A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Architecture (Professional), Johannesburg 2017 / This thesis studies the place and nature of the concept of play in society through the exploration of objects and spaces that stimulate, encourage or deter the notion of play. Nominated spaces that will ideally contribute to the study of play are reviewed, focusing in particular on areas within the local context of Johannesburg where a notion of play takes or could inherently take place. But in order to draw an understanding and a cognitive inspiration, toys are reviewed as objects of play. Toys are studied with the intention of identifying the role it encompasses and the integrity of the notion of play, with a focus on local toy design and manufacture in relation to the international market. / XL2018

Green infrastructure development is desired in many municipalities because of its potential to address pressing environmental and social issues. However, despite technical optimism, institutional challenges create significant barriers to effective green infrastructure design, implementation, and maintenance. Institutional challenges stem from the disparate scales and facility types that make up the concept of green infrastructure, which span from large-scale natural areas to small engineered bioswales. Across these disparate facilities 1) different performance metrics are used, 2) different institutions have jurisdiction, and, 3) facility types are differentially classified as assets, producing epistemological and ontological variegation across the spectrum of green infrastructure that must be negotiated within and across municipal institutions. This has led to knowledge challenges that constrain and shape facility design, implementation, maintenance, and--ultimately--performance on-the-ground. Here, the eco-techno spectrum is developed to highlight the different degree to which biological entities (e.g. plants, microbes) are incorporated as infrastructural components in facilities; this inclusion presents a major knowledge challenge to green infrastructure, namely it brings biological and ecological knowledge into traditionally engineering-dominated decision-making spaces where it does not easily fit procedures for defining, measuring, or valuing existing facility component types. Therefore, municipal institutions have created and vetted new practices, protocols, and institutional structures to appropriately implement and manage green infrastructure. The institutionalization of green infrastructure is examined in this dissertation using knowledge systems analysis in two comparative case studies conducted in Portland and Baltimore. Discourse analysis provides 'thick' description of knowledge systems dynamics within and between different municipal departments in each city; a follow-up Q-method survey is used to further examine these qualitative results and explore the subjectivities that underlie the various ways of 'knowing' green infrastructure in the city.

The Earth's climate is changing and cities are facing a warmer future. As the locus of economic activity and concentrated populations on the planet, cities are both a primary driver of greenhouse gas emissions and places where the human health impacts of climate change are directly felt. Cities increase local temperatures through the conversion of natural land covers to urban uses, and exposures to elevated temperatures represent a serious and growing health threat for urban residents. This work is concerned with understanding the interactions of global trends in climate with local influences tied to urban land covers. First, it examines temperatures during an extended period of extreme heat and asks whether changes in land surface temperatures during a heat wave are consistent in space and time across all land cover types. Second, the influences of land covers on temperatures are considered for normal and extreme summer weather to find out which characteristics of the built environment most influence temperatures during periods of extreme heat. Finally, the distribution of health vulnerabilities related to extreme heat in cities are described and examined for spatial patterns. These topics are investigated using meteorology from the summer of 2006 to identify extremely hot days in the cities of Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Phoenix and their surrounding metropolitan regions. Remotely sensed temperature data were examined with physical and social characteristics of the urban environment to answer the questions posed above. The findings confirm that urban land covers consistently exhibit higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas and are much more likely to be among the hottest in the region, during a heat wave specifically. In some cities urban thermal anomalies grew between the beginning and end of a heat wave. The importance of previously recognized built environment thermal influences (impervious cover and tree canopy) were present, and in some cases, emphasized during extreme summer weather. Extreme heat health health vulnerability related to environmental factors coincided spatially with risks related to social status. This finding suggests that populations with fewer resources for coping with extreme heat tend to reside in built environments that increase temperatures, and thus they may be experiencing increased thermal exposures. Physical interventions and policies related to the built environment can help to reduce urban temperatures, especially during periods of extremely hot weather which are predicted to become more frequent with global climate change. In portions of the city where populations with limited adaptive capacity are concentrated, modification of the urban landscape to decrease near surface longwave radiation can reduce the chances of adverse health effects related to extreme heat. The specific programs, policies, and design strategies pursued by cities and regions must be tailored with respect to scale, location, and cultural context. This work concludes with suggestions for such strategies.

Sustainable development has been an emerging trend in worldwide projects for securing the assets available to future generations, yet, there are often disputes over the sustainability of a project. Sustainability indicators are therefore suggested to serve as a quantitative tool to analyze the changes and measure progress of a sustainable development. By engaging the public for identification of such indicators, their opinions of a development can be documented and then conveyed to the decision makers at the planning stage. It is anticipated that the actual needs of the local communities can be reflected in and communicated by these sustainability indicators. In this Study, Yuen Long Town Nullah was picked to be a pilot study to demonstrate the role and function of sustainability indicators. It is a part of the oldest drainage systems in Hong Kong and was constructed in the early 1960’s to alleviate flooding. Like many other nullahs, it was originated from natural watercourses and has then been straightened and provided with concrete bed and walls. Over the years, it has been complained of eyesore problem, foul smell, and accumulation of refuse. In order to address these urban problems in parallel with the lack of open space, revitalization of the Nullah has been opted for re-establishing riverscapes and providing valuable recreational space by turning the Nullah into community assets. In total, 202 sets of questionnaires were collected for gathering the general perception and identification of local sustainability indicators of Yuen Long Town Nullah. 4 interviews with various stakeholders were also conducted for giving comments on sustainability indicators, government’s policy towards sustainable development, recommendations on monitoring the sustainability progress and the sustainability indicators for developing Yuen Long Town Nullah based on their experiences. In general, the local communities concerned the environmental aspect the most but economic aspect the least. A sustainability indicator framework was proposed at the last part of this Study to conclude the findings from the questionnaire survey and the interviews. / published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Urban Design / Master / Master of Urban Design

published_or_final_version / abstract / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

