Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Community Medicine, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes special report study entitled: Design criteria for social interaction from the viewpoint of behavioural architecture. Includes bibliographical references.

Newark, New Jersey has endured large scale depopulation from 1930 through to 2000. Today the urban core of this city suffers from great social and cultural segregation between residents and daytime visiting populations who work in the city. To be reclaimed as a residential zone, the downtown core needs spaces that foster community interaction and growth. An opportunely sited, mixed-use community centre that encourages spontaneous encounters by cross-programming spaces and events could provide a safe place for residents to start reasserting neighbourhood ownership. By reclaiming the historically important, yet long empty, Hahne and Co. department store, the centre would acknowledge the homegrown success and decline of Newark’s past while turning the building into a supporting structure for the community to use in building a new future together. This thesis explores issues of adaptive re-use, programmatic diversity, community centre design and urban renewal.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes special report study entitled : Design criteria for social interaction from the viewpoint of behavioural architecture. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

A museum on a historical site that follows the history and evolution of the city of Athens by exploring the underground levels while creating cultural and leisure spaces for the community on its ground floor. Several pavilions on the ground floor with references on classical architecture act as connectors between past and present; Some of those pavilions house activities for the community and some act as vertical circulation and light shafts between today (park level) and history (underground). Both past and present are incorporated into a both vertical and horizontal journey from light-towards darkness-towards light.

The topic of this diploma thesis is in accordance with the intent of the city of Žďár nad Sázavou to renovate an existing building of a kindergarten on Okružní street, and turn it into a community center. The focus of this thesis follows up the preceding term, the analytical part of which delved into possibilities, risks and the capacity of the city. In addition, the aim of this thesis conforms to the specialization of Res Publica module in social buildings of the city. The key prerequisite of the assignment is to work with the existing building, namely the kindergarten, hence the renovation and the extention. Unlike conventional and new development on a greenfield site, this project makes a point of utilizing existing values, making the city denser along with strengthening it, thus resulting in bringing about the difference compared to contemporary colonization of an open countryside. The design of the construction changes of the existing building must take development continuity perception into consideration, first and foremost the load-bearing system of the building, lest the newly-designed development layer belie the previous ones.

Projektet är syftar till att bygga en ny hybridbyggnad innehållandes en brandstation i Sorunda i Nynäshamns kommun med förbättrade förutsättningar för en effektivare verksamhet, samt ökad kvalitet på tillvaron mellan utryckningar, med bland annat en idrottshall, ett gym, ett café, samt en större boendedel i brandstationen. Projektet ämnar även att framhäva den centrala plats i orten brandstation befinner sig på, precis mellan den historiskt viktigaste mittpunkten, kyrkan, och den idag tydligaste mötesplatsen, Coopbutiken med apotek- post- och systembolagsombud, och verka som en samlingsplats i Sorunda, och bilda ett tydligt centrumstråk genom orten med tre tydliga institutioner. Den gemensamma delen av brandstationen som även kan brukas av ortens invånare består, förutom av gymmet, cafét, samt idrottshallen som fyller ett behov hos den närliggande skolan, även av gemensamma mötes- och festlokaler. / The project aims to construct a new hybrid building in Sorunda, located in northwestern Nynäshamn, with improved conditions for more efficient operations and an enhanced quality of life between emergencies. The building will house a fire station and include additional facilities such as a sports hall, a gym, a café, and a larger residential area within the fire station. The project also intends to emphasize the central location of the fire station in the community, situated between the historically significant focal point, the church, and the currently prominent meeting place, the Coop store with a pharmacy, postal services, and other important services. The fire station aims to serve as a gathering place in Sorunda, forming a clear central axis through the community with three emphasized institutions. The communal part of the hybrid programme, which can also be utilized by the local residents, consists of communal meeting and event spaces, in addition to the gym, café, and sports hall, which also address the needs of the nearby school.

In South Africa, certain areas are well developed with infrastructures that compare with first world standards, while in others, people live in abject poverty without basic services being rendered Poverty is the single greatest burden of South Africa's people. It is defined as the inability to meet a specified set of basic needs. This means that apart from low income levels, malnutrition and hunger, poverty manifests itself in poor people's lives in many other ways, including lack of access to basic social services. Poverty is characterized by the inability of individuals, households or communities to command sufficient resources to satisfy a socially acceptable minimum standard of living. It is perceived by poor South Africans themselves to include alienation from the community, food insecurity, crowded homes, usage of unsafe and inefficient forms of energy and lack of jobs that are adequately paid and I or secure. Because the government doesn't want to alienate those it is trying to serve, public services are being brought closer to people, so as to improve the quality of community life. The underlying reason for the implementation of Multi-purpose Community Centres (MPCCs) is to bring government services closer to people and to provide the community with the opportunity to communicate with government. Multi-Purpose Community Centres have been identified as the primary approach for the implementation of development communication and information programmes. MPCCs also serve as a base from which a wide range of services and products can reach communities. The aim is for communities to access such services and engage in government programmes for their own empowerment. As a result, MPPCs are a necessary poverty alleviation strategy that needs to be promoted for the improvement of the quality of community life. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Thesis (M.Dev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2009 / Refer to document

This field study is an examination, by a partisan participant observer, of the Neighbourhood Community Centre and its first year of operation as the Co-operative Peoples School, in the ACT government school system. The Neighbourhood Community Centre was a small, alternative, independent school for children from three to eight years of age. The school's philosophy was progressive and its management policies and structures co-operative and non-hierarchical. For two years, parents campaigned to become part of the ACT government school system. In February 1978, the school opened as a government school, with funding and staffing arrangements similar to other schools in the ACT. Soon after incorporation, the distinctive attributes of the Neighbourhood Community Centre began to disappear. Conflict became the dominant characteristic of the new school: the degree, extent and duration were extreme for a group that had asserted a commitment to consensus and co-operation. Two identifiable and, ultimately, irreconciliable parent factions emerged. Three factors were linked in the events of 1978: conflict, ideology and power struggles in a situation of change. These factors do not easily fit into the dominant sociological paradigm, functionalism, as an explanation of the events of 1978, for the concept of power has been, at best, slow to be incorporated into that sociological tradition. Yet the events, to this observer, were linked to a political struggle between competing groups for the domination of the school: power was a major dimension. Only at a superficial level was the conflict ideological. Parent factions concealed a third group, the teachers, who were striving to dominate the school, a domination that was not accepted unequivocally in the new school. Their ultimate success depended not on their coalition with a parent faction, the support of the Schools Office, strategies for isolating criticism and critics and their professional ideology; their success depended on their structural power within the school system which provided resources, support and justification for their position. This analysis endorses sociological theorists who maintain that power, and structural power in particular, is a central concern in organisational life. The failure of the Co-operative Peoples School was linked to the unequal distribution of power within the co-operative.