This thesis addresses the question of how a dialogue may be developed between the socio-political notion of pluralism and a pluralistic public sphere, and the design of public space and public architecture. More particularly, it considers how architecture may both accommodate multiple publics while simultaneously framing connection or association between them. Following an exploration of this question at an abstract, theoretical level, the thesis moves to a more specific architectural investigation. This investigation takes the form of a design project situated within the Robson Square complex in downtown Vancouver. The complex, constructed in the mid-1970's, was designed by Canada's pre-eminent architect Arthur Erickson and is the major civic space in the city. The thesis design project undertakes a theoretical re-evaluation and physical renovation of this Utopian mega-structure, with the intention of shifting the existing homogeneity and institutionality of the complex to align it with the thesis argument. Through the vehicle of a design project,, the abstract theoretical argument is translated and focused through the particularities of an architecture embedded in its site. This methodology requires the project to address issues connected to the existing masterwork, including: the question of how to conceptualize monumentally in a grid city; the relationship between the 'sacred' space of the civic circumstance and the 'profane' space of the street and commercial program; the form of the institution within the city; and the issue of working within, and manipulating, a pre-existing architectural language. Further, the scale of the site is reflected in the scope of the design project. The project moves from the development of urban design strategies to the detailed consideration of the material and construction of the different interventions. The architecture remains, however, conceptual and is a demonstration of how the developed strategies may generate form and guide program. The project does not attempt to fully develop a building in detail. The thesis concludes with an afterword on the success of the project as a demonstration of the thesis argument. At the same time, the limits of architecture to act as a socio-political device are acknowledged. Further, speculations are made as to the way in which the position and the strategies developed within the thesis might inform wider discussions on architecture and the urbanism of grid cities such as Vancouver. The key concept forming the basis of these speculations is the idea of a 'difficult' co-existence of parts and a whole, reflecting the pluralistic ideal of association within fragmentation.

A modern large recreational hall may hardly recognize a sense of human scale nor provide users the architectural meaning corresponding to the activities it accommodates. The experimental project of renovating the Vancouver Aquatic Center attempts to reinstate the relationship between the body, water and architecture. There exist certain sequence and pattern in participating various leisure/fitness activities which require mental and physical preparation. I focus on accentuating the transitional experiences at different stages of taking part swimming, diving, and hot baths by creating spaces to allow mental readiness for activities and contemplation of experience. Thus, I explore the perception of edges by marking of different threshold, making it subtle or bringing it out into presence. This practice requires much envision of walking through the building and anticipation of how space to be used which corresponds to my study of history of bathing and questions of perception. In order to reintroduce the social value of bathing which exists in Japanese bath and the like, I expand the facilities program parallel to the concept of Roman Thermae where people can meet and interact. Therefore, the proposed new aquatic centre seeks to enhance social and visual communication between the surrounding environment and the building, between users outside and inside, between different activities within the building. Moreover, initiated by the study of phenomenological architecture, this project revolves around the idea of intriguing memories and emotions through associative and tactile experience by the use of materials, spatial configuration, lighting, transparency and the placement of apertures to capture views. I try to provide diversified experience with different forms of water, steam, hot/cold temperatures, brightness/darkness, hard/soft land, submerge/emerge, clear/opaque and other perception of space. The ultimate goal of this experiment is to provide users the meanings of the architectural form, space, material and order, yet as well give potential to allow the users' own interpretations.

The thesis project reconstructs the relations between conflicting social groups through the exchange of goods and ideas in Portside Park. The project also explores how the evolution of an infrastructure is capable of criticizing the original conditions of its construction. This is completed through the design of a series of possible future events such as a pedestrian overpass, and public market in Portside Park on Vancouver's central waterfront. Robert Thayer Jr. and Bill Morrish were influential in exploring how we understand the landscape and the importance of visual ecology which expresses an ecology behind a site. A collective identity can be influenced by such ideas, and if given a place of importance, can also act as forums, adding more than just physical boundaries to the city. The project is sighted on the waterfront, a landscape that currently lies dormant and in a state of transition. The requirements for site selection were that the site must have the potential for an evolution of its own with hidden or unused elements that may be renewed and adapted to enrich the expression of the site. The starting point for the project was to speculate on a series of future events that respond to possible social and political forces affecting the site. The matrix was a method of determining the potential of the site. The moment that is detailed, for the purposes of this project, is the year 2020. At this time, the coil, a pedestrian overpass, responds to the permanence of the city through its 'building as wall' vocabulary. The wall is then transformed into a connection from the city to the park. The market shields the rail and opens up to the park. Here the boundary between the connector and enclosure has been inverted and the visitor is inserted into the market building. The visitor is released into the park in the company of others within a defined realm, shielded by a canopy of trees. The final place for quiet contemplation is the beach which remains open and exposed - the most valued and protected part of the park. Valued not for is aesthetic achievements but for its political and social meaning. The pedestrian embarks on a journey. Leaving the dense built environment of the city, the pedestrian ascends the public walkway over the tracks and gradually enters the transition of the bosk, where the mounds and trees enclose the body yet prepare him for the open water. In conclusion the project attempts to accommodate a place for the individual and the collective, it defines a place for establishing a coexistence.

