My personal interest in cities and their layering of spaces and functions served as a starting point for this dissertation. Cities evolve over time, and the resultant networks of movement and public spaces are the filters through which most inhabitants experience the city they live in. By examining the Cape Town CBD and surrounds, it became apparent that these networks have become secondary to other commercial systems. Whilst Cape Town has some open public spaces of historic significance such as the Grand Parade and Greenmarket Square, the public space network has become fragmented and often overwhelmed by commercial interests which inevitably limit public access and use. Upon closer examination, it seems that economic concerns have shaped the city rather than a layering and balance between public and private, access and control. A discernible building typology can be found in the inner city, one which I have referred to as the tower block. The tower blocks have varying programmes but hold in common private ownership and controlled access, thereby limiting the connection to the city severely, and in most cases do not add anything of value to the public urban fabric. Instead, where the tower block access meets the movement and public space network of the city a hostile environment is created, where loiterers and security guards jostle for control. The inhabitants and users of the tower blocks step from the city into a controlled, sterile environment, and do not interact with the urban environment further. Most of these tower blocks naturally accommodate office space in the CBD. Whilst it is not realistic to lay the onus on private investors and developers putting up tall buildings in the city to contribute extensively to the public urban space, civic buildings should shoulder that responsibility. Historically, as with the Old Town Hall overlooking the Grand Parade, this is how the public space network was constructed. Civic building and the publicly accessible space which they created were the generative elements of cities. By examining the CBD it became clear that the last extensive civic building done by the city was during the apartheid era, buildings such as the Civic Centre and Customs House on the foreshore. Built to deal with the growing administrative apparatus of that era, and following modernist guidelines the public spaces created by these buildings are mostly unused, due to unsuitable location and being awkwardly scaled and imposing. The trend for the city to instead lease tower blocks of generic office space to accommodate their civic functions has further led to a deterioration of the public urban realm, as a building typology focused on disconnection from the city now has to accommodate a constant influx of people whilst still having to maintain security for its internal workings. The street, entrances and internal corridors become crowded with people which they were not designed to contain, leading to a frustrating experience for both public and public servant alike. The focus of this thesis became to challenge the conventional tower block that makes up much of our cities today, by putting forward spatial possibilities that are flexible for alternate uses and new crossprogrammatic possibilities for a partnership between private building and public building. The connection between the private and public was made through the programme of an office building, which in its generic form has already become a typology that houses both public (civic) and private.

Aim: Reconnect the City to the Sea through investment in the pedestrian and public space, supported by activity generating and accommodating architecture. Theory question: What architectural methods are being employed in global port-side cities to reinvent and make use of large tracts of de-valued inner city land? Technology question: What is the nature of the physical condition that the foreshore area presents and what impact has this had on the haphazard development of this inner city space? Sub Questions: What are the key factors in global cities' development and fabric which have resulted in large inner city tracts of undervalued land, and their condition? What are the implications of different modes of mobility within urban space, and particularly their effects on the resulting urban form, and utilization of this space? What negative effects of mobility in a global society are universal to all contemporary cities and societies, and what are some of the contextually derived typological solutions? What are the primary opportunities and technical challenges presented by the unique conditions of the foreshore to development?

