Due to the massive growth of population and enrolment rate of students, coupled with rapid economic improvements after the large-scale production of oil in the early 1960s, the government, of Saudi Arabia introduced prototypical school buildings design into the country to speed up construction without overspending allocated financial allowances for the Ministry of Education. Unfortunately, prototype school buildings were designed with little attention towards the impact of the local climate on indoor conditions. Environmental design principles were neglected during the design of the buildings. All school buildings in Saudi Arabia in general, and in Riyadh city in particular, rely on mechanical equipment to cool, heat and light indoor spaces. As a result, energy is wasted and air pollution is increased. A significant amount of energy could be saved and better indoor conditions achieved if prototype school buildings were designed in accordance with the local climate of the Riyadh region. Environmental design can also improve the educational environment, reduce air pollution and save the running cost of the buildings. The main aim of this research is to maximize the potential of the form and fabric of prototype school buildings in order to provide good comfort conditions with minimum use of energy. Literature review, on-site observation, field experiments and advanced computer simulation tools were used to achieve the main aims of this research and to find answers to the research questions. Field experiments were conducted in three prototype school buildings in Riyadh city, in order to assess their thermal performance, ventilation rate and daylighting levels. Throughout the findings of this research, it was found that the existing prototype school buildings. fail to cope with the local climate of the Riyadh region and have a high level of energy consumption. They also suffer from excessive air-leakage and visual discomfort. This research also investigated the effectiveness of a group of passive solar and energy conservation design strategies in improving the thermal performance of prototype school buildings. It was found that the selected design modifications were able to significantly improve indoor conditions and reduce cooling loads. If applied to the future school building programme, considerable reduction in carbon emission and fuel cost can be achieved in Saudi Arabia. The findings of this research are not only limited to the case study of the prototype school buildings in Riyadh. They can be applied to any school building design in other cities and/or countries that are located in hot, dry climates.

In museums, we consistently interact with museum maps to learn what exhibits can be expected and how to move around, and they work as an integral part of the museum experience. However, museum studies say nothing about museum maps, but rather they have focused on characterising museum experiences in terms of the interactive relationship between pedagogic forms of knowledge and configurational properties of spatial layouts. They hardly explain any role of maps in understanding visitors’ movement behaviours. Therefore, this research aims to answer the following questions: do museum maps relate to architectural and curatorial intents? Can they work like the spatial layouts? Or, can they communicate narrative meanings through graphic components? Do graphic interactions produce identical museum experiences? From two case studies - the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum in London - we argue that museum maps act as an instrumental device for embodying curatorial intents upon given spatial configurations, aiming to deliver survey or route knowledge and to make disciplinary knowledge visible. Throughout in-depth understanding of visitors’ movement behaviours, it is revealed that museum maps work in different ways. Regardless of graphic and configurational attributes, they enable experienced people to create new itineraries. However, novices make distinct movement patterns accordingly. In intelligible layouts, maps lead them directly to attractive exhibitions. However, they do not play a role in generating such an identical route in unintelligible layouts, but rather both strong narratives and syntactically integrated spaces regulate the novice’s exploration. These results suggest that museum maps play a role in shaping formal spatial cultures by communicating disciplinary knowledge, and they also generate highly informal movement patterns by transmitting spatial knowledge. It is concluded that museum maps add new relationships in understanding spatial experience, but they are of limited effectiveness in transforming unintelligible layouts into intelligible ones.

