Thesis (MArch.(Prof) (Architecture)) -- University of Pretoria, 2008. / Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Washington State University, May 2010. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on July 16, 2010). "School of Earth and Environmental Sciences." Includes bibliographical references (p. 51-57).

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Special report study entitled : Speed and space. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes special report study entitled : Wrapping of human activities with architecture by the Chinese scholarly landscaping. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

During the 20th Century, concern started to grow that the towns of England were losing their individual identity. This unease became most evident in the development of new houses. The aim of the study is therefore to produce a framework that encapsulates recommendations to assist in the development of regionally responsive houses. The research is located in England, and specifically in the market towns of the North East. This is because Northumberland is perceived as a remote county, and therefore strongly expressive of the region. Within the county, the market towns are centres of traditional lifestyles, and therefore places where regionalism is most likely to be found. The focus is on domestic architecture, as this is individuals’ most immediate and personal interaction with the built environment. An early part of the study was to investigate the concepts of regionalism and regional architecture. The history of regionalism has been a transition from local methods to increasingly standardised approaches to design. This has resulted in a loss of identity through the use of design strategies that are not context driven. It is a lack of focus on region that makes similar architectural responses ubiquitous. Without a concerted focus on specific places, the nuances of climate, culture, and materiality cannot be sufficiently explored. Although there has been significant research into variation of architectural response and material use, there is no overall picture of the significance of vernacular architecture. However, as these houses are historic by nature, questions emerge about their relevance and whether they are replicable. The neo-vernacular revival may be a response. The study confirms the widely-held belief that speculative housebuilders dominate the market for new homes in England. These housebuilders started to produce the same houses all over the country, with little challenge from development control. The response was residential design guides, which aim to preserve the unique qualities of the built environment that have contributed to the character of market towns. However, their consistent emphasis on the past, does not offer the basis for developing a framework that can deliver contemporary regionally-expressive domestic architecture. Thus, a fundamental appraisal of home was undertaken, as a means of unpacking positive interaction between people, place and building that can form a set of socio-cultural values. The purpose of the appraisal was to identify aspects that may contribute to regional identity. This was applied in terms of the development of market towns in England, and a system for the architectural analysis of their houses. Corbridge in Northumberland, was selected as a typical market town, and the system was employed to assess its houses. The outcomes were verified by similar analyses of schemes in three other market towns in the region. Residents in all four towns were interviewed to determine the factors that influenced their purchase of the houses. Architects, planners and house developers were also interviewed to determine their perspectives. All parts of the study contributed to the framework, which is organised in terms of historical context, geographical context and design considerations based on the architectural analysis.

Before the American small town was enshrined as an ideal, it was a space of dynamic and pioneering progressive reform, a narrative that has been largely untold in histories of professional planning and landscape history. Archival research shows that village improvement was not simply a prequel to the City Beautiful in the years following the 1893 Chicago Expo, but a rich and complex history that places the residential village at the center of debates about the middle landscape as a civic realm comprised of complimentary and oppositional pastoral and urban worldviews. The second half of the nineteenth century saw an extensive movement in village improvement that affected the physical, economic, and social infrastructure of rural settlements of all sizes in every region of the country. As a concept referenced by planners working on comprehensively-designed suburban communities, the small town ideal has never been historicized with respect to the history and theory of the nineteenth century village landscape improvements. This study broadens the study of village improvement to include the history of ideas and debates surrounding rural development on the national and local level between the 1820s and 1880s and, in doing so, argues that the discussion-born theory of village improvement within a national rural reform movement led by some of the nineteenth century’s most respected and influential reformers including B.G. Northrop (education), Col. George Waring (sanitation), N.H. Egleston (conservation), Isabella Beecher Hooker (women’s rights), and F.L. Olmsted, Sr. (landscape architecture) was modeled on the Laurel Hill Association in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and that the local practice of this one society over the same period together comprised the most active sustained discussion about the civic society and physical infrastructure of rural settlements in American history. This narrative tracks reform movements in rural settlements over several decades, beginning with landscape gardening through sanitation and up to the professionalization of city planning and the country life movement. Planning veered from broadly conceived urban pastoralism and multi-disciplinary rural improvement toward preservation planning. This trend was in line with an associated shift from planning as a series of fine-grained locally led practices to expert-driven professionalized planning as grandiose comprehensive vision. Keywords: village improvement, civic improvement, beautification, social capital, rural residence, small town, main street, comprehensive planning, sprawl, neotraditional design (NTD), new urbanism, transit oriented development (TOD), suburbia, city planning, nostalgia, pastoral, pastoral cities, urban pastoral, landscape, urban history, Beecher, Egleston, Eggleston, Northrop, Olmsted, Waring, Rockwell.

