Since the early 1960s the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has had several urban development strategies that have been designed to spearhead development through the deployment of internationally recognised architects and urban planners. The adoption of this strategy has opened debate on the paradigm shift away from restrictive planning regulations at both national and regional levels. The process has enabled foreign policies and ideas based on internationalisation to drive the new urban centre developments in Saudi cities including Riyadh and Dammam. In 2008, this key shift saw the traditional restrictive urban development strategies, which prescribed – among other things – the number of storeys a building could have, being replaced by a strategy permitting an unlimited number of storeys. This dissertation examines the role played by international firms of architects and developers in shaping how architecture is practised in the Kingdom. The process has led to the adoption of modern architectural styles and has advanced a modernised planning approach, whereby traditional architectural structures and the use of local materials have gradually been replaced by modern styles, high-tech buildings and the use of new foreign materials, causing the loss of historic buildings throughout the country. This is seen by many to constitute an injury to national culture and could lead to cultural conflicts that may be exacerbated by the possible importation of planning principles and regulations. A chronological review of internationalisation and how international architectural practices have been mobilised to work in the KSA reveals the impact of this process on the Kingdom’s urban development. While this may be desired by the authorities, it has been argued that the process does not seem to provide any clear strategy for the implementation of the desired sustainable urban centre development in the KSA. Hence, in the absence of clear directives, international architectural firms operate their own set of sustainability criteria to deliver the desired urban centres in the Kingdom. There has been little or no research into the mobilisation of international firms and foreign policies, nor into the impact of internationalisation on the development of planning codes, the modernisation of urban centres and the sustainability approach espoused by the KSA’s planning development strategy. This study investigates the impact of the participation of international firms in Saudi Arabia’s urban development. Government planning regulations and master plans are reviewed and a case study is conducted to identify the factors behind the engagement of international firms in the delivery of two capital projects: the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh and the Central Business District in Dammam. The study also explores the concept of sustainability and the engagement of foreign firms from the perspectives of various stakeholders through face-to-face interviews and a structured questionnaire. It establishes how the role of internationalisation as a driver of policy mobility has impacted on the new sustainable urban centres and in addition, how internationalisation has been operationalised through the notion of sustainability. Although planning codes and regulations may have been developed with good intent by the international firms concerned, their implementation has not yielded the desired result of delivering sustainable urban centres in the KSA. Thus, there is a conflict between a rapid urban development which seeks to integrate historical and traditional contexts on one hand, and the continual import and impact of globalised morphologies on the other. This leads to clear demarcations in urban evolution, making this conflict one of the key characteristics of emerging urban centres in the KSA.