This research project was undertaken to achieve a better understanding of the microclimatic characteristics of the outdoor and indoor environments of school buildings in the UK through the mediation of transitional spaces. Improvements in thermal comfort outdoors around buildings and reductions in energy demand for indoor spaces are two possible contributions of transitional outdoor spaces located adjacent to classrooms or other indoor spaces. The effects of these two functions must be considered jointly so that improved performance in one does not compromise performance of the other. The underlying hypothesis is that the transitional outdoor space can affect environmental conditions in ways that can enhance both the outdoor thermal comfort of occupants and their appreciation of the space and have the potential to reduce the energy demand (e.g. for lighting and space heating) of the building. Moreover, while interest in outdoor pedagogy has been growing in schools, outdoor spaces are rarely equipped to provide for such activity. The microclimate of the transitional outdoor space as an architecturally potential space is therefore central to the ways in which teachers and students can be encouraged to use the space frequently as an extended classroom without adversely affecting the indoor environment. The project focuses on the architectural elements of the transitional outdoor space and aims to reveal its environmental impact on both the outdoor and indoor spaces, and to propose design considerations. Transitional spaces are considered mainly as taking the form of a canopy. Understanding the dynamic environmental processes impinging on these spaces will assist in designing spaces that can support functional use throughout the year. Fieldwork conducted at Effra Nursery School, London focused on the environmental performance of an outdoor canopy and play area adjacent to the classroom. Based on the results of the fieldwork and using well established computer models, simulations were performed to identify the influence of different parameters: that of having a canopy; the effect of the transmissivity of the canopy material (three transparencies 0%, 50%, 90% were considered), the operability of the canopy, orientation (four orientations N,E,S,W were considered), and location (three cities: London, Manchester, Glasgow). The combined effects of canopy transparency and orientation were shown to be critical design considerations in affecting comfort conditions in both indoor and outdoor spaces. The exception was when the canopy was not fixed but operable. It was found that outdoor comfort conditions in the transitional outdoor space can be enhanced by 13.8% by choosing a canopy of 0% transparency compared with a reference case without a canopy, while it could be enhanced by 27.8% using a movable type of canopy in the case of a south facing classroom in London. Daylight and heating energy demand, however, can worsen by 40% and 50% respectively with a fixed canopy, while they could improve by between 23% and 45% using the movable canopy. The fixed canopy with a higher transparency can help to increase outdoor thermal comfort in Glasgow, while one with a lower transparency shows better performance if facinq south in London. The work clearly demonstrates that the architectural design of the transitional space plays an important part in the resulting environmental conditions indoors and outdoors. Using established simulation tools in new ways this research project has quantified the combined effects of external canopies on occupant thermal comfort and on classroom energy demand for space heating and lighting. These have been documented for different canopy characteristics and different UK locations thus providing design guidelines for the provision of such transitional space in school buildings.

School design in England has undergone a process of continued development in response to political and educational reforms. The last decade has witnessed unprecedented investment in building schools programmes, which were initiated by the last Labour Government. It had an ambition to build schools that would make a major contribution to promoting sustainability. To date there has been little critical analysis of these new schools and the contribution that their associated landscape has made towards delivering sustainability. Where there has been research this has focused on the performance of new school buildings and social aspects of school grounds. This research has studied the sustainable profiles and potential of landscape in primary schools, aiming to identify the key drivers and challenges to achieving sustainable landscape. Existing environmental and design assessment tools, to varying degrees, undervalued the contribution that landscape can make to environmental performance of schools. As a result, this research developed a comprehensive assessment tool for this purpose. Five new primary schools in England were identified for detailed research into the key drivers which contribute to or challenge delivering sustainable landscape. Site visits and qualitative interviews with the selected schools' designers and headteachers provided information about how they were designed and managed. In depth analysis was done using the developed assessment tool. This study revealed a number of important findings. School grounds are still significantly undervalued in terms of the wider contribution they can make to sustainability. This was reflected in under investment in school grounds and lack of considering their on-going management requirements. Existing policies do not fully recognise and support their potential because of their focus on the building. Schools that did succeed were invariably supported by a highly committed design team, school community and the Local Authority. Irrespective of budget, the most successful designs were those which recognised the potential to integrate the building with the school grounds and to extend this approach to the wider landscape.

Bristol Zoo Gardens (opened in 1836) are a world in themselves: a fully enclosed site within an affluent neighbourhood, within a multifarious city, serving a large tourist hinterland, they offer a taste of the exotic, the domestic, the wild, and the civilised, all gathered together into one potentially conflictual environment. Since zoos as a leisure space have largely been neglected, this thesis provides a significant case study contributing to a number of overlapping fields: the socio-cultural histories of leisure and of the dissemination of science, local history, and the histories of childhood and gender. It investigates how people claimed ownership over and occupied the site, and how the site was depicted as a 'respectable' place. It assesses the differing experiences of this semi-public space by the working and middle classes, by women and men, and by children and adults, measured against the intentions of the founding shareholders, as implemented by the staff. The organisation's claim to provide rational recreation to locals and tourists was challenged by the financial imperative of covering costs, balancing education and entertainment, refined and popular culture to attract paying visitors. The surrounding neighbourhood has contributed to the Zoo's distinctively local character but has also been a source of tension regarding the character of the entertainment provided within the Gardens and the visitors attracted to them. All these stakeholders have divergent interests and different relationships to the organisation, but all have exhibited, to a greater or lesser degree, a sense of ownership over what was frequently referred to as 'our Clifton Zoo'. This thesis examines how the site's reputation for respectability was enhanced or challenged by these different actors, thereby assisting or threatening the survival of this provincial zoo.

