published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Landscape Architecture

This paper presents a conceptual framework of important cultural values, activity patterns and environmental patterns in the home environment of a typical middle-income family in Madras a South Indian City. The position of this paper is that cultural variables should play an important part in determining the form of housing; they should be explicitly accounted for and values should be related to the different components of the built environment. This framework is intended to serve as a guide suggesting programmatic criteria for design of culturally-responsive housing. As it relates abstract values to components of the built environment, and design patterns, the framework includes descriptive graphics and images.The main body of the framework is a summary of societal and activity patterns, and elements of design. A descriptive analysis of societal and family patterns looks at the interactions between society, family and the individual. Activity patterns in and around the home with their symbolic associations are examined in detail. Implications for the home environment are drawn from the observations made in these sections. This is followed by a look at the elements of design that have been manipulated in existing house forms to create culturally appropriate environments.The concluding part of the framework presents a way in which the earlier observations can be assimilated into the design process. A sample set of environmental patterns are presented using images, with their cultural purpose, design descriptions and variants. This is followed by a matrix where family types, individual roles and activities are related to the environmental qualities and in some cases to sample environmental patterns.The research involved anthropological studies for an understanding of the cultural elements like family and kinship structure, myths and beliefs, values and priorities, etc., in the Indian context. Analysis of changing house forms in response to social and cultural changes in history, and designs of culture sensitive architects, helped to identify the environmental components that relate to specific values. Christopher Alexander's idea of `patterns' was used as a tool to translate abstract cultural criteria into recognizable environmental settings. / Department of Architecture

No description available.

Lam Wai Yin, Helen. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2006-2007, design report." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 157).

Thesis. 1979. M.Arch.A.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references. / M.Arch.A.S.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-121).

Many contemporary building codes are written based on building occupancy classifications. However, with the abundance of multiplexes and highly efficient communication through advanced technology today, this principle of classification of buildings through specific use in building code-writing may cause problems in building controls. This is especially true when the trend of modern and future building occupancy is towards flexible, mixed, and transferable uses with non-distinction between working and habitation. In the highly dense urban environment and under current Hong Kong building regulation controls, all buildings are classified for domestic or non-domestic use, which imposes control barriers to any mixed-use, merged-use or adaptive re-functioned buildings. Furthermore, the local profit-oriented real estate market always pushes the architectural design of buildings to follow the control regulations tightly. Thus, innovations are limited and usually sacrificed for the maximization of development potential in terms of economy and quality only. This research investigates the relationship between building controls and the architectural design of buildings in Hong Kong, with a focus on the impact that building codes have imposed on the architectural design of buildings through its occupancy-based categorization of domestic or non-domestic use. It also aims to open a fresh look at the control of buildings in a high density environment. By reviewing the origin of building laws and basic principles of building code creation, the research takes a comprehensive study with focus on four building sub-control aspects: building density, building safety, building environmental health and building sustainable designs. Case-studies, literature reviews, interviews, surveys and data analysis, and correlation analysis are used. To explore the effect of categorization of buildings, relevant professional terms and their significance also are addressed and studied. Through various findings, this research uncovers the relationship between building controls and architectural design of buildings in Hong Kong. Results from sub-control aspects are concluded and compared. The key sub-control aspect of building density control and its control variables are identified, analyzed and re-evaluated. Comparative cases from international cities with similar environmental contexts are studied and applicable references are made. In brief, this research provides an original perspective and approach in the field of study of building controls that related to the architectural design of buildings. It also establishes a refreshing base to understand different practical design-control issues. Moreover, some progressive and holistic recommendations in future policy makings and code writings of building control are advised. / published_or_final_version / Architecture / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The process of shelter consolidation which has been observed in spontaneous settlements gave rise to the idea that it could be transferred to formal housing projects. The development and improvement of shelter for the urban poor through formal channels has also often followed a model of progressive development based on the provision of tenure and basic services. This was done through "sites and services" and "area upgrading" projects. / An assessment of this process was carried out by observing two sites and services projects, Nannyville Gardens and De La Vega City, located in the Kingston Metropolitan Region, Jamaica. The manner and extent of consolidation is analyzed from data gathered during a survey which consisted of interviews with key informants and residents through a questionnaire, observation notes, physical measurements, slides and aerial photographs. The analysis dealt with variables such as; changes in the habitable area, the level of finishes undertaken at each stage of addition and the incorporation of space for home-Based Enterprises. The participants' physical priorities for housing are identified through the changes that have occurred in the variables over the life of both housing schemes. / The results indicate that sufficient habitable area takes precedent over the level of finish in the early stages of dwelling development. The findings also suggest that the economic use of dwellings (renting, vending, trading and the provision of personal services) in formal low-income housing projects is an inevitable part of the consolidation process which should be given serious consideration when formulating such projects.

No description available.

This thesis examines architectural discourse and spatial practices as manifestations and experiences of order in eighteenth-century Qing dynasty China. It reviews the development of the historiography of Chinese architectural history as an academic discipline, and proposes that in the Qing there was an unprecedented rupture between domestic architectural style from that of the court. An alternative design strategy in spatial planning and detailing was adopted. It is argued that the Qing architectural discourse, its intertextuality, was implicitly linked to the historical formation of the Qing self, and that it was pivotal to the rise of domestic culture. The study approaches architecture as historical statements and arguments, and focuses on the production of space, human agency, gender, and subject positioning in early modern China. The study analyzes the Yugong mansion, Beijing, the Rong mansion in the Qing novel The Dream of the Red Chamber, and the Manchu imperial city, as examples.