Rather than aging gracefully, the majority of the cities of North America have been assailed by a chronic disease which has produced deterioration, decay, and obsolescence of portions of their central core. In most cases, the centre of this decay has been the oldest, historic sections of the city. Many of these cities have reacted to the premature death of these areas with harsh and disruptive methods --the offending buildings have been torn down to be replaced by dismal public housing developments, or impersonal glass and steel skyscrapers. However, a counter-reaction has gained force in recent years, and has succeeded in some cities in slowing and even completely halting the spread of "bulldozer renewal." This new philosophy maintains that the charm and uniqueness of the old sections of the city must be preserved in order to maintain the diversity and vitality of the downtown. The most successful method of saving these districts and individual structures has been to renovate and revitalize them so that they are again economically and structurally sound. This process is known as commercial rehabilitation. Vancouver, British Columbia, has felt the influence of both of these forces—decay of its oldest districts and commercial rehabilitation. Gastown (the Old Townsite), the birth place of the city and the site of its oldest structures, has been neglected and allowed to decay to such an extent that, by 1940, it had become the centre of the city's skid road. However, since 1968 various groups have undertaken the rehabilitation of the area and have turned it into a rapidly expanding commercial district. The basic objective of the thesis is to examine in detail the economic situation in Gastown in order to isolate the trends and forces which have shaped its development, particularly as related to commercial and real estate investment in the district. Based upon these findings, implications for the future of the Old Townsite are then suggested. The assumption upon which the investigation is based is that Gastown will be able to expand and prosper as a commercial district in which customer appeal is based upon historic charm. In order to test this, two hypotheses are formulated: 1. The area defined herein as "Gastown will be economically viable as a retail-entertainment-restaurant district in which customer attraction is based upon the unique appeal created by historic and commercial rehabilitation activities; and 2. Gastown, as a retail-entertainment-restaurant district,will not be merely a short-term phenomena, but rather, the functional changes presently taking place will survive and prosper over the long run. . Three major research techniques are employed. First, an extensive literature search is used to determine the theory and practice of commercial rehabilitation and to obtain a limited amount of data about the economic situation in Gastown. Second, a questionnaire study is conducted to produce information about the operating results of those retail firms located in the study area that are considered to be compatible with the character of an historic district. This data is evaluated in relation to comparable industry standards in order to determine the economic health of these firms and is also employed as a basis for prediction of future trends in Gastown. Finally, an unstructured personal interview technique is employed to obtain economic data from persons generally recognized as leaders of the business community in the Old Townsite. With one exception, the research findings are found to be supportive of the hypotheses. It is determined that pronounced changes in land use have occurred over the past give years but that the major functional changes related to rehabilitation activities have taken place only since October 1969. Total sales volume for all businesses adjudged to be compatible with the character of a rejuvenated Gastown is estimated to be $5.5 million in 1970 and $11.6 million in 1971. However, there is a disportionate number of very small merchants operating in the Old Townsite with, the result that 12 percent of the businesses account for 80 percent of total sales volume in the area. In general, only the large-scale, experienced operators are attaining a reasonable return on investment. The prediction is made that a high proportion of business failures will occur among the small retailers and that future additions to the Gastown business-mix will consist almost entirely of large-scale firms. The analysis suggests that the opportunity exists for a reasonable rate of return on both speculative and long term investment in Gastown real estate. Even though one of the supporting criteria to the retail-entertainment-restaurant definition is found to be unsound, the hypotheses are considered to be valid. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Bibliography: pages 226-229. / The first part of the thesis covers the background to the research, namely (a) a selective review of previous work in the field of office development and location studies and the subsequent identification of the objectives of the present research, (b) a summary of the historical development of the central area of the City of Cape Town, (c) the definition of the study area, this being the Central Business District of the city of Cape Town and (d) a discussion of the collection of land use and gross floor area data, the identification and resolution of problems in the data and the administering of a postal Questionnaire to 1,400 office establishments in the CBD. This section also covers the problem of identifying and delimiting land use clusters. The technique selected for use in such delimitation was that developed by D. H. Davies (1965) augmented by the development of three 'indices of clustering '. The second part of the thesis presents, by means of thirty-three detailed maps, a comprehensive analysis of office land use patterns in the Cape Town CBD in 1983. Clusters are indicated according to the Davies technique. It was found that many office functions exhibited clustering in distinct parts of the CBD and, moreover, certain functions appeared to show close similarities in their respective location patterns. A factor analysis identified six groups of similarly located land uses, on which basis a model of the spatial organization of the CED was proposed. Data, derived from the postal questionnaire, on the characteristics and requirements of individual office functions was used to explain the location patterns. Previous studies have usually considered linkages as being the primary locational determinant for the office sector, but in this case it was found that clustering and the existence of similar location patterns between office functions usually arose from a combination of common locational requirements. The major locational determinants were found to be the rent paying ability of establishments, the relative importance of the accessibility of the establishment to either general public or commercial clients, the existence of strong linkages with other functions (especially where such functions were eccentrically located with respect to the CBD, such as the Docks) and in some cases the importance of occupying prestige premises. The comparatively minor role of linkages with other functions was considered to be a reflection of the relatively small size of the CBD. The thesis concludes with a study of past trends and future projections of the development of the CBD. The growing dominance of the office sector is clearly revealed, as is the effect of the Foreshore Reclamation Scheme in promoting a northward migration of the Office Core while leaving the Retail Core largely unchanged from its 1957 location. On the basis of current development projects it was projected that there would be considerable short-term vacancy in the office sector by late 1986. In the longer term, though, gross floor area requirements for all uses are predicted to rise by almost 50% to 3.475 million square metres by the year 2000. Such development of all of the space currently permitted by the Town Planning Scheme raises the possibility of space shortages and the loss of remaining historic buildings.