It is estimated that the population of the City of Nanaimo will almost double in the next 25 years. In the past, Nanaimo's urban growth has been absorbed using a typical pattern of development - stripmalls, supported by ever-expanding low-density suburban sprawl. This development seems to have occurred with little or no forethought to its environmental or social consequences. Urban sprawl is consuming our land and endangering the natural ecosystems in our region. In response to the ecological and social problems of urban sprawl the City of Nanaimo, in coordination with the Regional District of Nanaimo, has developed a Growth Management Plan. The Plan focuses on creating compact communities within the city boundary, thereby alleviating sprawl and mamtaining the ecological integrity of the hinterlands. We must now seek ways of designing neighbourhoods that not only accommodate our growing population but also enhance both the human and environmental "functioning" of the site. This project examines a sustainable growth strategy for one of Nanaimo's designated urban growth areas. The Southgate Town Centre Concept Plan is the product of an integrated planning process and is based on principles of sustainable and complete communities. The Plan addresses the basic functional elements of a community (habitat and watershed integrity, pedestrian and traffic circulation, and residential and commercial development) and explores how the application of sustainability principles can result in a functional community. The result is a comprehensive design of an urban growth area that has accommodated density while also improving the ecological, social and experiential fimctioning of the site. The design addresses the relationship of the site to its watershed context and its surrounding community. As a comprehensive document it also serves as a model for similar urban development areas.

Submitted by Ana Guimarães Pereira (agpereir@ucs.br) on 2017-10-05T14:16:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Sandrine Araujo Santos.pdf: 199267 bytes, checksum: 9172e859eeaec031232e78ab683a7099 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-05T14:16:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Sandrine Araujo Santos.pdf: 199267 bytes, checksum: 9172e859eeaec031232e78ab683a7099 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-10-05 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, CAPES.

Orientador: Daniel Joseph Hogan / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-10T07:41:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ojima_Ricardo_D.pdf: 5730129 bytes, checksum: 0d78414b9caa13b405315cc5a7a06bd7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: Não são raras as associações entre urbanização e degradação ambiental, sobretudo quando se relaciona o crescimento da população urbana à escassez de recursos, poluição e qualidade de vida. Entretanto, as recentes mudanças no padrão de distribuição populacional nas principais aglomerações urbanas do país apontam para um novo cenário onde o arrefecimento das taxas de crescimento populacional se confronta com uma nova forma de uso do solo, alterando a dinâmica intra-urbana e os impactos ambientais relacionados à expansão urbana. Assim, ganha força um padrão de urbanização disperso e fragmentado que é conseqüência das mudanças estruturais da sociedade e as novas formas de mobilidade espacial. Enfim, o trabalho procura abordar a urbanização brasileira sob uma perspectiva comparativa a partir da construção de um Indicador de Dispersão Urbana e assim apontar os desafios para uma urbanização sustentável. Trata-se de um investimento teórico e metodológico na busca de evidências que confirmem as proposições teóricas de uma nova etapa do desenvolvimento da sociedade moderna e os desafios para a questão ambiental nos contextos urbanos. O indicador considerou dimensões sociais e espaciais para compor um indicador sintético de dispersão urbana para as aglomerações urbanas brasileiras, sendo elas: Densidade, Fragmentação, Linearidade e Central idade. Os resultados obtidos foram compatíveis com as evidências apontadas pela literatura internacional e apontam novos contornos para a dicotomia centro-periferia / Abstract: The association between urbanization and environmental degradation is commonplace in the demographic and sociological literature, especially in the debates on the relations among urban population growth, scarcity of resources, pollution and quality of life. Recent changes in population distribution patterns in Brazil's principie urban agglomerations lead to a new scenario in which the reduction of population growth rates is associated with a new pattern of land use, modifying intraurban dynamics and the related environmental impacts of urban expansion. A dispersed and fragmented pattern of urbanization - a consequence of structural changes in society and of new forms of spatial mobility - gains force. The thesis seeks to elaborate an index of urban dispersion, starting from a comparative analysis of Brazilian urbanization. The goal is to further our understanding of the challenges for sustainable urbanization. This objective required both theoretical and methodological investments in the search for evidence which could confirm the theoretical proposal of a new stage of the development of the modern society and the challenges for the environl1}ental question in urban contexts. The index which was developed considered four social and spatial dimensions in order to com pose a synthetic index of urban dispersion for Brazilian urban agglomerations: Density, Fragmentation, Linearity and Centrality. Results are compatible with the evidence presented in the international literature and suggest new contours for the center-periphery dichotomy / Doutorado / Doutor em Demografia

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