A significant portion of a building’s carbon emission comes from the materials used to construct it, primarily through fabrication and assembly. According to the World Green Building Council, this is called embodied carbon, and it makes up to 49% of the total emissions from global construction. Thus, new energy-efficient buildings can take from 10-80 years of time to offset just the carbon used in construction. Combined with such amounts of construction and demolition waste, new construction can be viewed as a wasteful or even destructive practice. Adaptive reuse presents a promising alternative method for creating new space, without the emissions and waste that would be generated by building something new. This thesis identifies challenges in the adaptability of existing buildings and provides instances which show why reuse and mixed-use spaces are significant. A literature review will be used to provide the concepts and strategies of sustainability. ix Case studies will help identify the real world issues and how they are addressed in different ways to show various functional spaces. Adaptive reuse is also being explored as a means to fulfill the socio-cultural, economic and environmental sustainability goals while keeping the character of the city intact.

ABSTRACT Why do we design architecture? How we design it? Why do we design architecture in this way, not in that way? What‘s the most important characteristic for architecture? How we can identity if architecture has realized all ideas we proposed before? With these questions, with the help from kind professors, I found one interesting place - Cao changdi, Beijing, China. Luckily, I found one interesting street and noticed there are some problems here. I needed to figure out what exactly are the problems and try to solve the problems with architecture. I found that relations and connections are missing at this street. They are supposed to be there, but they are invisible. Why not make them visible? I tried to direct this design based on the user’s stories or experiences. My approach was to visualize peoples’ experience in a new architecture through story boards, or ‘frame’ of applying the film director’s skills and design minds to approach architecture. Let peoples’ experience in an architecture become a movie. Applying the film director’s skills and minds to the design of architecture. Space plays an important role in architecture design. What happened in that space is what is important. Of course, stories would happen in that space. Then what’s the story? My thesis project would illustrate how three stories - visitor, villager and artist‘s experience help to direct the design.

This dissertation defines and develops transitional space of housing, which is adaptable to the Chinese environment. It is the integration of community, culture element and sustainable development. Although the lifestyle is changing today, the concept of courtyard which comes from the Chinese vernacular building remains in peoples’ minds. It’s not only a form but also an expression of national culture and a sense of space. There are some attempts for Chinese architects to renovate or reconstruct the “courtyard”, but most of them are low-rise buildings. Facing with the high density, high volume urban living environment, Chinese architects only set vii the first floor yard and roof garden in multi-story or high-rise buildings. To improve the community environment, various levels courtyard space, such as the courtyard among units, community courtyard, are set. These courtyards are regarded as public space which not only plays the role of landscaping but also make people feel comfortable. However, there are still some problems, such as sustainable development, privacy. While there are some good attempts for foreign architects to design courtyard in terms of sustainable technology, the housing they design lack the Chinese culture character. So the design of multi-function transitional space raises the interesting questions for future research and development.

La thèse porte sur le renouveau de la culture architecturale, intervenu grâce à l'action d'un milieu de jeunes architectes français dans les années 1960 et 1970 qui sont devenus les acteurs principaux des Unités Pédagogiques d'Architecture et en ont fait le lieu de la refondation de l'enseignement de l'architecture et de la naissance de la recherche architecturale. La recherche prend pour support principal d'analyse la revue Architecture Mouvement Continuité publiée entre 1969 et 1981 par la SADG. Si la période traitée correspond d'abord à la vie de la revue, elle se réfère aussi à une histoire plus générale de la société française et de l'architecture contemporaine en France dans une période de changements profonds. En effet, l'intérêt principal de la revue vient du fait que son histoire se soit nouée avec les réalités extérieures complexes. Au coeur de ce renouveau culture, il y a un regard sur l'objet architectural, voire une redéfinition de celui-ci étroitement liée à la construction de l'identité de ces jeunes architectes. Les épisodes constituant l'histoire d'AMC illustrent le projet de ses acteurs d'él argir la discipline architecturale, en donnant une autre légitimité au travail de l'architecte. Ce projet a été élaboré principalement par le biais de la recherche historique, et ce dans le rapport étroit de deux pôles qui paraissent a priori opposés : "connaissance" et "projet" dont le rapport mutuel et productif est fondamental dans ce renouveau culturel / The research aims to understand the renewal of architectural culture, which occurred through the action of a circle of young French architects of the 1960s and 1970s. They have become the key players in the foundation of the Unités Pédagogiques d'Architecture and made the place of remaking architectural education and the birth of architectural research. Our research takes, as the main support of study, the architectural review Architecture Mouvement Continuité published by the SADG between 1967 and 1981. If this period corresponds to the life of the magazine, it also refers to the broad history of society and the contemporary architecture in France in the period of profound changes. Indeed, the main interest of the magazine is that his story is tied with external realities complex. In the middle of this cultural renewal, there is a reconsideration of the architectural object, even a redefinition of it closely related to the construction of the identity of those young architects. The episodes constituting the history of AMC illustrate the project of his actors to broaden the architectural discipline, giving a new legitimacy to the work of architect. This redefinition was done through historical researches – a review of the “Modern movement”, the history of social housing and early-urbanism in France - , in the close relationship of two poles that seem a priori opposed : "knowledge" and "project", whose productive mutual relationship is fundamental to the understanding this cultural renewal