The central question that this thesis addresses is curatorial practice as an ethical practice, a practice of care. In the field of contemporary art and curatorial studies, the connection between curating and care is predominantly considered significant only in terms of the history of the curatorial care of collections, inscribed etymologically in the word ‘curator’ which derives from the Latin ‘cura’, which means ‘care’. Historical and discursive shifts in the later twentieth century have resulted in a situation where other affinities between care and curating are now almost entirely in eclipse. The thesis aims to re-establish the embeddedness of care in curatorial practice by posing the question of a specifically curatorial sense of care and responsibility for the ‘other’ in a relational, ethical sense. This is elaborated through two case studies, which have been selected for their relational conceptualisations, and engagement with a feminist and Indigenous/postcolonial politics of avoiding marginalisation and repression. My reading begins from the understanding that the ethical interweaves in several ways with the political and the aesthetic, as set out in Chapter One and Chapter Two. Part One presents the first case study, the curatorial practice of Catherine de Zegher and the exhibition Inside the Visible (1996). Chapter Three explores the development of de Zegher’s practice over the span of her career, and Inside the Visible through the archive, which is read for patterns of responsibility and acts of care. Chapter Four considers the exhibition as a widely-recognised feminist intervention, which may function as an instance of curatorial ethicality if it is not further subjected to contemporary repression in the literature. Part Two presents the second case study, the curatorial practice of Brenda L Croft and the co-curators of fluent in the Australian Pavilion at the 47th Venice Biennale (1997). Chapter Five maps the development of Croft’s practice, and through a reading of the archive presents fluent as a demonstrably effective intervention into the globalised art world. In this chapter, responsibility and care are also framed broadly in relation to a specifically Indigenous conception of shared values, which is largely characterised in terms of relationality. Chapter Six considers the significance of Indigenous women’s participation in Venice, and the precarity of fluent’s position in the recent discourse on contemporaneity. Its almost total neglect in the literature threatens the exhibition’s efficacy, which against the wider repression of the relationality of Indigenous cultural practices has arguably destructive effects. Finally, the Conclusion reflects on the research process and the way of reading developed in the thesis. Across the case studies, a distinctive ethos of care is detectable in relational practices of responsibility strategised and enacted by curators, and in their sensitivity to relationality on multiple levels. These modes of practice are argued to re-inscribe an ethical concept of care in the fabric of curatorial practice. It is hoped that the thesis presents a framework through which to read and learn from these curatorial instances of care, signalling one potential way to break the cycle of repression and marginalisation.

Since 2009, when Serbia applied for candidacy in the European Union, the debate about educational reform geared up. Along the way important aspects of education have been modernized such as: educational goals, regulations, teaching and learning methods, and curriculum. Additionally, the Ministry of Education obtained funding for “School Modernisation Programme” aiming to improve the quality of learning environments. However, the debate about what kind of schools Serbia should aim to build in the 21st century has not started yet. Close examination of the newly proposed educational goals set by the Serbian Ministry of Education suggests that education should be reformed with sustainability in mind. Therefore, by implication school design also. The problem is that the majority of relevant professionals are approaching school design from a less than critical position. The situation is quite different in Western Europe. Some architects here have realised that sustainable schools could reduce the impact on the environment and contribute toward a more sustainable life. They have also discovered that the school environment impacts on the learning process, and can incite and even provoke learning. These architects believe that the school space and design can be a “third teacher”. A small number have ventured a step further and used school design to raise awareness about sustainability issues, and stimulate children to explore them. Under these circumstances a question that emerges for an architect from Serbia is how should we, in Serbia, develop architectural design for schools to be more sustainable and pedagogically valuable? The main aim of this thesis is the development of a series of design ideas so that one exemplar school in Serbia could be transformed in this way. This thesis explored three sustainable schools and their pedagogical potential with architects, teachers, and pupils. One of the schools was in Germany, one in Spain, and one in England. Triangulation of their experience with the existing literature from the field of architecture, pedagogy, developmental and environmental psychology, led to development of key messages useful for developing design ideas. Additionally, the most important messages were theoretically framed so that a better and improved framework for analysing and designing pedagogically valuable sustainable schools could be proposed. These insights are then translated and implemented in Serbia through the design of one school. A school from Serbia, wishing to act as an exemplar, embarked this journey. Through participatory action research I encouraged them to critically reflect on their current learning environment, and later on, through a participatory design process developed a series of ideas for the school. Finally, rendered through an array of contextual challenges and potentials, and inspired by this wealth of teachers and pupils ideas, my research developed a set of design proposals for transforming this exemplar school in Serbia into a more sustainable one, potentially able to act as the “third teacher”.