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This study aimed to investigate the possible means of mitigating noise disturbance in naturally ventilated classrooms that are exposed to road-traffic noise. Specifically, the efficacy of façade design, building orientation, distance from the road and noise barriers was tested to achieve a suitable ambient sound pressure level (SPL) in classrooms. The outcome is a heuristic framework to assist school infrastructure planners and architects in the early stages of a project to choose suitable acoustic interventions. The context was the urbanised province of Gauteng, South Africa, where many new schools are needed and where urbanisation has enveloped many previously suburban schools in traffic noise. Classrooms are typically naturally ventilated with open windows that allow noise in. This increases the classroom ambient noise level which has potentially negative effects on the occupants’ health, well-being and academic outcomes. A computer model of a typical classroom, based on data collected at four Gauteng schools, was used to experiment with various sound attenuation interventions. The modelled results showed that the façade construction material is acoustically inconsequential due to the compromising effect of large openings. A suitable classroom ambient noise level (40 dBA) was only achieved for a building modelled without a barrier at the maximum distance modelled, which was 136 m from the road, provided that the building was perpendicular to the road. Barriers of varying heights (1.5 m – 7 m) were inserted, either at the school boundary (12 m from the centre of the road) or 3 m from the classroom façade. With a barrier, the closest distance from the road at which the target SPL was achieved was at 42.5 m with a 5.5 m high barrier. As the distance from the road to the building increased, the height of the barrier required decreased. Considering a maximum practical barrier height of 3.5 m, the ideal SPL was only achieved for a classroom at least 51 m from the road. Barriers inserted 3 m from the façade were more effective than barriers at the school boundary. A significant SPL decrease (≥ 6 dB) was, however, achieved in classrooms as close as 17 m from the road with the insertion of a barrier (≥ 2 m high), and a suitable signal-to-noise ratio was achieved for a classroom 17 m from the road with a 2.5 m high barrier. These findings are particularly useful for application in existing schools with limited space. The findings provided a data set that was used to develop a heuristic framework as guidance for planners in the early stages of school infrastructure design. / Thesis (PhD (Architecture))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / CSIR / Architecture / PhD (Architecture) / Unrestricted

Staden har länge varit centrum för handel och det finns få företeelser som har spelat en så stor roll för städers uppkomst och utformning som handeln har. Stadskärnan med sitt rika butiksutbud har således länge varit den primära handelsplatsen och anledningen till att vi som människor valt att vistas i staden. Genom åren har handeln och handelsplatsen genomgått en rad olika förändringar, från varuhusets intåg till externa handelsområden till dagens samhälle där e-handeln växer sig allt starkare.   E-handeln blir alltmer en naturlig del av konsumenternas handelsrutiner vilket får konsekvenser för den traditionella butikshandeln i stadskärnan. I takt med digitaliseringen utveckling har de fysiska butikerna således sett ett behov att omstrukturera sig för att vara tillgänglig såväl online som offline. Det går även att se ett ökat samspel mellan fysiska och digitala butiker, detta då konsumenterna idag är så kallade multikanalkonsumenter som rör sig mellan både fysiska och digitala kanaler under köpprocessen.   Genom det förändrade handelsbeteendet hos konsumenterna har nya förutsättningar skapat för stadskärnan och dess handel, det blir därmed viktigt att planerar besitter kunskap om förändringsprocessen för att kunna tillfredsställa de framtida behoven i staden som digitaliseringen av handeln medför. Syftet med studien är således att studera hur den framväxande e-handeln påverkar stadens centrum, för att på så sätt belysa de utmaningar och förutsättningar som stadsplaneringen står inför. Studien undersöker även hur svenska kommuner arbetar för att skapa en levande stadskärna i en allt mer digitaliserad samtid där stadskärnan inte längre är den primära handelsplatsen. Avslutningsvis redovisas konkreta förslag kopplade till hur svenska kommuner kan utveckla stadens centrum för att bibehålla ett rikt stadsliv i en tid präglad av e-handel.   Generellt går det utifrån studien att säga att svenska kommuner behandlar frågan om digitalisering och e-handeln relativt olika, en del kommuner behandlar frågan väldigt generellt medan andra ännu inte har färdiga dokument som behandla frågan, detta trots att e-handeln och digitaliseringen konstaterats som en utmaning för den framtida stadsplaneringen. För att skapa hållbara och levande stadskärnor i framtiden måste kommunerna därmed ta större hänsyn till digitalisering för att inte riskera att planera efter förlegade modeller över hur samhället och staden ser ut.

The analogy between the two arts of music and architecture has been a central theoretical theme since the conception of either. Emerging from a background that is situated in both architectural and musical instruction, the correlation between the two has always provided a certain degree of fascination for me. Having understood the linear narrative running between the translation of music and architecture, I endeavoured to locate a more conceptual foothold from which to derive my arguments. The essays below outline my discovery and development of the topic, transforming a simple analogy into a conceptual way of reading context so as to create an architectural composition of space, just as a musician uses the tools of notes (sounds), rests (silences), instrument quality, beat (time) and sequence to create a musical composition. This thesis developed similarly to that of a musical composition: where themes are presented, then developed, then treated in new ways, and finally returned to, creating a final composition that moves through exposition (stability), development (heightened tension and conflict) and resolution.