The Longfellow House in Cambridge, Massachusetts is one of America’s best known historic homes. Built in 1759 by Major John Vassall, the grand house exemplified Colonial English tastes and was at the center of a cycle of Colonial Royalist mansions. After the American Revolution, however, the house quickly became a symbol of American patriotism. Occupants ranging from General George Washington and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow each added to the legacy of the house. Early in the nineteenth century, the Longfellow House’s distyle portico- pavilion traveled to Canterbury, Connecticut, becoming a colloquial house-type. Aided by its connection to General Washington and its appearance in two World’s Fairs, the house gained further popularity around the American Centennial. This thesis provides the most expansive history of the house’s impact on American architecture to date and is the first to connect the house to both the Greenhouse at Mount Vernon and Connecticut’s “Canterbury Style.”

This thesis highlights the role of urban planners in the revitalization of historic seafronts as creative and attractive places for people and a key factor in the regeneration of the urban economy in the historic seafront areas. The Saudi Arabia historic seafront areas along the North Red Sea have been neglected and are suffering because of slow development and changes to industrial uses. This thesis will focus on the urban design principles that make historic seafronts more attractive and successful, and will use a case study approach of several American waterfront cities such as Baltimore, Maryland; San Francisco, California; and Charleston, South Carolina. These American cities and the urban design principles applied for their successful revitalization were selected for analysis because of their similarities with the Yanbu Al-Bahr's historic seafront. The results of this analysis will enable planners to apply the best of these urban waterfront design models to assist in the revitalization of historic seafronts along the North Red Sea in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).

Ce travail porte sur la place et le rôle de l’architecture dans le processus de construction de la nation italienne au tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles. Pour cela, nous avons choisi d’isoler un certain nombre de figures identitaires et de les étudier à travers le prisme de commémorations organisées en Italie durant la première période de l’unification (1861-1921). Notre étude est rythmée par l’analyse de trois commémorations liées entre elles par l’activité de l’historien d’art Corrado Ricci.Le huitième centenaire de la création de l’université de Bologne en 1888 et les travaux architecturaux d’Alfonso Rubbiani nous offrent un des premiers exemples d’une fête marquée par la réinvention d’un monument ancien. Les célébrations du cinquantenaire de l’unité italienne en 1911, et plus particulièrement l’exposition régionale et ethnographique organisée à Rome, nous ont permis de définir une nouvelle articulation entre les identités régionales et l’identité nationale ; selon l’idée de l’époque l’unité du génie artistique national émergerait de la diversité des genius loci illustrée par l’architecture des communes de la fin du Moyen Âge et de la première Renaissance. Enfin, les commémorations du 600e anniversaire de la mort de Dante en 1921 constituent le pivot de notre étude. Au cours de ce centenaire, on restaura un grand nombre d’édifices dans toute l’Italie, et plus particulièrement à Florence et à Ravenne. Dans ces deux villes, les travaux s’étendirent à l’échelle urbaine, aboutissant à la création de zones dantesques et à la réinvention de l’image d’une architecture médiévale à vocation identitaire. / This dissertation questions the place and role of architecture in the Italian national building process at the turn of the twentieth century. We chose to isolate several paradigmatic figures of identity (such as Dante or some distinctive features of medieval architecture) and to study them through the prism of a number of commemorations held in Italy in the first decades after unification (1861-1921). The analysis of three commemorations bound together by the activity of the art historian Corrado Ricci constitutes the core of our study.The eighth centenary of the creation of the University of Bologna in 1888 and the architectural activity of Alfonso Rubbiani are studied as one of the first examples of a commemoration not marked by the construction of a new monument but by the reinvention of an old one. The careful consideration of the 1911 celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Italian unification and especially the regional and ethnographic exhibition held in Rome on this occasion allowed us to define a new articulation between national and regional identity, defined as a unity of national artistic genius through a multiplicity of genius loci “rediscovered” in the architecture of late Middle Ages and early Renaissance Commune. The third and main object of our analysis are the commemorations for the 600th anniversary of Dante's death in 1921. For this event many buildings were restored throughout Italy, especially in Florence and Ravenna. In both cities, the impact of commemorations reached an urban scale, leading to the creation of whole areas known as zone dantesche: spatial evidences of the powerful myth that the figure of Dante embodied in this historical conjuncture. Supported by the newly acquired value of heritage in the national building process, this commemoration was a crucial step in the invention of a neomedieval city and its mass diffusion through a set of visual stereotypes.