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During the past 40 years, landscape architects and other designers have used many approaches for economic revitalization of deteriorating commercial centers. Examples of projects designed to revive sluggish downtown economies have shown varied, and often uninspiring, results in stimulating downtown economies. This problem is most pronounced in rural communities. The ineffectiveness of these designs stems, in part, from the failure of landscape architects to apply economic theory to the design of physical space. This study explores the role that business activity diversity plays in the maintenance of economic stability and growth, as a means to find clues to possible revitalization strategies. This analysis of business activity patterns in Virginia cities and counties, indicates that diversity among a community's businesses contributes to that community's economic health and resistance to obsolescence induced by changing economic patterns. Site programming must be conducted to support intended business activities in a way that improves their survivability and growth potential. Through this, and future research, the field of landscape architecture must move toward the design of space that supports diversity in economic activities. Landscape architects must respond with the same sensitivity to economic environments that they have shown toward aesthetic, ecological and social environments in the past. / Master of Landscape Architecture

Wong Wai Keung Terence. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 1997-98, design report." / Chapter 00 --- FOREPLAY / acknowledgements / preface / Chapter 01 --- PROLOGUE / glossary / background / precedent study / Chapter 02 --- VISIONS ANALYSIS / vision 01: a new landscape / vision 02: fluid dynamics - information and nomads / Chapter 03 --- PROCESS / conceptual study / site and contextual analysis / preliminary design / review project / revised design / study on test-bed / digital design media / structure workshop / building system workshop / computer-aided-manufacturing / Chapter 04 --- FINAL PROJECT / presentations

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

This thesis looked into the background of downtown revitalization, historical cF3.ta about the decline of the downtown area, methods and models to reverse the decline and possible alternatives to the downtown as a center for retail trade.The thesis compared this finding to two Indiana cities' individual problems with downtown revitalization, the relationship of their solutions to the models, how their decision making influenced their moves and how successful they were with their solutions. / Department of Urban Planning

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Performing arts centers have been touted as a strategy for revitalizing downtowns by increasing activities that bring in residents with higher incomes, tourists, arts employees, educated workers, and housing. Despite their popularity, civic leaders have encountered complexity in these projects, from financial challenges, to delayed openings and operating deficits. Previous downtown studies examine public facilities, such as stadiums and cultural institutions, through essays, surveys, case studies, or by quantifying transactions exchanged between the public and the facility. This dissertation focuses solely on performing arts centers, excluding all other forms of public facilities and cultural venues, by examining self-collected data on literature-based characteristics of 218 downtowns with and without performing arts centers, all over a seven-year period of time. It was hypothesized that the presence of a performing arts center would contribute to increases in the values of all downtown revitalization characteristics, and community characteristics, as well as organizational attributes of the performing arts center itself (age, size, and revenue types) would in turn, increase the values of the overall health of the performing arts center. Through the use of multiple linear regressions, this research shows that performing arts centers can play a role in revitalizing downtowns. This research also shows that a single characteristic is not solely responsible for revitalizing downtowns; rather, the increased vitality results from a confluence of the characteristics. Endogeneity tests show that a performing arts center is less likely to enter a deserted downtown bereft of vitality. Instead, performing arts centers serve as harbingers of revitalization, confirming the presence of downtown vitality, before they proceed to activate vitality further. Finally, through the use of binary logistic regressions, community characteristics are identified in order to determine the conditions of downtowns that would be most equipped to open a performing arts center, as compared with downtowns that could not.