The paper consists of five steps. The first step is to study and explore theories of order, time image, and meaning of place. A hypothetical equation is proposed which defines a place as having three basic components: time, order and meaning. Special attention is paid to the time image of a place through the thesis. The second step is to organize the theories as a set of systematic design ideas. Twelve design categories are further introduced, which include Rhythm, Season, Celebration, Layer, Future, Sequence, Derelict, Night, Center, Boundary, and Sacred Places. The third step is to generate a set of patterns for the waterfront design under twelve design topics. Pattern is a bridge between principle and design. The conversion of a design idea into a design pattern can be seen as a procedure to test the validity of design ideas. The fourth step is to apply the design patterns to a specific site on the West Vancouver Waterfront. In a sense, the application of the patterns is an experiment, aimed at testing the patterns, hence the whole thesis as a hypothesis. The final step is to review and evaluate the thesis and the project. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

The basic intention of this study is to show that the research findings in the field of restorative environments can be used in the design of high-density housing to develop healthy living environments. This study explores the possibility that providing public, semi-public and private landscaped open spaces in and around the dwelling units, can improve the living conditions in a low-rise, high-density housing design. It is primarily concerned with the relationship which people in the high-density settings have with their outdoor environment and explores the possibilities of design and management of the nearby natural area in ways that are beneficial for people and appreciated by them. The study uses the literature on restorative benefits of nature and housing to develop criteria for the design and management of housings at high densities and illustrates the significance and implementation of the design criteria through comparative analysis of the existing and the proposed housing design. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

Ideas of typology are pursued, expanding on popular preconceptions of automobile culture and strip architecture. The elements of type are investigated through an analysis of their physical, social, and economic relationships. An argument of complicity is developed as an alternative to the traditional "eurourbanism" common to many municipal design guidelines. This position seeks to work within the context of the existing city, taking pleasure in its margins, gaps, and adjacencies. Considering the particular physical, cultural and economic conditions of the City of Richmond, this project is framed as the identification of an emerging spatial conception and program/use. The physical space of the city is seen to be shaped most directly by the inclusion of the automobile. The cultural influences of immigration are read on the surfaces of the city and through building programme. Economic realities shape the space of the city as a commodity to be constructed, marketed, and consumed. Through the analysis of the site and contextual conditions, strategies of spatial investigation emerged: the folding of the plane of the city (street) into the space of the building, the horizontal framing of the space of the city (serving as reference and dis-locator to both the automobile and the body as these move through the spaces of the project), and the assemblage of existing types to produce hybrid/mutant types. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

My project investigated the spatial concepts of Japanese architecture to see if they offer a particular insight into the design of the emerging model of live/work. The search embodied in my directed study and the subsequent design, therefore, was testing this hypothesis. Among many other concepts, Japanese spatial sensibilities include harmony in crowded environs, expansion of experiential space over limited physical distances, and tripartite physical thought. I felt that in the context of evolving models of dwelling and a desired urban densification, we could learn from nations that have already dealt with similar situations. The design addresses the complexity of the social fabric of the Downtown Eastside by taking a Japanese approach to the nature of public and private space. Like an upward spiral of Kyoto storefront houses, the units cluster around a "vertical street," meant to be an extension of Dunlevy Street. During normal business hours, the public may enter the plaza level, participate in the "vertical street" and interact with the people living and working in the units. The transition between the public and private realms is thereby multi-layered. The visitor passes through an indoor/outdoor atrium space, along the "vertical street" and into the units through forecourts and implied work zones fronting the "vertical street." This "onion-like" approach to a layering of public to private space is echoed in the outer skins of the building with a double facade concept. As the atrium space creates an inside/outside ("Ma") zone for the complex itself, the double facade creates an inside/outside zone for the units themselves. This "Ma" zone can function as an extension of the inside or as a room unto itself. The sequential layering of units as discrete "gates" along the "vertical street" is another Japanese spatial idea. The passage along this "street" becomes a series of events culminating at the rooftop gallery and sculpture garden, where the experience of the multi-layered north view is realized. The events along this route and the destination provide the impetus for movement along the route itself. The completed design integrates key Japanese spatial concepts into a western context and location, resulting in a unique model for the design of live/work: one that creates community with personal privacy, yet allows commercial interaction by actively engaging the public. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