This thesis examines the ways in which Frank Gehry’s architectural contributions to Los Angeles’ social and built environment have shaped the region’s “postmodern geographies” throughout the 20th and 21st century. Through a focused exploration of three of Gehry’s postmodernist structures in Greater Los Angeles—a house, a library, and a concert hall—this thesis analyses how Gehry and his designs reflected and affected the artistic and socio-spatial development of Los Angeles’ “decidedly postmodern landscape.”

A História da Arquitetura e a Preservação de Bens Culturais entendidas como campos disciplinares autônomos, providos de referenciais teórico-metodológicos próprios, suscitaram a investigação sobre os seus possíveis entrelaçamentos, a partir de uma perspectiva que incorpora o instrumental e as noções operativas no campo da preservação. As múltiplas temporalidades da obra arquitetônica, identificadas pelo estudo de suas transformações ao longo do tempo, a indagação ao objeto em sua consistência física à luz da cultura material e a utilização de suportes documentais diversos, resultam em um material historiográfico de interesse, possibilitando um novo olhar sobre a produção arquitetônica. Através desses pressupostos, analisamos obras de Gregori Warchavchik tombadas ou preteridas em processos de tombamento, propondo uma reconstituição de suas trajetórias e utilizando-as como estratégia para pensar em que medida as interpretações oriundas da historiografia da arquitetura moderna vêm orientando as práticas de salvaguarda e conservação do patrimônio moderno, ou, falando de outro modo, como fundamentam critérios de seleção e de intervenção sobre o moderno. / The Architectural History and the Preservation of cultural heritage understood as autonomous fields, provided by its own theories and methodologies, raised the investigation study about its possible entanglements, from a perspective that incorporates the instrumental and the operational preservation concepts. The multiple temporalities of the architectural work, identified by the study of its changes over time, the investigation of the object under the light of the material culture and the use of several document sets, result as a historiographical subject of interest, allowing a new point of view over the architectural production. These are the starting points of a Gregori Warchavchik\'s architecture analysis. The research selected listed and excluded works from listing, doing a reconstitution of their trajectories and use them as a strategy to think about how the historiographical interpretations have been guiding the conservation and protective practices, or, the intervention\'s criteria on the modern.

A presente dissertação tem como objeto o conteúdo utópico de dois projetos produzidos entre 1958 e 1974: New Babylon (Constant Nieuwenhuys e Internacional Situacionista, 1956-74) e Gli Atti Fondamentali (Superstudio, 1972-73). A investigação considera o debate político e cultural da época para organizar um quadro de comparativo. Aproximados e colocados à luz da discussão contemporânea sobre utopia, esses projetos revelam-se como iniciativas especulativas e críticas, estruturadas a partir da proposição de modelos espaciais e sociais. Tratam-se de ideais urbanos que respondem a transformações fundamentais no paradigma da urbanização no pós-guerra europeu. Ambos compartilham almejam um modelo urbano no qual infraestruturas automatizadas proveem recursos abundantes à uma sociedade liberada do trabalho e da propriedade privada. / The object of the present dissertation is the utopian content of two projects developed from 1958 to 1974: New Babylon (Constant Nieuwenhuys and Situationist Internacional, 1956-74) and Gli Atti Fondamentali (Superstudio, 1972-73). This research considers the cultural and political debate contemporary to that time as a parameter for organizing a comparative scheme. To the light of a contemporary discussion of utopia, these projects reveal themselves as critical and speculative enterprises based on proposing spatial and social models for the future. They consist of urban ideals that relate with fundamental changes of the urbanization paradigm during the post-war years. Both yearn for an urban model in which automate infrastructures homogeneously provide abundant resources to a society that is free from both labor and private property.