My project is the design of a primary school in an urban context with an interest in developing a school that speaks about new type of learning environments. This typology will address the challenges of designing a school in an urban context, Cape Town, while rethinking how schools are designed with regards to its programme and layout. I am concerned with designing a school which will truly be a space for the learner. This environment is a space where he/she can work/learn together as a group or individually, in classes or in self-study-activities. This environment is a place where the learner can meet and play in an ungoverned manner, where the school building has an equal emphasis on learning and playing. The design of this building should address the needs of the learner as a child that needs to learn, express, move, run. At the same time, the school-building is no longer a sole institution used only by its learners. Rather, it becomes a building which can bring together learners from different schools, and other members of the public to become an active community building. This document will reveal the process of uncovering that Circulation-space is one of the primary spatial components in new School Design - This component will resolve my above-mentioned inquiries as it becomes the solution to architecturally resolving it. This document is divided into the following processes: Chapter l (The Design Principles): I will investigate 3 case studies of three different types of schools and conclude with design principle which will act as design informants for the school I will design. The primary conclusions will then be developed into conceptual ideas whose architectural expression will be addressed in chapter 4. In Chapter 2 (Site Selection), I start of by investigating 6 schools and their facility deficiencies located in close proximity to each other in the city of Cape Town. These deficiencies act as informants to what the Semi-public Shared facilities will be as part of the programme of my school. This chapter also includes diagrams and investigation into the site I have chosen. In Chapter 3 (Timber as Material) I look at different used of timber as a material in school design. Chapter 4 (Design Development), I focus my-design as responding to the challenges of an urban school, as well as further developing the concept of Circulation as one of the primary spatial components in School design. The rest of the chapter will include the spatial explorations of designing the new type of urban school.

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In offices, knowledge sharing largely depends on everyday face-to-face interaction patterns. These interaction patterns may depend on how employees move through the office space. This thesis explores how these spatial relations influence individual choices with respect to employee movements or routes. Space syntax related research has shown a strong relationship between spatial configuration and pedestrian movement in cities, yet field of space syntax has not applied spatial analysis to the office environment. Although several many space syntax researchers have suggested a connection between spatial configuration of offices and movement patterns of employees, no studies have developed methods to address this issue specifically. Our initial results suggest that organizational borders sometimes work as well as walls regarding movement related to face-to-face interaction in offices. This has led us to perform analysis using occupied spatial positions as a complement to the regular space syntax analysis. Using spatial positioning analysis, we incorporate organizational aspects into space syntax analysis and shift focus from analysis of movement to analysis of interaction. Our papers develop both observational methods and software for spatial modelling. We conclude that rational choice theory and actor network theory can provide useful conceptions and models for how to perform spatial analysis of interactions. Future research should focus on software development and new interpretations related to rational choice, actor networks, and symbolic interactionism. / QC 20101103

Since automobiles are detachable elements of contemporary urban life, studying the interactions imposed by them to urban forms is helpful to develop urban areas. The isolated neighborhoods locating along highways are the common picture that easily can be found in most of developed cities. The more advanced traffic networks a city possesses the more detached neighborhoods can be detected in it. The main question trying to be answered in this study is how to reattach these separated areas together and how to create a peaceful coexistence between highways and their neighborhoods. In order to find an answer, a municipality named Upplands Väsby (in the north of Stockholm) has been studied and analyzed. This real sample with internal connectivity problems was supposed to provide a ground to analyze the outcome of proposed interventions. This process resulted in obtaining a general policy in approaching this issue and some flexible interventions proper for this specific site of study. Finally, the study implies on the possibility of reattaching isolated area over high-speed roads. It also brought up some suggestions for improvement of mobile passenger’s perception of the road and surrounding areas while facilitating the pedestrian’s movement through the site.