The research explores multiple facets of a green infrastructure planning framework for climate change adaptation in urban regions. The research is organized in three distinct, but related parts. The first develops an adaptation implementation model based on triggering conditions rather than time. The approach responds to policy makers' reluctance to engage in adaptation planning due to uncertain future conditions. The model is based on planning and adaptation literature and applied to two case studies. Uncertainty during implementation may be reduced by incremental and flexible policy implementation, disbursing investments as needs arise, monitoring conditions, and organizing adaptation measures along no-regrets to transformational measures. The second part develops the green infrastructure transect as an organizational framework for mainstreaming adaptation planning policies. The framework integrates multi-scalar and context aspects of green infrastructure for vertical and horizontal integration of policy. The framework integrates literature from urban and landscape planning and tested on Boston. Prioritization of adaptation measures depends on location. Results suggest that green infrastructure adaptation policies should respond to configuration of zones. Cross jurisdiction coordination at regional and parcel scales supports mainstreaming. A secondary conclusion suggests that green infrastructure is space intensive and becomes the basis of the empirical study in part three. A spatial assessment method is introduced to formulate opportunities for green infrastructure network implementation within land-uses and across an urban-rural gradient. Spatial data in GIS for Boston is utilized to develop a percent pervious metric allowing the characterization of the study area into six zones of varying perviousness. Opportunities across land uses were assessed then maximum space opportunities were defined based on conservation, intensification, transformation and expansion. The opportunities for transformation of impervious surfaces to vegetal surfaces are highest in the urban center and its surrounding. Intensification of vegetation on pervious surfaces along all land uses is high across the gradient. Conservation of existing forested land is significant for future climate proofing. The concluding section argues for a green infrastructure planning framework for adaptation based on integration into existing infrastructural bodies, regional vision, incremental implementation, ecosystem benefits accounting, and conditions based planning rather than time based.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Ever since the 1990s, when the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was developed as the primary method for delivering major public-sector capital projects in the UK, it has been severely criticised for the lack of design quality in the buildings that it produced. The main driver for this thesis was to redress that situation. The development of an Architectural Design Quality Evaluation Tool was based on a live project with a metropolitan council in the North East of England. The aim was to improve the design quality of schemes that had been submitted through a PFI to replace the council’s entire sheltered housing stock. The Tool has two functions. It was a substantial part of the assessment process, which selected the preferred bidding consortium from the original six bidders, through a series of stages. However, it was also directed at improving the quality of all submitted designs through an iterative process. While existing tools provide useful benchmarks, and some offer means of structuring an evaluation, none are totally applicable in the context of PFI competitive bidding processes. Moreover, the existing tools are good for evaluating performance attributes of buildings, and these are important, but do not substantially tackle the less tangible amenity attributes that are vital to engendering the feeling of home. This Tool emphasises the amenity attributes without neglecting performance, thus generating a design quality hierarchy. The criteria for assessment are derived from academic publications. In order to reflect the hierarchy, each criterion was weighted on a scale of one to five, in accordance with multivariable utility theory. The percentage allocation to each main heading of the Tool was determined by the local authority Project Team. A User Guide was developed to assist the evaluation of schemes. The Tool itself was appraised at the final stage, assisting the selection of the preferred bidder. The designs were evaluated in three reviews, thus providing 156 results. The Tool and its development have been published, and the Tool and the User Guide accepted by the Homes and Communities Agency as an example of good practice. Both currently appear on its website. The Tool continues to assist other social housing providers with the design quality of their own projects.