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A contemporary view of health and health care has arisen, out of the broadened social understandings of the later half of this century, which recognizes the individual as a whole person (rather than a clinical object), and which recognizes the local community as the preferable locus of care. The community health center model has emerged as a response to this contemporary view. It is a community-specific model of health care delivery, health promotion, and community action. Its services cover a full range of primary health care needs (from social work to urgent care), utilizing a multi-disciplinary team approach. While the response of facility planning and programming to the contemporary view of health and health care has been explored to great depth over the past twenty five years, the response of architecture has not. The intent of this thesis was, therefore, to create an architectural design that may serve as a model of the multiservice community health center, and as a source of architectural ideas which respond to the contemporary view of health and health care. A rural site was selected as the most appropriate setting for a new purpose-built facility. The design solution specifically sought to countermand the alienation, stress, loss of sense of personal control, unfamiliarity, sterility, and institutional qualities of the common medical environment - particularly, from the experiential viewpoint of the client. The design also sought to stand on its own as a legitimate work of architecture. Towards these ends, the building was bound to the community via prominence, accessibility and familiarity in the activities of daily life. A concept of democratic space sought to extend the public realm and a sense of public ownership into the facility. A marketplace vocabulary and communitycontrolled space contributed towards this end. The building was bound to place via architectural expression and explorations of processional qualities; responding to the nature of its island place, to the forest environment, and to local vernacular architecture. The design sought to establish a relationship with nature, or natural order, via an interstitial relationship with the forest, the use of natural materials, a truthful structural expression, a presence of natural light, and, at the conceptual level, an interplay between order and aggregation. As a representation of health care architecture, the design sought to express the notion of a community of services, rather than that of an untouchable institution. It also sought to achieve all of this in accord with efficient functioning and way-finding, and to achieve it at costs comparable to existing facilities (if not less expensive), via strategic choices regarding systems and construction.

This Thesis Project is about remembrance and its embodiment in the retention of the physical history of place. That history is both individual and collective, oscillating through time, admitting the present into the past and the past into the future. The Project reflects upon the physical artifact and the circumstances of place which are its own history. Projected upon this reflection is the human experience of that artifact and of that place. In addition, within the realm of the artifact, exists the systemic, an interrelationship between and within which induces a conceptual and physiological layering. The systemic, in turn, has a temporal aspect which engages both of the focal ideas, memory and history. The figures which follow record the transformation (or remembering) of an existing Hotel structure, known as the Commercial Hotel, located in the Old Strathcona district of Edmonton. The program reinvents the existing hotel, bar, restaurant and retail components into a more intensive layering, or system, of variable accommodation, pub, micro brewery, restaurant and performance venue. The existing artifact is an armature for this reinvention, woven into the project additions, reassessing relationships to wall, vertical separation, and inside versus outside. The Project configures itself as having a strong street edge along the main thoroughfare of Strathcona, Whyte Avenue, consistent with the morphological history of this place, which is penetrated by a formal passage through the site. The passage opens up into a performance court, previously a parking lot, which is an extension of the pub and restaurant, and an opportunity for the site to intimately engage the variety of festivals which the Old Strathcona neighbourhood annually hosts. The site becomes a destination of multiplicity, beyond the established renown of the Commercial Hotel as a Jazz and Blues venue. In addition, this multiplicity is embodied by the opening up of the internal system of the existing building, through the vertical penetration of the brewery component. Thus, the systemic of relationships is continuously engaged within the memory of the artifact.

All experience combines the esthetic, visual experience with other 1evels of experience -- from the pbilosophical 1evel to the practical leve1 of how to find one's way around. Thus, I have considered a broad range of information relating to the clustering of skyscrapers. [...]

The City of Vancouver has led North American cities in commemorating Modern heritage. In 1990, City of Vancouver planners initiated the Recent Landmarks study, thus launching a progressive, specialized program aimed at documenting and conserving the city's post-war architecture. While this program has raised awareness and catalogued a large stock of Modern resources, few of the identified buildings have been protected with legal heritage designation. Thus it seemed appropriate to explore Vancouver's Recent Landmarks program in this thesis and assemble comparative information (from other jurisdictions) against which to measure it. Thus the primary purpose of this thesis is to point to contemporary heritage conservation initiatives and programs in North America that are specifically concerned with twentieth-century buildings, in order to inform heritage planning in Vancouver. The secondary purpose is to amplify current efforts to broaden and redefine the notion of structural heritage to include twentieth-century work. This thesis surveyed representatives (i.e. civic planning or cultural/landmark Department staff, and representatives of local chapters of DOCOMOMO, the international organization formed to document and conserve the works of the Modern movement) in Toronto, Victoria, New York, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. The results of the thesis show that by 1999, all but one of the five surveyed North American municipalities had addressed the issue of Modern heritage. However none of the consulted cities had developed distinct programs to address this resource. For example, while several cities reported listing Modern buildings on their heritage inventories, none of the municipalities canvassed reported the development of studies or inventories that were focused on post-war landmarks. Thus from this information, it appears that the Recent Landmarks initiative in Vancouver remains quite exceptional. This program has identified several (and spurred the designation of some) significant Modern buildings, stimulated the creation of reports and studies, and made strong attempts to engage the public. In sum, the results gleaned from this thesis survey show that the Recent Landmarks initiative remains a leader in the specialized realm of heritage conservation for Modern architecture, and that many North American cities have yet to match Vancouver's efforts.