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In order to convey the meanings contained within artefacts, museums commonly communicate with the general public primarily through the mediation of an audiovisual interpretative framework. In addition to audiovisual mediation, this thesis demonstrates the idea that museum architecture itself can make a significant contribution to various meanings communicated by artefacts. Drawn from a comparative case-study of the detailed interpretive frameworks of two museums, the thesis investigates the extent to which museum architecture itself should be considered as a medium of spatial-storytelling, providing a rich sensory context for the process of mediation and interpretation. This idea contributes towards a more meaningful embodied experience to the general public in order to support the process of ‘self-learning’, as well as passing on intangible culture through both tangible and intangible media. Through an initial survey and conceptual mapping of 130 museums around the world, two examples were selected effectively that offered a unique opportunity for comparative study as they are effectively exhibiting the ‘same’ material in different ways - the Ionic Frieze at the Parthenon Galleries in the British Museum and the recently opened New Acropolis Museum in Athens. Besides this survey of museums, other research methods included a literature review, interviews architectural analysis and observation of visitor behaviour, as the key data collection tools employed in this research, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of museum architecture as a medium. The thesis concludes that museum architecture offers an engaging environment for communicating meanings through ‘self-learning’, not only in terms of audiovisual techniques, but also through a careful organised embodied experience of an entire space. Moreover, museum architecture provides the artefacts a meaningful physical context in which they can ‘speak’. Culture, as an intangible medium, is recorded in the tangible media of artefacts, and buildings, while also being carried forward into an unknown future.

Since the 1970s, over a thirty-year period, awareness of the limitation in fossil fuel reserves has been increased steadily and international attention has been given to an energy conservative way of life. Like many developing countries, today Iran is beset with serious energy supply difficulties. The main issues are the rapid increase in energy demand/cost, air pollution caused by over use of fossil fuels (usually used in buildings for heating purposes), the limitation of fossil fuel resources and the difficulties in the transportation and distribution of fossil fuel especially in winter around the country. Therefore, it is crucial to adopt a new strategy for sustainable energy use and to consider the application of renewable energy technologies in the design of buildings. Solar energy is one of the most significant and technically exploitable renewable energy resources available in Iran. This needs to be taken into account seriously, regarding both economical and environmental problems in that country. Since school buildings in Iran are one of the major consumes of energy for heating, cooling and lighting purposes and according to their inappropriate current design from the energy efficiency point of view, this study has been performed with the aim of developing methods of optimising the energy performance of school buildings in Iran and promoting low energy architecture in the design of these buildings in different climatic regions of Iran. For this purpose, first the Iranian climatic has been reviewed and appropriate classification was presented. Since solar radiation data have not been calculated in Iran so far, there was a need for a precise calculation of solar radiation for each and every city in order to better exploit the benefits of solar energy for the future of this country. Therefore, the method of calculation of solar radiation in different cities of Iran based on European Solar Atlas and Islamic Republic of Iran Meteorological Organisation's statistics was presented and a spreadsheet excel program was developed for the calculation of solar radiation data of 152 cities of Iran. A comparison has been made between the excel program and Meteonorm. The result showed that the excel program data were more useful in that they were more precise and much more reliable compared to Meteonorm data for Iran. Also, based on solar radiation data another excel program (based on the admittance method) was developed for the calculation of heating, cooling and lighting energy use of buildings in Iran. By using this program the effect of window design on the thermal performance of school buildings and the response of walls and roofs to solar radiation was investigated in hot climates. Substantial saving in the annual running cost of school buildings as much as 14% was achieved under appropriate window arrangement. In order to explore the problems of existing design, a case study has been performed on current schools design in Iran and the energy use of these schools was analysed.