This Thesis Project began as an exploration of the architectural, philosophical and psychological nature of dwelling. From this exploration I have made an argument about the nature of dwelling based on several premises. First, that dwelling is determined by the boundaries between public and private space. Second, these boundaries of dwelling may only be adjusted or determined by a political operation- the mediation between private desire and public consensus. Third, the successful mediation of these boundaries depends on two basic conditions: equality and communication, principally speech. To test this thesis I looked for a dwelling typology where everyone was equal and where there was a minimum condition of private space. These conditions create the largest potential for dwelling in the terms of my argument. I chose the Travellers' Hotel, a changing typology that brings together people from around the world who share all the space of the building including the kitchen, and the two most private spaces of a dwelling; the bedroom and the bathroom. I chose a site in downtown Vancouver, the corner of Davie and Granville Streets, that is the intersection of major transportation and pedestrian axes of the city and major demographic, economic, and physical changes in the fabric of the city. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

This thesis addresses the question of how a dialogue may be developed between the socio-political notion of pluralism and a pluralistic public sphere, and the design of public space and public architecture. More particularly, it considers how architecture may both accommodate multiple publics while simultaneously framing connection or association between them. Following an exploration of this question at an abstract, theoretical level, the thesis moves to a more specific architectural investigation. This investigation takes the form of a design project situated within the Robson Square complex in downtown Vancouver. The complex, constructed in the mid-1970's, was designed by Canada's pre-eminent architect Arthur Erickson and is the major civic space in the city. The thesis design project undertakes a theoretical re-evaluation and physical renovation of this Utopian mega-structure, with the intention of shifting the existing homogeneity and institutionality of the complex to align it with the thesis argument. Through the vehicle of a design project,, the abstract theoretical argument is translated and focused through the particularities of an architecture embedded in its site. This methodology requires the project to address issues connected to the existing masterwork, including: the question of how to conceptualize monumentally in a grid city; the relationship between the 'sacred' space of the civic circumstance and the 'profane' space of the street and commercial program; the form of the institution within the city; and the issue of working within, and manipulating, a pre-existing architectural language. Further, the scale of the site is reflected in the scope of the design project. The project moves from the development of urban design strategies to the detailed consideration of the material and construction of the different interventions. The architecture remains, however, conceptual and is a demonstration of how the developed strategies may generate form and guide program. The project does not attempt to fully develop a building in detail. The thesis concludes with an afterword on the success of the project as a demonstration of the thesis argument. At the same time, the limits of architecture to act as a socio-political device are acknowledged. Further, speculations are made as to the way in which the position and the strategies developed within the thesis might inform wider discussions on architecture and the urbanism of grid cities such as Vancouver. The key concept forming the basis of these speculations is the idea of a 'difficult' co-existence of parts and a whole, reflecting the pluralistic ideal of association within fragmentation. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

A modern large recreational hall may hardly recognize a sense of human scale nor provide users the architectural meaning corresponding to the activities it accommodates. The experimental project of renovating the Vancouver Aquatic Center attempts to reinstate the relationship between the body, water and architecture. There exist certain sequence and pattern in participating various leisure/fitness activities which require mental and physical preparation. I focus on accentuating the transitional experiences at different stages of taking part swimming, diving, and hot baths by creating spaces to allow mental readiness for activities and contemplation of experience. Thus, I explore the perception of edges by marking of different threshold, making it subtle or bringing it out into presence. This practice requires much envision of walking through the building and anticipation of how space to be used which corresponds to my study of history of bathing and questions of perception. In order to reintroduce the social value of bathing which exists in Japanese bath and the like, I expand the facilities program parallel to the concept of Roman Thermae where people can meet and interact. Therefore, the proposed new aquatic centre seeks to enhance social and visual communication between the surrounding environment and the building, between users outside and inside, between different activities within the building. Moreover, initiated by the study of phenomenological architecture, this project revolves around the idea of intriguing memories and emotions through associative and tactile experience by the use of materials, spatial configuration, lighting, transparency and the placement of apertures to capture views. I try to provide diversified experience with different forms of water, steam, hot/cold temperatures, brightness/darkness, hard/soft land, submerge/emerge, clear/opaque and other perception of space. The ultimate goal of this experiment is to provide users the meanings of the architectural form, space, material and order, yet as well give potential to allow the users' own interpretations. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate