developed that self-regulates a façade by physically reconfiguring its movable elements into different environmental control functions. Its practical feasibility is explored with a proprietary thermal actuator that exploits the expansion of wax during melting from its absorption of heat energy. This provides a means to operate a mechanism solely by its response to passive energy exchanges given prevailing weather conditions. An advance is needed for thermal actuators to respond differently to the seasonal intensity of sunlight. A means to overcome this obstacle is explored through the possibility of linking multiple heat-motors into thermal comparators. A methodology is adopted to iteratively develop virtual models of mechanisms and energy-flows, complemented by practical machines for testing in controlled climate-chambers and observation on uncontrolled sites. The possibility of differentiating the energy-balance between actuators by amplifying seasonal differences in the daily intensity of sunlight under clear-skies is investigated using hot-boxes. Simulations predict the possibility of a well-differentiated annual repertoire of responses that reconfigures façade elements for daylight access, solar shading and night-time insulation. Practical thermal actuators in hot-boxes arranged with differentiated exposure to sunlight were observed through a cycle of seasons. The results demonstrate the feasibility of a seasonal difference in actuator responses from daily cycles of accumulated and rejected heat-energy. The development of a passive means to seasonally marshal the state of wax in response to sunlight and use linked thermal actuators to mechanically express it has shifted the conceptual ground away from environmental control that is abstracted. Architects can move towards the design of dynamic building façades that can literally reconfigure in and of itself by virtue of the embodied state of its material components.

Most books on architecture start when a building is completed, carefully editing out any evidence of the design and production process. As a result, architecture is often seen as a product rather than a process. The Architecture Chronicle is about architecture as a practice. It has two parts. The book Blur: the Making of Nothing, by Diller and Scofidio, has informed the format of part one. Blur book reports on the design and construction process of Blur building from initial design ideas to the completion of the building. Part one is a diary reporting on the realisation of five stage sets and one urban intervention realised over a period of four years, starting on 16 December 2003. The diary is intercepted by references that are, where appropriate, carefully integrated in the overall design. The book Delirious New York: A retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan, by Rem Koolhaas, tells the story of the building of New York with the author taking on the role of a ‘ghost writer’1, putting into perspective the ‘mountains of evidence’2 to discover patterns, methodologies and strategies. Part two is such a ‘retroactive manifesto’3, mining the projects in the diary for strategies that re-appear and fortify throughout The Architecture Chronicle. In his book Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture, Adrian Forty observes that the pre-Renaissance architect worked on the building site amongst other tradesmen in an environment of dispersed authorship. It was his ability to draw and to write, acquired during the Italian Renaissance, that allowed the architect to remove himself from the site of construction and to upgrade his status from anonymous craftsman amongst others to artistic creator. New procurement methods have changed the role of the architect in contemporary construction projects. To minimise liability, and as a result of the increased specialisation of building professionals, contemporary buildings are designed by a design team. This threatens the status of the architect as artistic creator. Today, the architect operates once again in an environment of dispersed authorship as a member of the design team working alongside other design professionals. Drawings are more often produced by visualisers, engineers and sub-contractors than by architects while text is more often written by surveyors or specifiers. To maintain his status as artisitc creator, the architect in The Architecture Chronicle takes on three distinct characters. The architect-inventor challenges conventions and questions the social status quo. The architect-activist transgresses the boundary of the profession and enters the construction process. The architect-arbitrator engages the audience to realise the ambitious project. The Architecture Chronicle concludes that the contemporary architect still draws and writes, but that it is often the architect’s ability to engage and direct that asserts his or her status. To assert his or her status in the design team, the architect’s ability to talk and to act is more important than his or her ability to draw and write.

This thesis develops an Alternative Urban Practice of Elderly Care that actively attends to the neglected relationship between older people and public space through a series of temporary urban interventions and a slower paced process of writing and reflection. It opens up current limits within spatial practices and academic study that have tended (in their instrumental, policyoriented focus) to avoid more creative and playful explorations of how ageing might otherwise affect people’s everyday relationship to urban space. By drawing out the hidden etymological roots of care in curating (from the Latin curare) and evolving, via care-focused feminist ethics [Held], the invented persona of the caring ‘Curatrix’, this practice builds on the urban practice of acting ‘otherhow’ [Petrescu] with its related practice of ‘urban curating’ [Buschonten/Shalk], to enact a series of (Ludological) interventions that playfully- critically subvert the standard clinical understanding of intervention (as used in elderly care). The thesis is structured around three temporary interventions (an event/artifact/ a spatial proposition) that explore three age-specific themes in Turn (degrees of mobility/sedentary existence/levels of audibility). As these themes are worked through on-the-ground (as temporary interventions acted out with/from/for ‘the elderly’), and on the page (through a slower-paced process of critical reflection and alternative writing strategies [Rendell]) the thesis begins to broach the delicate (and hidden) relational/temporal dynamics of a practice engaged, simultaneously, in play, care, fantasy and critique. In its playfully shifting tone and mode, working not only across disciplinary, practice/theory boundaries or generational (old/young) lines but across boundaries of temper too, this Alternative Urban Practice of Elderly Care advances a model of practice where carefully attending to people’s changing relationship to public space in older age involves a dual process of intervention/ reflection that shifts deliberately in its inflection between the careful, careless and the carefree.

This thesis explores the history of the 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale. Held under the title ‘The Presence of the Past’, this multi-faceted show displayed international contemporary architecture with an Italo-American twist. After this exhibition, postmodernism became a galvanic term in relation to architecture. A growing specialist interest both in architectural exhibitions as a ‘genre’ of cultural manifestation, and in postmodernism as an architectural period or style were the theoretical impetus for this research. Looking at the question of architectural exhibitions in a postmodern context (1968 to 1988), the thesis seeks to unravel three very diverse yet interwoven narratives relating to the 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale. It draws upon recent literature on architectural exhibitions, newly accessible archival material, and original oral history accounts, and looks at exhibition techniques and exhibition spaces, institutional changes, and exhibitions as a site of confrontation between advocates of modern and postmodern architecture. It will serve to demonstrate that the 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale was a hinge in three ways: first, in the development of architectural exhibitions as a ‘genre’ of cultural manifestations, second, in the history of the Venice Biennale, and third, in the history of postmodernism. Successfully playing on postmodern form and content, the 1980 Biennale also marked a new relation between the worlds of art and architecture, arising from the crisis that had touched Italian cultural institutions in 1968, and the consequent transformation of the architectural product as end object. Too often seen as an isolated event, the 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale was in reality linked to a series of debates that occurred before, during, and after the exhibition. As the first detailed historical account of the exhibition, this research sheds new light on the history of an event that, despite its transient nature, has continued to remain vividly present in the collective memory.

This thesis examines the production of multi-layered space in Japan. Composed of 2D planes, this multi-layered space, generally called the concept of ‘ma’ has mystified outsiders as an alternative spatiality to that of the West. In Japan, numerous studies have emphasised the uniqueness of this Japanese spatiality by confirming the existence of the multi-layered space. These studies, empirical in nature, mostly focus on concrete materials such as buildings and 2D representations or sometimes use statistics, confusing mental and real spaces. As a result, theoretical studies and especially critical insights into this concept remain rare; there has been no investigation into mental space. Therefore, I will challenge such conventions by theorising the production of multi-layered space through critical perspectives. The aim is to investigate an ―Asiatic mode of production‖ of space by asking how multi-layered space has been produced in the representations of Japanese cities and architecture. Using Henri Lefebvre‘s formation of production of space as the main theoretical framework, this thesis explores two types of production of multi-layered space in architectural writings and in an exhibition about the concept of ‘ma’ held in Paris in 1978. In addition, the thesis elaborates on three different forms of multilayered space produced in Japan: 2D representations of paintings and maps, the state‘s location designation system, and the Japanese cartoon film called anime. On the whole, this thesis opens up a new dimension in the Japanese way of understanding space. It identifies a theory of layering in visual representations and develops 2D space into 3D space. More importantly, this thesis points out that multilayered space can be derived from written language and that it has been embedded in everyday 2D and 3D physical manifestations such as arts, architecture, mapping and films. The notion of an individual subject is generally absent from this space.

What is the role of physical public space in democracy? This thesis explores this question from different perspectives in theory – political philosophy and spatial theory – and through three participatory spatial practices – architectural, feminist and political democratic. The research questions whether increasingly representative democratic practice is appropriate for diverse and complex modern cities and examines the effects of representation and participation on public space, exploring possibilities for democratisation. As a theoretical basis, section 1 examines the rise of representative democracy and investigates contemporary theories for the future of democracy, focusing on the agonistic model advocated by Chantal Mouffe and the civil society model theorised by Jürgen Habermas. I argue that these models of participatory democracy can co-exist, are necessarily spatial and identify types of democratic space seen in ancient Athens, where the roles of the theatre (agon), the market place (agora) and the assembly formed a tri-partate model of democracy. Section 2 provides diverse perspectives on how the role of physical public space is articulated through three modes of participatory spatial practice. The first focuses on issues of participation in architectural practice through a set of projects exploring the ‘open spaces’ of a postwar housing estate in Euston. The second practice examines the role of space in the construction of democratic identity through the feminist architecture/art collective taking place, producing space through writing, performance and events. The third explores participatory political democratic practice through social forums at world, European and city levels. I discuss different conceptions of democracy practiced within the social forums, expressed in the discussion of the World Social Forum as a space or a movement. I conclude by arguing that participatory democracy requires a conception of public space as the empy place, which allows different models and practices of democracy to co-exist.

This study examines China’s encounter with architecture and modernity from c.1900 to 1949. In the context of architecture, it expands current knowledge of the practice in pre-communist China. In terms of the study of modernity, it addresses the uniqueness of China’s encounter with modernity through the concept of multiple modernities; a recent theoretical development in social sciences that has yet to be applied to architectural studies. In the context of China studies, it contributes to redressing the current underrepresentation of architecture within studies of the arts. The methodological approach is inclusive, geographically, temporally and architecturally. It is geographically broad within the bounds of China; temporally, while focusing on the period to 1949, it acknowledges China’s incomparably long building traditions and recent urban development; architecturally, it treats contributions of Chinese and Western architects as integral rather than separate. The central theme of this study is that China’s encounter with modernity was mediated multifariously and dominated by contact with Western powers and through contact with an Eastern power, Japan. The heterogeneous origin of modernity in China is what makes its experience unique and its architectural encounters distinctive. These are investigated through a reevaluation of established knowledge of the subject and the inclusion of original archival and photographic material concentrating on Western influence through the Treaty Ports, the emergence of architecture as a profession in China, and Japan’s colonial activities in Manchuria. This study acknowledges the paradox presented by examining China using non-Chinese criteria and considers alternatives to the Westerncentricty that underlies existing approaches to non-Western topics. A multiple modernities approach not only questions the application of conventional theories of modernity or post-colonialism to the Chinese situation, but also offers a more effective way of comprehending the unique complexity of China’s encounter with architectural modernity.