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.

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.

My thesis began with an investigation into the history of the stadium and a questioning of how the stadium has been influenced and shaped by different power structures throughout time. From this foundation of research I developed a design for The Vancouver Velodrome. The site chosen for The Vancouver Velodrome is located on the North slope of Burnaby Mountain in Vancouver and is currently being used as a concrete factory. The site is bordered on the south by the Barnet Highway and to the north by a cliff which leads down to railway lines that run along the shore of the Burrard Inlet. The geographical location of the site from the natural slope separates it from the mountain and marks it as an isolated site. It was my desire then to re-establish a sense of unity within the landscape. The velodrome was not to be an isolated object, to be held out as separated from the landscape. Rather, it was to act as a connector which joins together the mountain, the site, and the ocean. Unlike the stadium precedents which were often founded upon ideological concerns, the velodrome was founded by the sense of power dictated by its environs, rather than that imposed on it by other structures. The velodrome design was therefore influenced by the landscape, the more significant elements included a 100 ft. highway retaining wall, a bowllike depression, and a large retaining wall on the north side of the site which supported the cliff face. The highway retaining wall was used to create an entry procession. The depression contained nicely the large space required and the banked contours then helped to brace the bleachers and embraced the building in general. The northern wall dictated the long axis for the velodrome and the bridge which connected it to the mountain slope, which also served to support the roof structure. The overall design manifests the notion of a building not 'within' the landscape but rather one which 'is' part of the landscape; on which people traverse and in which people inhabit.

Through analysis of the site, and of the important historic precedents in the area of St. Andrew's, Manitoba, the project attempts to fill a void in the fabric of life of a rural community. Moreover, the project seeks to ameliorate the negative effects that sub-urbanization is having in the present, and will have in the future, upon the community of St. Andrew's. A community hall in a strategic location - at the junction of the historic Red River Heritage Parkway, and St. Andrews's Road - will increase the civic and community presence at the heart of the small town. Sited in relation to St. Andrew's Church, the St. Andrew's Rectory, and St. Andrew's Elementary, the proposed Community Hall will first of all provide a place for people in and outside the community to gather, be it for socials, dances, political meetings, or fall suppers. Secondly, the Community Hall will address the life of the Red River. A problem identified by the research was that new subdivisions within St. Andrew's fail to address the Red River. A Community Hall, which refocuses considerable attention towards river recreation, would increase the awareness of planners and other professionals so that St. Andrew's will be developed in ways which contribute to the fabric of life in St. Andrew's. To this end, the project supports the development of a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, park-like area along the banks of the Red River. Such a park would provide places for children and adults to seek out the river's edge for recreation, both in winter and in summer. Small hills will be enjoyed as sledding opportunities, while a concerted effort in cleaning and scraping the ice of the river will provide for public skating. Boat launches will be used in summer by visitors, and small shacks provided in both winter and summer for respite from the elements. The programme of the building will also support such activities. The main floor and mezzanine should be viewed as "formal," as they address the events of the community at large and ingrain themselves into the life of school, church, and town. The lower floor of the building, however, will have public washrooms, rentable rooms for boy scout meetings, floor hockey and the like, and a concession area. This lower level will address itself to the informal life of the community as embodied through the symbol of the Red River.

In the last 15 years, urban change in Vancouver, British Columbia, has been broadly understood in racial terms. Media and academic treatments of landscape transformation have suggested that Vancouver, as a 'gateway city' to the Pacific Rim, will inevitably experience Asian-lead change, economism, and 'creative destruction'. Oppositely, white Canadians are often portrayed as the defenders of tradition, the environment, and Vancouver 'as is'. The epithet 'monster' house, used to describe large, new, and predominandy Chinese-owned houses in Vancouver's elite Anglo neighborhoods, evidences how built form has been strongly correlated with the concepts of race and culture in popular representations of landscape. This thesis problematizes these essentialist, race-driven narratives by examining the ways in which textual representations of urban change are embedded within existing relations of power, particularly taken-for-granted subject-object looking relations.